I arrived into Newark last night and as feared I was detained by the INS, or homeland security, or some organization for some time. I would have taken some ethnographic fieldnotes had I not worried that such activity would have put me into REAL trouble. The detention room is much like the DMV (only scarier). You sit with lots and lots of people, waiting for your name to be called. Luckily, as an American citizen, I was fast-tracked. But some folks had been sitting there for well over five hours. Some had children with them. It was sad. Oddly, the system felt like a game of “Press Your Luck“. There were rooms to the back, but for the most part we were all processed right in front of the waiting room. And we could all see and hear each other person being processed. The reason it was like, “Press Your Luck” was that there was CLEARLY one guy who was a “Whammy”. Every time he was done processing one person everyone froze in fear that they would then be called up by him. As that meant: bad news, or at least a very hard time. I wondered if this guy was actually mean, or simply had been allotted the task for the day.
He clearly wasn’t a nice guy. He constantly made comments about how “[Insert your non-white nationality here] are everywhere,” such as, “God, you Indians are everywhere.” And he threw out accusations constantly, about how people were trying to screw the system and he was going to make sure they got burned. But I wondered if he was just the bad cop for the day – being given the people who the supervisor decided needed to be harassed. But harassment was the name of the game. There was not much dignity in that room.
After 9/11 my parents suggested that I change my name. In fact, they strongly encouraged me to do so. I thought that they were ridiculous. I like my name. My first name is both Irish (Seamus) and Pakistani (Shams, Shamsul, Shamus). The name is interesting. My parents encouraged me to become “Seamus Khan O’Malley” – O’Malley being my mother’s maiden name. My father has no attachment to his name. Khan is not his “real” last name. He changed it before moving the US, figuring that his rare village name would be largely unrecognizable and/or pronounceable by Americans. So he settled on Khan. He has few romantic feelings for Pakistan. And now that I am on a “No Fly” list, and consistently detained at airports, they are starting up again with the name change idea. I suspect they will be more persistent this time. I get offended by their request. But it’s odd. It is their name they have given me. In some ways they have more claim to it than I. It marks my connection to them. Yet in changing it I feel it would be giving in to the man, and giving up on a bit of myself. And it is silly to think that a simple name change would change my position on some no-fly list. It might even be a further flag.
But I will say this: it is wearing on me. As I first walked up to immigration, the processing official said to me, “Welcome Home”. But as he later lead me into a back room, filled with dark skinned people, crying children, and harassment, I felt very far away from home indeed.
17 Comments
Thank you for sharing your experience and your reflections. I empathize with you and every other individual in this situation. And I feel great anger and sadness towards a system that is built on the harassment of powerless, dark-skinned people. (I am too angry/sad to offer any great analysis or insight — just wanted to express solidarity).
Argh. This is appalling and infuriating and saddening, all at once.
Thank you for taking the time to show us this aspect of “home.”
Reading this makes me wonder why I’m still here in New York. My last name is ‘Muhamad’, my passport bears the mark of “Republic Indonesia” which entitles me for detention and to be demeaned at every US airport every time(including my wife and my 4-years old). We always be the last people collecting our bags. I avoid domestic air-travel at all cost-no worth the hassle. I think twice before traveling outside NY, because state troopers are not so familiar with immigration documents/rules. Yet, some people in Indonesia, considered us American-educated Indonesians as ‘enemy of the state’.
Furthermore, if I believe my own research that everyone is connected to everyone else in short steps, then it’s just a matter of time before computers put a red flag on my name because they found “a connection.”
I don’t even know what to say, except to acknowledge the truth of all this. Whether to change a name or not is perhaps a topic worth discussing. Reminds me that the Muslim women (who have been speaking to my classes every semester since 9/11) said that even conservative women who normally cover often urged their daughters not to cover as a safety measure after 9/11.
A few more notes, inspired by empatdua:
1.) The situation is much worse if you have kids. They sit there, wondering what is going on.
2.) It is hard to describe what it’s like to watch people being interrogated in front of you, knowing that at some point you’re up for it too. You can hear everything. You can see everything. Sometimes people were taken into private rooms. The reasons weren’t clear. At times the conversation seemed to be going well, and poof, off they went. Other times it was obvious.
3.) You are not allowed any contact once you start the immigration process. So you can’t use your phone. If you do, you are in for a world of trouble. Several people were being met at the airport by family and/or friends. Waiting five hours with the INS without being able to tell loved ones who are waiting outside what is going on would create enormous panic, I would imagine. Some of the people were quite old (70s and 80s). I can’t imagine what their children were thinking, waiting, wondering what was going on. No information was allowed to be transfered once you entered that room.
