Originally Posted by
u2fan
I am not justifying this but what are the odds of him and someone on the watchlist having the same name and birthdate?
In the US this kind of situation happens daily, multiple times, and more in the US than anywhere else.
His last name -- and its slight variations in spelling -- is shared by tens of millions. Toss in a Soundex-equivalent-reliant processing, a first name that is not unique and the odds are extremely high that someone with his same first and last name have the same birthdate. [Hard to find a more popular last name in India than Singh, Patel, Sayed, Khan, Ahmad, Mohammad, Shah, Gupta, Shukla, Kumar, Joshi, Kohli and variations in spelling thereof. I'd be surprised if it takes even 30 last names to cover 30% of the population of historical India.]
Originally Posted by us2fan
Also, I can not figure out where ORD got involved. According to the article, it sounds as if he were in the US, traveled to YUL and was flying back to the US. If this were the case, he clears immigration in Canada and not the international terminal in ORD. Lastly, I wonder if he was questioned entering the US from India?
I suggest reading the article linked above. He was speaking from Montreal about what had happened to him after having been in Chicago.
He entered ORD after flying in from London. After getting off his LHR-ORD flight at ORD, he first realized that he was flagged on a US blacklist. He talked about his experience at ORD after arriving in YUL from ORD.