I ran up against the obstinate paranoia of a world superpower on two separate occasions over the Easter holidays. Both times, I was amazed by the ugly bullying of smug American bureaucracy in the United States Department of Homeland Security.
The first encounter happened at the Ambassador Bridge in
Detroit on 28 March. I was crossing from the Canadian side, having
landed at Toronto airport after flying from Belfast via London. I was going to a conference at the University of Michigan, having been invited to
deliver a paper the following day (Good Friday) on Northern
Ireland 15 years after the Good Friday Agreement.
Shut up and sit down. |
For the brief visit to Ann Arbor, Michigan, I was
accompanied by my son, Ross, and daughter-in-law Serah, both naturalised
Canadian citizens living in Hamilton, Ont. I also have Canadian citizenship since 1994 when I lived
in Ontario. Yet because I now live back home, I travel on my Irish passport.
I handed over this and when asked for a US visa, I produced one
I was issued in the mid-1980s, allowing ‘multiple’ entries to the United States
and bearing a stamped ‘Indefinite’ for its time limit.
I had not needed any
visa while living in Canda when I made frequent crossings of the Border without
incident. The officer remarked that my old visa was no long valid, having been
issued almost before he was born. I would have to go ‘inside’. So watched over
by armed guards, we pulled over, got out of the car and filed into the Border
station.
A curt female officer of US Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) standing behind a podium handed me a card form and pen and instructed me to
fill it in. I did so. I handed over the card to a male officer who had taken
over the podium. I was told to sit down. Several people who came in after me
were dealt with speedily, including some travelling on UK passports.
Ambassador bridge too far between Canada and United States |
I waited, patiently at first. I looked for direction but failed to make eye contact with any of the officers who clearly were ignoring
me. Finally, my name was called out brusquely, ‘MacDonald’. I went
over to a stern male officer at the part of the L-shaped counter behind where
we were sitting. He asked me why I was entering the United States. I told him
about the conference. I was sent back to sit down. I was called up again, asked
something else, told to sit down.
Ross and Serah were called up by the officer. I rose to
accompany them. The young officer barked, ‘Sit down: I want to talk to the
Canadian passport-holders.’ I did so, taken aback by the hostility.
I could overhear his contemptuous tone as he asked Ross and Serah how did they
‘know him?’
And so it continued for about an hour, called up for curt, accusatory
questions, including several about my financial position, the money I had on me and my creditworthiness, then sent back to the ‘naughty corner’. All the while, I got the
feeling that this CBP officer was in constant communication with somebody elsewhere who was calling
the shots. At one point I was called up and had my fingerprints taken and my
eyes scanned.
Soulstice |
Finally, with a Visa debit card payment of $6, I was issued a visa that
would allow me enter and remain in the USA until ‘June 24, 2013’. Since it was
28 March and I only planned to be there until 30 March, I wondered but did not
ask, if I would get a refund. I also felt it wise not to ask why I had been
subjected to this treatment when I had a perfectly valid reason for entry. Instead,
feeling like some ‘wetback’ caught wading across the Rio Grande, I slunk out of
the Border checkpoint and showed up late for the conference in Ann Arbor,
missing the initial registration and part of the keynote address by Professor
Chantal Mouffrey of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in London.
My subsequent experience of Michigan was wonderful, the
university, the city, the inn we stayed at in Ann Arbor and especially the lounge
bar performance of a Motown style soul band called ‘Soulstice’. On the way back we visited
Detroit, a city rising from the ashes. Everyone we met there was the very essence of friendly welcome and showed a refreshing deferential
pride in their journey from US riches to ruin and slowly back to reinvention of a modern post-industrial city.
Toronto skyline – back in Canada for enjoyable Easter. |
Back in Canada, without any incident at the Border, I thoroughly
enjoyed Easter with Ross and Serah and visits to old friends over the following
days. Then on Thursday afternoon, 4 April, I turned up at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport to check in from my flights back home. Having come from Belfast City
airport via London, I was booked (through the University of Ulster) to return
to Belfast International via Newark, New Jersey. I presented my passport at
check-in. The officer on duty, who turned out to be another agent of US Customs
and Border Protection, told me I would not be allowed into the United States
because I had no visa. My $6 visa from Detroit (stamped as valid up to June 24)
had obviously expired because I was told it was no longer sufficient for
‘entry’ to the United States this time.
I explained that I did not wish to ‘enter’ the United States
and would only be making a flight connection at Newark airport en route to
Belfast. When this drew a contemptuous scolding from the young woman about my
need to comply with US regulations, I observed that I was being
‘penalised’ for using an American airline . She almost lost it at
that, saying that US Customs and Border Protection does not penalise anyone and
I should just shut up and follow the rules without comment. I shut up and was
told I would have to apply for a new online visa approval. Then I would have to
get back into one of the most achingly slow queues I have ever encountered in
my life.
So with Serah’s help and iPhone, I filled in the online application
form for the second time in a week, answering the same questions and queries
about communicable diseases, previous convictions and political leanings, paid
$16 this time, and was ‘approved’ for entry.
'Penalised' for choosing American airline for flight home. |
I got back into the check-in line, which comprised only two
others now. Both were almost as frustrated by the slow pace and the line of
unstaffed check-in points. We waited without movement. The young Canadian woman in front
was vocal in her criticism; the man behind me less agitated, but he hadn’t
invested as much time so far. Meanwhile, as we stood and stared, and were pointedly ignored by the CBP officers chatting to each other on duty, those
travelling on some preferential scheme were called up and processed immediately.
Finally, my turn came. I presented myself to the same
officious young woman as before. She keyed in my details and seemed almost
surprised I had been approved. After a stamp and a corrected scrawl, I
was told I could ‘remain in the United States until 25 June’ an extra day beyond the
visa I had been issued at the Ambassador Bridge a week earlier. I was then shunted
through – with my suitcase still in tow – to join a separate line. Here I had my
fingerprints taken and eyes scanned once more, went through the usual airport
security rigmarole and made it to the flight gate without time for the coffee
and duty-free browsing I had factored into my schedule.
By the time I got on board, I was in no mood for the moaning
Joe in the adjoining seat who turned out to be from some Wall
Street bank. He was leafing through USA Today, making insulting remarks about Ireland and the EU, along with the fiscal
management of every other economy on Earth. It was too much. When he accused China
and India of stealing American jobs though protectionism and cheating on
subsidies, I let him have an earful. I told him about the American economic
bullying I had witnessed and especially the US manipulation of the NAFTA trade deal which
‘stole’ jobs from Canada and Mexico. US capitalists wanted globalisation, I
remarked, and like his Wall Street masters they had no loyalty beyond themselves, so the American jobs he lamented losing would not be coming back. He shut up
for the remainder of the flight.
I barely touched the ground at Newark airport. |
In the end, I barely touched the ground in Newark, landing
at 7.50pm and taking off again for Belfast at 9.15pm, although I did manage to get
that espresso coffee and a much-needed beer at the boarding gate. I did not
have to go through passport control, where I would probably have been shaken
down for another few bucks as an unwelcome interloper on American soil.
So I only bounced through America on my unwanted and
unneeded second visa. It remains valid for another eleven weeks or so. At least
that’s what it says in the scrawl inside the passport stamp, but I’ll not be
putting that to the test.