With all due respect, most Congressmen care approximately zero about how a foreign citizen (read "non-voter") is treated at the border.

That said, my experiences (including 17 hrs of "interrogation" at the hands of the former US INS that featured racial taunts, physical abuse, etc...) with pursuing a complaint against the US Government machine is that you will maybe earn an apology (as I did after about 18 months) but you will never receive closure to the case, no matter who you contact. I had pretty decent contacts (including two Congressmen, a Senator, a Governor and a handful of high-level civil servants) pursuing my case but it went nowehere. Your average Joe-schmo tourist doesn't have access to those resources and short of prostituting himself to media attention (which I chose not to do on the advice of my lawyers) has absolutely no chance of getting his story heard.

When I first told people about my experiences two years ago, many (including a number of Flyertalkers) scoffed and told me that I must be exagerrating. INS agents didn't detain legitimate businessmen without legal/consular access, didn't engage in physical abuse and didn't force people to sign false confessions. Today the same story simply elicits a shrug of resignation as to what the United States has become.

That is the saddest part of this new age we live in. The United States which has been the role model of freedom, fairness and democracy for every country to aspire to for two centuries has now sunk almost to the level of a two bit banana republic as far as respect for its own laws goes. The entire world wishes it wasn't so. Fortunately, non-citizens can simply choose to deal elsewhere (as I have chosen) but US citizens do not have the same choice.