They don't keep enough people out. Deploying seals and berets on the borders would be a wonderful idea. With orders to shoot to kill and take no prisoners.

The last two posts here were removed as being overtly political and way off-topic for TS/S.

This is NOT OMNI/PR and political discourse is to be kept to an absolute minimum.

Future such posts will be met with the appropriate action directed toward the poster and not toward the post.

Thanks for your cooperation.


____________________

Cholula
Travel Safety/Security Forum Moderator

And that's why I stopped posting.

Amazing how a forum for the discussion of the inherently political topic of law enforcement becomes subject to Singapore-style censorship about what ideas are and are not within the bounds of appropriate discourse.

Here's an idea:

Let people post what they want. If you don't want to read it, don't.

Not the way it works around here.

Forums are to be kept to their specific mission as best as possible.

OMNI and OMNI/PR are the only forums where there is no such thing as off-topic.

Other than reading the emails, the events described by the OP doesn't seem unusual for USA or Canada.

I read this thread with great interest. My experience with TSA is less than stellar. I was traveling with my wife from Orlando returning to Montana. (My plane was broke). It was the only time that I flew not armed. So I sent my creds through scanner. Then I was accused of trying to use my position to get preferential treatment when one of the agents operating the scanner picked it up and looked at it! What a bunch of baloney.

All organizations have their bad apples and CBP is one of them. However, I worked once upon a time for INS as an inspector on the southern border. I then got moved into CBP with Customs in a not-so happy marriage of organizations and learning all new policies and functions on the fly was a not too happy a time after 9/11.

But I digress. What occured at Twin Cities is an everyday thing. Too many red flags were raised by the traveler and her country of record plus all the travel she had done in the past. How the officer conducted himself, I can't say. I wasn't there. However, the practices and searches and questioning were all valid.

And having a visa is no guarantee of admission into the US. CBP has the authority to cancel said visas if the officer can articulate the cause. And it is quite easy to articulate the reason. All actions have to be run by a supervisor. There is no Lone Wolf McQuade actions occuring. Not since my days as an INS inspector when What I said went. Nowadays, a CBP officer has to get supervisory approval to wipe his butt. Checks and balances have been built into the inspection process and recourse is available to the traveler in the form of Comment Cards. And trust me, they are looked at.

As for the search and seizure, there is no Constitutional protection against searching articles, vehicles, aircraft, boats and travelers. All the officer has to do is have to articulate a reasonable suspicion and that is all that is required. The USC code of regulations specifically states that any and all articles arriving from a foreign destination is subject to search without consent of the owner. Many eager attorneys have tried to fight that in court and have consistently lost. Even the 9th Circuit Court deems what occurs on the border is Constitutional. So the subject of border searches is moot.

I wonder if a lot of North African travelers heading into France would relate the same experience as you have.

I traveled to Britian back in the mid 90's. Since I cleared the EU through Heathrow, I was just waved through customs and immigration in Copenhgagen by only showing that I had a passport.

I travel to europe on a semi-regular basis. I can't think of a time I was asked more than 1 or 2 questions. 90% of the time, they look at my passport, look at me, scan it, and stamp it without saying a word.

There was a lot of fluff in the article, but I don't think the above is among it. I've been taken in back before, and the description above is quite accurate: it was a small room, there was a camera peering down, and I was patted down.

Actually, that's not true. It's a requirement for a WVP entry, but a holder of a B-2 tourist visa is not required to have a return ticket. But if the immigration inspector thinks this is suspicious, they may have to provide an explanation as to why they don't have one. The OP seemed to have a good explanation - as to whether that was going to be believed or not is another story.

There seems to be a great amount of confusion over this issue. The fact that the person in question has a 10-year visa (which I would guess is either a B-2 or a B-1/B-2) does not automatically establish eligibility to enter the US for any particular trip during that 10 years. For example the B-2 allows for entry for the purpose of tourism. If she showed up at the border and said "I'm planning to marry my boyfriend in Florida" then this would not be compatible with a B-2 visa, and she'd be denied entry. Especially since the visa could have been issued up to 10 years prior, there's absolutely no way the US Embassy in Thailand could possibly determine if a potential future trip some 10 years later would be for the purpose of getting married, no matter how much documentation was presented about the trip for which the visa was issued. Similarly, if someone planned to come to the US for several months, it could not be determined up to 10 years in advance if they'll have enough money to support themselves, even if they were independently wealthy 8 years ago. Times change.

So, having the visa gets you over a lot of hurdles, but there are still a lot of things that simply can't be known in advance of arrival. I guess one alternative would be for the US to switch to a system similar to China, where you basically can't get a visa that's valid for a long period of time, allowing the embassy staff to verify your bona fides shortly in advance of each visit, but I don't think that would go over very well.

