Detained by CBP as an American Citizen?
#46
Join Date: Oct 2007
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Are you a minority? Naturalized US citizen? You are no different than any home born American citizens of any class and never feel inferior! Speak up and contact your state's law makers if you feel mistreated!
Update:
Just read that you are a muslim. Now you know why! BTW, It's not just muslims they harass, they harass any minority class people who don't speak up against their abuse. Happened to me on out bound departure gate recently! I was with my wife and infant baby and CBP agent got angrier when she found we were carrying only $300 in cash, ransacked everything, asked all kinda personal questions while people were walking in front of us to board. She even copied my US passport info. Upon return, I had SSSS on my boarding pass.
Update:
Just read that you are a muslim. Now you know why! BTW, It's not just muslims they harass, they harass any minority class people who don't speak up against their abuse. Happened to me on out bound departure gate recently! I was with my wife and infant baby and CBP agent got angrier when she found we were carrying only $300 in cash, ransacked everything, asked all kinda personal questions while people were walking in front of us to board. She even copied my US passport info. Upon return, I had SSSS on my boarding pass.
The issue is the agency, its outdated TTPs and SOPs and general employee morale and management incompetence (to name a few).
#47
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 7,876
Actually, I think what you actually mean is that American (government) does plenty of things wrong but never admits it.
#48
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 7,876
I know this will be a blow to your "cause", but in reality they also harass White people too, a lot, as has been noted ad nauseam in this and other forums. In fact White men returning from SW Asia and AMS and heavily targeted and oft presumed to be kiddie diddlers or porn smugglers and what not...to name just one example.
The issue is the agency, its outdated TTPs and SOPs and general employee morale and management incompetence (to name a few).
The issue is the agency, its outdated TTPs and SOPs and general employee morale and management incompetence (to name a few).
For example, police do pull over white people for no apparent reason as well. But proportionally to black people? It is an obvious fact.
And I think it is obvious to most flying that most people who work at airports cannot distinguish between Middle Eastern, South Asian, ... I guess in general non-white, non-black, non-East Asian appearances. So they lump them all together as potential terrorists.
#50
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I know this will be a blow to your "cause", but in reality they also harass White people too, a lot, as has been noted ad nauseam in this and other forums. In fact White men returning from SW Asia and AMS and heavily targeted and oft presumed to be kiddie diddlers or porn smugglers and what not...to name just one example.
The issue is the agency, its outdated TTPs and SOPs and general employee morale and management incompetence (to name a few).
The issue is the agency, its outdated TTPs and SOPs and general employee morale and management incompetence (to name a few).
CBP has issues, and all subject persons flying into and out of the US pay the price for it in one way or another. Some groups at some US POEs pay more of a price for it than others.
#51
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 38,417
I wonder if they were profiling (I am Muslim and the other guy they did the same thing to was also Muslim).
Anyways, I am more worried about the CBP interrogation back home. I wonder what that was about. Was that pre selected or was it just given right there by the immigration officer when he took my customs form.
I am applying for the Global Entry and I wonder if this will affect it.
Anyways, I am more worried about the CBP interrogation back home. I wonder what that was about. Was that pre selected or was it just given right there by the immigration officer when he took my customs form.
I am applying for the Global Entry and I wonder if this will affect it.
#52
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Muslim shouldn't matter--but do you have a Muslim name perhaps? Not that that in itself would draw this sort of scrutiny but Muslim names are much more likely to end up on the watch list and you might simply have the misfortune to share a name with someone on the watch list. If this (sharing a name with someone on the watch list) is the culprit getting a redress number is supposed to help.
Even when names of a given passenger are not a match with the names of blacklisted persons, the chances of a perceived Muslim passenger with a perceived Muslim name being pulled for a secondary in LON when booked on a LON-US flight are much higher than the same happening to those from various other demographic groups with even the same travel pattern. It's no coincidence that DHS and DHS cheerleaders/accomplices in the airline industry continue to rally on behalf of racist profiling already in play by DHS and airline security contractors.
#53
Join Date: Jan 2009
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I think what many want is that US citizens should be allowed to enter and leave the country and roam around the country as they see fit, subject to luggage checks upon entry of course, but without being detained and interrogated as to whether they are involved in criminal activity.
#54
Join Date: Jan 2014
Posts: 288
Single European-American men returning from SE Asia to say the West Coast of the US are indeed far more likely to be subjected to a computer or phone check by CBP than say North African women returning to the US from SE Asia. And such men coming into the US from AMS are more likely to be searched for drugs, drug-related financial proceeds and illegal pornography than Egyptian-American men coming into the West Coast of the US. On different routes they harass different sorts of people in different ways.
CBP has issues, and all subject persons flying into and out of the US pay the price for it in one way or another. Some groups at some US POEs pay more of a price for it than others.
CBP has issues, and all subject persons flying into and out of the US pay the price for it in one way or another. Some groups at some US POEs pay more of a price for it than others.
