Muslim Tourists Scared
Nov 26, 2018, 7:31 am
#1
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Muslim Tourists Scared
I was recently coming back after a brief trip to India, flying from DEL to JFK. There was this Muslim couple sitting in the flight next to me with a 2 year old kid. They were coming to the US for a vacation and through out the journey, they kept wondering if they will be denied entry because they are Muslim. The husband told me that his wife is extremely worried about this trip and kept telling him that they should not have planned a trip to the US. I felt sad that a vacation should begin with such fear. I kept assuring them that thousands of Muslims from all over the World come to the US every day and they don't deny entry to all of them and they being Indian passport holders should also be a plus. I wish CBP would start a campaign that they welcome everyone irrespective of their religion. Fear coming to this country due to their religion is not what my country is about.
Nov 26, 2018, 3:20 pm
#2
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I was recently coming back after a brief trip to India, flying from DEL to JFK. There was this Muslim couple sitting in the flight next to me with a 2 year old kid. They were coming to the US for a vacation and through out the journey, they kept wondering if they will be denied entry because they are Muslim. The husband told me that his wife is extremely worried about this trip and kept telling him that they should not have planned a trip to the US. I felt sad that a vacation should begin with such fear. I kept assuring them that thousands of Muslims from all over the World come to the US every day and they don't deny entry to all of them and they being Indian passport holders should also be a plus. I wish CBP would start a campaign that they welcome everyone irrespective of their religion. Fear coming to this country due to their religion is not what my country is about.
Indian Muslims with a US visa generally have the following as their biggest hurdle for the US trip: getting the US visa approved. Since they have that approved, things usually go fine.
Nov 26, 2018, 4:03 pm
#3
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I was recently coming back after a brief trip to India, flying from DEL to JFK. There was this Muslim couple sitting in the flight next to me with a 2 year old kid. They were coming to the US for a vacation and through out the journey, they kept wondering if they will be denied entry because they are Muslim. The husband told me that his wife is extremely worried about this trip and kept telling him that they should not have planned a trip to the US. I felt sad that a vacation should begin with such fear. I kept assuring them that thousands of Muslims from all over the World come to the US every day and they don't deny entry to all of them and they being Indian passport holders should also be a plus. I wish CBP would start a campaign that they welcome everyone irrespective of their religion. Fear coming to this country due to their religion is not what my country is about.
Whether the fear is justified or not makes no difference - many people have such fear about plenty of countries other than the US.
Nov 27, 2018, 12:18 am
#5
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I am certainly less likely to be killed or robbed at gun point in most Muslim-majority country’s capitals than I am in the Washington, DC area.
Dec 4, 2018, 9:24 pm
#6
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Murder rates world wide can be highly deceiving. The US has almost the same murder rate as Greenland, though most people would consider Greenland one of the safest countries on the planet. Under-developed countries often have vastly under-reported/unreliable statistics. The Sudan officially has a lower murder rate than the US, but I doubt many westerners would go walking around Khartoum even in the day light without at least a local guide.
Dec 4, 2018, 10:10 pm
#7
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Murder rates world wide can be highly deceiving. The US has almost the same murder rate as Greenland, though most people would consider Greenland one of the safest countries on the planet. Under-developed countries often have vastly under-reported/unreliable statistics. The Sudan officially has a lower murder rate than the US, but I doubt many westerners would go walking around Khartoum even in the day light without at least a local guide.
If anything, homicide rates tend to be more likely to be over-stated in locales with weaker systems for accurate tracking than in locales with more robust systems for tracking.
The notion of the US being a safer place than most Muslim-majority countries is not one built upon a look at the facts, question the facts as some may.
Greenland has a high homicide rate most often. But it only has a national population of well under 60k people, making it easier for the homicide rate to vary tremendously from year to year depending on the actions of a few dozen people or so. That said, Greenland has a high rate of stabbing and shooting deaths, while most Muslim-majority countries don’t. Some could say it’s the Arctic, and so it’s all out of whack, or it’s whacked out by being in the Arctic.
When it comes to understanding crime statistics and the differences between them for various reasons, I’m pretty informed. Whether it comes to crazy warnings about Sweden/Stockholm being the “rape capital of Europe” or Canada having had some of the worst kidnapping rates in the world.
Have you checked out the homicide stats for Khartoum? It’s the capital of a country with a long history of being in civil war.
While we may be relatively more scot-free in the US than in many a Muslim-majority country, we aren’t relatively more free from being killed or robbed at gun-point than in most Muslim-majority countries.
Dec 6, 2018, 8:26 am
#8
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<redacted> I am not aware of any studies or metastudies comparing a) accuracy of reporting systems between nation-states (locales) with weaker reporting systems to the accuracy of nation-states (locales) with more robust reporting systems or b) aligning/equating the reporting systems of nation-state (which does not mean there are no such studies - I will to be pleased to be elucidated) - <redacted>.
Accuracy and "normalizing" of reported crime statistics between jurisdictions is a major topic of controversy/debate even within the US which has a mandated uniform crime reporting system overseen by the Feebs. Because even with the mandated UCR, not every police dept correctly categorizes events. And frequently departments maintain their own set of definitions that do not comport with UCR making for wildly divergent reported rates of crime. As always, there are lies, damn lies, and sadistic.
Accuracy and "normalizing" of reported crime statistics between jurisdictions is a major topic of controversy/debate even within the US which has a mandated uniform crime reporting system overseen by the Feebs. Because even with the mandated UCR, not every police dept correctly categorizes events. And frequently departments maintain their own set of definitions that do not comport with UCR making for wildly divergent reported rates of crime. As always, there are lies, damn lies, and sadistic.
Last edited by TWA884; Dec 6, 2018 at 9:12 am Reason: Reference to deleted posts
Dec 9, 2018, 7:40 am
#10
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'Since life and limb matter, looking at homicides matter. And so does road safety stats, with road fatalities mattering more statistically since they tend to be way more a leading cause of death than non-vehicular killing of people. And yes road fatality rates are pretty bad in the US and tend to be even worse in Muslim-majority countries. Better to go visit a place like Sweden or Norway than the US if scared of road accidents and a bunch of other things. That said, people's fear of visiting a place usually have little or nothing to do with road safety. The fear tends to be more palpable when its about being intentionally physically assaulted or killed by another person.
Dec 9, 2018, 7:48 am
#11
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Discussion of crime statistics is fine but irrelevant to original point. The poster stated that they weren't worried about their safety once they got into the US, they were worried about not being allowed to continue their vacation in the US because their religion might present problems to CBP.
That is sad.
That is sad.