You don’t have to do anything wrong to be banned from entering the United States
I first brought you the story of my friend’s incident of racial profiling at the United States border (entering from Canada) on August 3rd. Since then there has been a major development that has shed light on a troublesome scenario for law abiding citizens and the consequences of not being white, driving a suspicious-looking car and traveling to a Casino on a Sunday night.
If you haven’t read the story, you can find it HERE
Basically, my Canadian born friend of Indian decent was stopped while trying to cross the border to visit a Mohawk Casino with his cousin. As you might expect, especially given that they chose to venture out in a gold-painted Volvo, they were detained for five and a half hours “following a random-inspection.”
Not only was their car searched rigorously for three hours, but they were separately interrogated, their photos and fingerprints taken and their personal cell phone files copied. In the end they were denied access to the states and marked down as having been turned away.
Following this, I have been imploring my friend to take this seriously and contact a Customs agency, such as the American Consulate or the Passport Department.
Unfortunately, my friend decided that his best course of action as to return to the border a week later with our friend Jason (of Jewish Background, he took my joke seriously…I had told him “if you take a Jew, you go right through” as no one in my family has ever encountered a similar problem of racial profiling).
So my friend Virendr arrives at the American Border (a different crossing) this past Saturday night driving his Honda Civic. The plan was to go for supper at the AppleBees restaurant in Plattsburg.
And wouldn’t you know it, they get to the customs agent and it turns out that he has been flagged on the system.
Following this he is submitted to yet another hour and a half question-period (far better then the previous near-six hour farce). Not only that, but they took his finger-prints and photo… again!
This is never a good sign when trying to cross the border.
Funny enough, they didn’t even look at Jason, he was essentially invisible. They even gave Jason the option of going ahead without Virendr (which was never going to happen).
Apparently, during the question period they had asked him if he is “currently employed.” Being a mechanic in the offseason, and a long-running recession he is currently job-less.
However, he is a student that takes a heavy course load at night-school. Unfortunately, he did not have Student ID on him at the time of inspection.
So, what was the conclusion that the customs agent made? Basically, the first time they thought he was on a drug run or a drug dealer…now they think he is fleeing Canada to find work in the United States! Ridiculous!
Despite his pleas, he was turned around and headed back to Montreal shaken, not stirred.
So the question remained, what are the consequences for this would-be traveller? Both times he had been found free of any criminal intent and he has no criminal record. He is a law abiding citizen who didn’t realize that venturing across the US border meant that he would be seen as a security threat.
I am directly involved because our group of friends have already booked two vacations with him in the United States. First, a long-weekend escape to Lake George, and second a Cruise in six months leaving out of New York to the Caribbean.
As you can imagine, we already cancelled the long-weekend, and now the cruise vacation (at least as a group) is in jeopardy. Unlike the weekend, we can’t cancel the trip without heavy penalties and it dulls our excitement quite a bit.
As it turns out, the only way my pal can enter the states is by applying for a Waiver (pardon) from the Canadian Passport agency. This is a process that costs upwards of $375.00 and may take 4-10 months to secure, assuming you have a very light criminal record or did nothing wrong to begin with. And then it may need to be renewed every 1-5 years!
Check it out, click HERE for the official website.
So are you as surprised as I am by the sheer extreme response that unfounded suspicions can have on you when traveling across the border? Have you encountered a similar situation and also require an official waiver? Let me know, we’d all be very interested to find out…
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