4.) After you clear INS, you then have to clear customs. And as far as I could tell, getting stopped by the INS meant you had to also have your baggage inspected. I had to explain why I had so many dirty clothes in my bag. It seemed odd to say, “Um… because I was out of the country. I wore clothes, they got dirty, I brought them back…” But that’s exactly what I did.
5.) I called my state rep (Charlie Rangel) about getting off the list. I was told it was a bad idea to ask, as it might be read as a flag and guarantee that I remained on it.
Honestly, for me it was not that big of a deal. There isn’t that much risk for me. But the process certainly made me see a different side to America. One I have complained and protested about, but never experienced. It struck me, sitting in that room, that we were breeding more contempt than protection.
5.) I called my state rep (Charlie Rangel) about getting off the list. I was told it was a bad idea to ask, as it might be read as a flag and guarantee that I remained on it.
If that’s the response from Charlie Rangel’s office, that’s both infuriating and unacceptable. The problem of ‘legitimate’ travelers being put on a watchlist is well-known to Congress, and it’s up to them to keep up the pressure on Homeland Security and its agencies to work this out, rather than counsel quietism and resignation. I’d continue to pursue this with your Congressional representatives, but perhaps with a more responsive office. As suggested @3, these watchlists have a tendency to become ‘viral’: federal bureaucracies are trying to improve communication and integration across their systems, but in the process they’re sharing bad information as well.
DHS last year established the Traveler Redress Program (DHS-TRIP) because this is a pervasive problem; you might want to check it out, although I have no idea whether to take it seriously as a potential solution to your problem, or as a PR stunt.
Re: name change. I recall that Senator Kennedy not long ago said that he was prevented several times from boarding because there was a “T. Kennedy” on a terrorist watchlist, and it took his office almost a month to get his name removed (which is really fast, as these things go), so let’s hope there’s no ‘S. O’Malley” on the list, either.
Reading about your being forced to consider changing your name made me think of this:
Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It’s gettin kinda long
I coulda said it wasn’t in my way
But I didn’t and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
Cause I feel like I owe it to someone
Must be because I had the flu’ for Christmas
And I’m not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking at my mirror and seeing a police car
But I’m not giving in an inch to fear
Cause I missed myself this year
I feel like I owe it to someone
When I finally get myself together
I’m going to get down in that sunny southern weather
And I find a place inside to laugh
Separate the wheat from the chaff
I feel like I owe it to someone
This made me cry. I’m sorry, Shamus. This country should be a better home to you.
Oy.
Last time I entered the EU, at Schiphol, the entirety of my exchange with the immigration agent was “good morning.” The return involved pre-departure interrogation in Paris and post-arrival interrogation in Detroit (though “I was at a postal economics conference” brought my chat with the ICE agent to a quick close).
I can dream that President Obama will put someone in charge of DHS who’s capable of figuring out that U.S. security is not well-served by showing the world the face of an Uncle Sam who’s gone off his meds and into violent paranoia, but probably shouldn’t get my hopes up.
Without trivializing the enormous difficulties non-Whites must face in such situations, I’d like to note that color of skin doesn’t always matter depending on context and specifics. It can be enough that you’re born on the “wrong” side of a continent. I refer here to the stereotypes and prejudices about “Eastern” Europeans in “Western” Europe. (I put those in quotes as they are not geographically correct terms given that most of “Eastern European” countries are actually in Central Europe geographically speaking. Note, for example, that Vienna is East of Prague.)
As for name changes, I think it’s interesting to hear a man go through these thoughts since that’s rare while it seems fairly taken-for-granted for a woman to change her name for a man. My last name has little family history as well. Similarly to you, my father changed his name at some point. He did it to have the same name as his brother, who had changed his name to be less German-sounding (understandable for a Jew who’d just spent atrocious time in a concentration camp in Vienna). But just because my family doesn’t have a long history with this name doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a history with me.:) It’s my name, it’s who I am, similarly with you, it’s your name, it’s who you are. I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to change it.
I was told it was a bad idea to ask, as it might be read as a flag and guarantee that I remained on it.
Welcome to the United States of Franz Bleedin’ Kafka.