#55
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 113
I think what many want is that US citizens should be allowed to enter and leave the country and roam around the country as they see fit, subject to luggage checks upon entry of course, but without being detained and interrogated as to whether they are involved in criminal activity.
I guess it's an American thing to feel empowered for the entitlement and to whine and complain about everything. Just like how I complain about flying Business class and having to queue up with economy class when boarding
#56
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I see what you're saying. I guess I'm the only one in here or one of the very few people in here that doesn't mind being questioned or being detained for additional questions by cbp or tsa or airport police. I'm a usc and by my screen name you can guess I'm a minoity. I too had been questioned and detained and searched by cbp maybe because I'm a minority or I travel alone (for mileage run)for a brief period.
I guess it's an American thing to feel empowered for the entitlement and to whine and complain about everything. Just like how I complain about flying Business class and having to queue up with economy class when boarding
I guess it's an American thing to feel empowered for the entitlement and to whine and complain about everything. Just like how I complain about flying Business class and having to queue up with economy class when boarding
When a country views its own citizens as if they are criminal suspects even in the absence of articulable evidence of the individual citizen having engaged in a criminal act, there is a problem. Perhaps the so-called Communist North Koreans and Vietnamese welcome this kind of approach by governments going against their own so-called ethnic/national kin, but others -- even those who may not be American -- do have an issue with this kind of approach by government authorities.
#57
Join Date: Oct 2007
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For example, police do pull over white people for no apparent reason as well. But proportionally to black people? It is an obvious fact.
And since the FBI and US in general does a poor job of tracking such things the discussion is a tangent anyway. I was not actually talking about LEOs outside of an airport but those specific to CBP in US airports (and pre-clearance) locations. CBP is the most diverse it has ever been, and as you like to type, "it is obvious to those of us who travel extremely frequently" that CBP is not staffed by all "white" people (or East-Asians since they make more money than white people, graduate more, and actually have the lowest kill rate by police to touch on a few of your topics )
And I think it is obvious to most flying that most people who work at airports cannot distinguish between Middle Eastern, South Asian, ... I guess in general non-white, non-black, non-East Asian appearances. So they lump them all together as potential terrorists.
I stand by my earlier statement about the feckless nature of CBP and its TTPs and SOPs in general as endemic to the agency.
#58
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Slightly to the left of center
Posts: 3,475
Interesting. What US airport did this happen in? It doesn't really matter, I'm just curious.
I'm white, I've gotten the same questions as you, many times. Until recently, I would only get sent to secondary inspection for refusing to answer questions at primary inspection. Last time though, I answered the questions and got sent to secondary anyway.
Yours might have been a one off thing. I've also read about people who get referred to secondary inspection repeatedly, then one day it just stops.
One thing you can do is a FOIA request online for all of your entry/exit records and for all records about your secondary inspection at X airport on y date.
You will get something is response, but not a lot, and it probably won't give the reason why they stopped you. It will just be some of the agents notes like "Passenger was returning from London, he said he's a chiropractor on a shopping trip, I searched him and let him go."
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/det...a-foia-request
It's taking them about six months to respond to routine FOIA requests like this these days.
I just got a response back to a request I sent in March.
I also recommend looking at one of my favorite youtube videos called "Don't Talk to Cops"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
Just keep in mind that you don't have to answer any of their questions if you don't want to. Whether you choose to answer is up to you, it might make things easier to do so, or it might not.
I'm white, I've gotten the same questions as you, many times. Until recently, I would only get sent to secondary inspection for refusing to answer questions at primary inspection. Last time though, I answered the questions and got sent to secondary anyway.
Yours might have been a one off thing. I've also read about people who get referred to secondary inspection repeatedly, then one day it just stops.
One thing you can do is a FOIA request online for all of your entry/exit records and for all records about your secondary inspection at X airport on y date.
You will get something is response, but not a lot, and it probably won't give the reason why they stopped you. It will just be some of the agents notes like "Passenger was returning from London, he said he's a chiropractor on a shopping trip, I searched him and let him go."
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/det...a-foia-request
It's taking them about six months to respond to routine FOIA requests like this these days.
I just got a response back to a request I sent in March.
I also recommend looking at one of my favorite youtube videos called "Don't Talk to Cops"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
Just keep in mind that you don't have to answer any of their questions if you don't want to. Whether you choose to answer is up to you, it might make things easier to do so, or it might not.
I do believe honesty and answering questions by the police (assuming one is innocent), is the best way to go, but this video articulates how this is not necessarily the case.
#59
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2015
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Hey,
As an update. I was able to fly domestic without any issue, drive into canada and come back to the US by land without any questioning and then fly back home.
So, hopefully, that was an one time thing!
As an update. I was able to fly domestic without any issue, drive into canada and come back to the US by land without any questioning and then fly back home.
So, hopefully, that was an one time thing!
#60
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Join Date: Jul 2001
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So you're not on a bunch of nasty blacklists. Or at least you managed to not get hit by them more recently than the LON-US flight you took. Sounds good to me, and thanks for the update.