You are correct. The officer conducts an inspection at entry and determines if the applicant for entry is a bona fide tourist if holding a B2 visa. Just having the visa does not guarantee entry into the US, only that she met Dept of State guidelines when she applied for the Visa at the Consulate.

I flew back into EWR earlier today and I was tired. The CBP guy asked what the purpose of my trip was... I said "travel". Apparently that was fine with him

Mike, I can tell you what happens if they had decided that she planned to live in the states, she would have been cuffed and ankle shackled, taken to an Immigration jail, and dumped in a freezing pen with up to 80 other women. She could be stuck there for months, sometimes years. I worked at the bank and lived in Chicago for 20 years; I was in this jail because I sued Immigration to get them to finally spit out my green card, I was an �Administrative Detainee�. I am now stuck in the UK with nothing, yet I own a house with a mortgage in Chicago. Everything I have worked for 20 years has been destroyed. I paid tax on all of my earnings; I was an IRS Enrolled Agent....

As you are in shock being arrested by the men in Black, you are told to collect your medications, they just want to talk to you; you don�t get a phone call, you don�t see your medication again (where does it go??)

Once you are in jail you are given substitute medications, which can make you very sick. Example an elderly Indian lady with high blood pressure and diabetes, so they wake her at 5am to record her blood pressure, it shows low, they take her blood sugar as soon as she has eaten, to show it is ok; the rest of the time because she is NOT OK she is either on the cold floor or on the bunk in her cell, unable to function. She has a urine infection they won't treat, it progresses to a kidney infection, she is shaking and jolting with the pains inside her, and the guards will not do anything and punish me for asking for help for her. I made phone calls to the OIG hotline to get her help, telling them she would die if they did not do something. They wanted her to walk down the stairs, she couldn�t, (they are laughing when she is throwing up and falling down off the toilet onto the floor headfirst) With another inmate we walked in front and behind her so she did not fall, the guard was annoyed, nobody told him he had to deal with this, he called for a wheelchair. They took her up to medical where she said they gave her antibiotics, she lost 10 pounds in 10 days..the day she walked back into the main cell, and she was deported and shoved on to the plane that night. She too had applied for her green card. Her file was marked RUSH too. I had four months to see the abuses in jail.
I am now having liver tests for the rash that covered my body from the throat down that I contracted in the jail. We were forced to clean 3 times a day with chemicals and no gloves.
I met Julie Myers, head of ICE, in the jail, she put her hands on the table, I told her she should wash them because it says on the bottle that if it comes into contact with the skin you should wash with cold water for 20 mins, and call the poison control center!

So that your friend was not arrested and shoved into jail � she should consider herself very, very lucky. Homeland Security officership is encouraging the worst aspects of human behaviour, (Die Welle; ignorance, fascism, the �need to belong� Abu Ghraib! Same thing�) and is creating a ready bunch of new Nazis, under your noses. There were two US Citizens in Immigration jail with me, because they make mistakes, and don�t care to correct them. I watched one young Us Citizen having a nervous breakdown, she couldn�t comprehend why she was in there. They spent over half a million dollars to arrest and detain me, I was not a fugitive, I worked in a bank, and have never even had a parking ticket. I am supposed to be grateful to have survived. Over 80 people have died that we know of in these jails. We only know about them because they had relatives who were citizens, who managed to get someone to listen, and put them in touch with NY Times who is keeping statistics. I have watched them bring people close to death with their tactics to demean and destroy people who were not born in the States.

So I repeat, this young Thai woman is Extremely fortunate that she was not put through this, for absolutely nothing.

But realize, this can now happen TO YOU....of course, some of you will think this is not true, until it does happen, TO YOU. I wouldt believe it if i hadnt seen it with my own eyes. I now have PTSD, becuase I really did see and experience all this and more.

now see this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us...s.html?_r=1&hp
Martial law is coming next.

Get to http://www.aclu.org/privacy/gen/36951prs20080929.html

More likely she would have been allowed to leave on the next flight out with an escort to the gate.

Those who cooperate get that treatment. Those who argue or resist, well, they are not so fortunate.

Granted, ICESURVIVOR1 sounds like an extreme case, but I urge you to read my own personal first-hand account in this thread. Physical abuse of aliens is not uncommon. Sure, like any Law Enforcement Agency, there are good apples and bad apples. The difference is alas that most aliens deemed inadmissable (who are the vast majority of victims in these cases) do not have the recourse to any form of appeal or access to the US justice system in order to pursue damages.

To put it in perspective, there are plenty of places in the world that can be far worse than the USA on this front. I am still willing to travel to those places while I actively avoid the USA. Why? Well, if I were to be wrongfully detained or abused in those countries, I am confident enough that my country of citizenship will represent my case through diplomatic channels and seek redress on my behalf. The USA is powerful enough though that they simply don't care. That is what scares me.

Anyway, enough digression, back to the original programming...