Druid's Dream

INS at Detroit-Windsor can be very tough, even pre 9/11. And I'm ashamed to admit that I always cave and err on the side of excessive niceness even when I think I'm being mistreated because I never want to escalate on the INS folks and have the car pulled out of line. I don't mind people doing their jobs but sometimes they are just so over the top.

denverhockeyguy

I couldn't agree more and that is my point. I was crossing from Windsor back to Detroit from a hockey tournament. One of the guys on our team was being a jackass and called the CBP agent "Barney Fife". It was inappropriate and wrong of him; but didn't change the fact that it took us over 3hrs to get back through the border. They had us pull over, inspected the car, all our hockey gear, verified our paperwork, etc.

Were we wrong? Yes. Did the agent overreact? Yes. Was there anything we could do about it? I don't think so.

SirFlysALot

There was a situation a few years ago where a black female congress woman coming back from Africa, was handcuffed, strip searched and held for a few days at ORD Immigration. She was unable to contact her family and they waited for her to evacuate her bowels.

Why? She met the profile of a drug courier. She was black, female and coming from Africa after a short stay.

She raised quite a ruckus. The story disappeared quite quickly never to be heard about again.

vesicle

Land of the free my @ss. This is exactly the kind of thing that proves it is too late.

CreekTraveler

I travel outside of the US for business 10-12 times a year. My only thought when I return and am about to go through immigration and customs is about catching my connection home, since I usually plan on the shortest layover possible. I couldn't care less about questions asked by the immigration and customs officers, even if they seem irrelevant. I answer them pleasantly and confidently because it's the ticket to my next flight. And, no, this country is not becoming a police state. The officers are trained to unsettle people and see how they regain their composure. Legally, they can ask anything they want.

bdschobel

I challenge this account. I tried to verify it, searching with Google and other sites using phrases like "black congresswoman detained" (and variations on that). The only thing that came up even close was the arrest in 2006 of Rep. Cynthia McKinney for allegedly striking a Capitol Police officer who failed to recognize her as a member of Congress. Unless someone can provide additional information, I have to conclude that this story is an urban myth.

Bruce

iluv2fly

I was also thinking about this particular story and then I remembered that Diana Ross story of her having an issue with security at (I think LHR). Other than that, I'm sure someone here would remember a story as was described earlier. I, too, believe it to be an urban myth. BUSTED!!!

SirFlysALot

A proposed class-action lawsuit filed in federal court Thursday alleges that U.S. Customs Service officials at O'Hare International Airport single out black women for strip searches after international flights.

The civil rights suit, filed on behalf of 18 African-American women, maintained that Customs officers had no legal basis to pat down or strip search the women for narcotics.

Article Abstract

Passengers stopped for a search typically are simply given a quick pat down, but African-American women were by far the demographic group most likely to be subjected to the more intrusive strip searches. In 1998, 11 percent of black women passengers who were chosen for searches were strip-searched versus 6 percent of all U.S. citizens for which information on race and gender were available.

Another

The Government Accounting Office looked at records of 102,000 airline passengers selected for searches by the U.S. Customs Service in 1997 and 1998. The GAO report, released this week, found that African-American women traveling on international flights were much more likely to be picked out for strip searches than men and women in other demographic groups.

Yet Another

Customs agents said they chose passengers to be searched based on factors such as who seemed nervous or gave inconsistent answers to questions, according to [Miner]. But Miner said those criteria were subjective and unreliable. He said the agents disproportionately searched black women, yet "they virtually never found drugs."

Settlement

But I cannot find the reference to the congress woman

polonius

So in your view the appropriate role of a CBP officer is to reward people who act subservient and meek by expediting their passage through customs and immigration, and cause delays for people who are assertive?

vesicle

That is generally how all people in 'power' positions act.

They think punishing people is their right.

polonius

I think people are thinking of Cathy Harris, who is not a congresswoman, but CBP inspector turned whistleblower who worked for many years in Atlanta and asserted that supposedly "random" searches were racially biased. The CBP denied her charges for years, but then the GAO did an independent study and found she was exactly correct, and that CBP policy was fundamentally racist -- i.e., they couldn't issue guidelines that said "search all the black people," so they issued guidelines that said "search all the people who wear their hair in cornrows". Cathy Harris pushed a number of reforms through congress and also was given a congressional citation for her work, and she is now retired from the CBP so she can work as a full-time activist and lobbyist (work that I beleive includes supporting the lawsuit by the African-American women mentioned above), but she has never stood for or been elected to congress. She has a good blog on security issues, etc. at http://homelandin-security.blogspot.com

jfulcher

Two words.

TURBO TAX

bdschobel

The standard customs declaration form asks if the purpose of your trip was primarily business or pleasure -- or words to that effect. I don't have a copy of the form in front of me.

Bruce

gojirasan

Interesting discussion.

So now how stupid do you feel? Has it ever occurred to you that there may be things in this world that are not on google or wikipedia or anywhere on the internet? How old are you? Have you ever considered a library as a research tool? While I admit that the internet is a *very* useful and convenient source of information, the fact that a particular story is not on it does not mean that it is untrue or an urban legend. Quite often sources on the internet are flat out wrong.

Being nearly 40, I sometimes wonder how the world must seem to someone who grew up with cell phones, IM, and wikipedia as given, as the way things have always been. I am guessing that you aren't quite this young however. Which I find even more alarming.

bdschobel

Are you nuts? I don't feel stupid at all. There was no black Congresswoman detained by Customs for several days. It never happened. Lots of other things did, but not that. So my polite challenge was reasonable -- and turned out to be correct. Now, with regard to your impolite one: How stupid do you feel?

Bruce