Shakha: If the CBP officer (INS has not existed for over five years) made statements as you allege, I suggest you file a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Those interviews are recorded; that officer will cease to serve in the US Government if he made such comments. There are mechanisms in place to address and correct the type of behavior you allege. Also, if you feel you are unjustifiably on a “no-fly” list (although the detail about flying into Newark suggests you are in fact flying, so you’re not on such a list) there are paths to remedy that as well.
In turn, Shakha, I ask you: what is the alternative? If you were pulled aside for secondary inspection, it was because a CBP officer targeted you based on some piece of information–your name matching that of a terrorist or your travel pattern matching that of a drug smuggler, for example. CBP officers do the best they can with the resources they have, and they catch a lot of bad guys doing it. Your experience is quite obviously the darker half of the delicate balance between civil rights and national security. If you really want to make a difference, lobby your local congressman to allocate more money to CBP so they can recruit better-educated officers, offer improved training, and thus more precisely target the true nefarious characters.
I’m with Belle on this one.
Me too.
And, for the record qudsforce, Shakha isn’t alleging anything. He’s telling a story about something that happened to him.
@12.qudsforce: you show an impressive sense of optimism that things work as they should. My bet is that Shakha’s experience is far more common than not, and that no such discipline would occur.
As for what the alternative is: reasonable, polite officers who treat people humanely. A policy structure that works based on reason instead of fear and racial profile.
“The darker half of the delicate balance between civil rights and national security”??? This is only a delicate balance if you buy the hype that heavy handed police-state tactics actually prevent attacks. Any evidence?
CBP officers do the best they can with the resources they have, and they catch a lot of bad guys doing it.
This is an empirical claim that I’d be interested in. Have these tactics actually increased catching people? Anecdotally (say, the prosecution rate at places like Gitmo) suggests that maybe it hasn’t. Anyone know of studies on this?
As for the practices in these spaces: it seemed quite clear to me that they are set up to intimidate. Almost everyone sat in chairs, facing forward, witnessing the process they were about to go through. Though this could be read as “openness” it created enormous tension and anxiety in the room. Little to nothing was done to appease this. As an old woman cried, anxiously wondering about telling her children who were to meet her where she was, no one spoke to her in any way (reassuring, or even explanatory). The same with children.
I would like to think that the actions by this “bad cop” officer were simply those of a bad seed, and therefore uncommon and potentially discipline worthy. But four of his colleagues stood by, and could hear what I did. His supervisor was in the room for much of the time. I would think that if he were crossing the line of acceptable, one of these people would have acted.
I can’t understate the racial element of this space. With one exception (a British man) everyone in that room was non-white. That would be about 98% of folks. My alternative would be similar to what Andrew suggests. And I’d first want evidence that the present practices are much more successful than the past ones at catching “bad guys”. Then I’d want information on other national practices and their likelihood of catching “bad guys”. I put this in quotes because almost all the conversations I heard were about legally migrating the the US. They had nothing to do with other kinds of crimes.
Shakha: I cannot address your question regarding whether CPB tactics have actually increased catching people. I made no reference to a before and after (and thus your question of increased frequency). Rather, I was relaying my general observation that CBP targeting efforts, in the time I have observed them (post-9/11), have resulted in catching several high-level criminals and contraband items. I have not seen any pre-post test studies regarding CBP targeting; perhaps you could submit a FOIA request to CBP and/or DHS requesting specific frequencies and rates of apprehension as a result of targeting, and then frame those rates around 9/11.
I’m not clear why you entered into discussion the prosecution rate at “places like Gitmo” (did you have other places in mind?). DOD or CIA targeting of suspected terrorists overseas and the subsequent failure to successfully prosecute those individuals in a military tribunal has no relation (well, perhaps tangential, at best) to my comment of CBP catching criminals entering the United States; although, you suggest the Gitmo debacle somehow renders my statement untrue.
Addressing andrewperrin’s comment about “heavy-handed tactics,” I submit that it was Customs targeting that resulted in the interrupted LAX millennium bomb plot, a plan that, if allowed to come to fruition, would likely have been on par with the 9/11 death toll.
I am confident it will go undebated that CBP officers should be polite and treat people humanely. The question, then, is one of enforcement. My original point is there are a lot of mechanisms in place to enforce proper behavior, but finite resources. Moreover, those mechanisms are only useful if people use them. It’s much easier to curse “the man” and suck up the abuse than to file a complaint and patiently wait for recourse. There will be bad seeds in any vocation–such as the abusive law enforcement officer–but those bad seeds will only remain if people choose not to take action.