Originally Posted by Sjoerd
There have been *lots* of reports recently about the scandalous behaviour by US immigration/customs (or whatever they are called today). Last week I read a story of a Dutch tourist who was arrested at LAX for overstaying a visa 8 years ago.....he had overstayed for two *days* at the time because his young son was in hospital and he wanted to travel home with his son. When he arrived in the US last week for a family holiday, he was handcuffed, put in a prison cell for close to 48 hours, was not allowed to call home, was generally badly treated and finally put on a plane home. Widely reported here.
This can't be good for tourism to the US. I, for one, have decided not to visit the US for pleasure until this kind of behaviour by US law enforcement officers is corrected by sane policies.
This sounds fishy. How would have the INS, eight years ago, known this person overstayed? There are no reliable exit checks for VWP countries. As a matter of fact, it is only recently that more careful exit checks have been implemented with the US-VISIT program. And even then, it is still spotty.