[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office

Mon Sep 1 03:12:54 MDT 2008

by Emily Feder

AlterNet (August 18 2008)

I arrived at JFK Airport two weeks ago after a short vacation to Syria
and presented my American passport for re-entry to the United States.
After 28 hours of traveling, I had settled into a hazy awareness that
this was the last, most familiar leg of a long journey. I exchanged
friendly words with the Homeland Security official who was recording my
name in his computer. He scrolled through my passport, and when his
thumb rested on my Syrian visa, he paused. Jerking toward the door of
his glass-enclosed booth, he slid my passport into a dingy green plastic
folder and walked down the hallway, motioning for me to follow with a
flick of his wrist. Where was he taking me, I asked him. "You'll find
out", he said.

We got to an enclosed holding area in the arrivals section of the
airport. He shoved the folder into my hand and gestured toward four sets
of Homeland Security guards sitting at large desks. Attached to each
desk were metal poles capped with red, white and blue siren lights. I
approached two guards carrying weapons and wearing uniforms similar to
New York City police officers, but they shook their heads, laughed and
said, "Over there", pointing in the direction of four overflowing
holding pens. I approached different desks until I found an official who
nodded and shoved my green folder in a crowded metal file holder. When I
asked him why I was there, he glared at me, took a sip from his water
bottle, bit into a sandwich, and began to dig between his molars with
his forefinger. I found a seat next to a man who looked about my age -
in his late 20s - and waited.

Omar (not his real name) finished his fifth year in biomedical
engineering at City College in June. He had just arrived from Beirut,
where he visited his family and was waiting to go home to the apartment
he shared with his brother in Harlem. Despite his near-perfect English
and designer jeans, Omar looked scared. He rubbed his hands and rocked
softly in his seat. He had been waiting for hours already, and, as he
pointed out, a number of people - some sick, elderly, pregnant or
holding sobbing babies - had too. There were approximately seventy
people detained in our cordoned-off section: All were Arab (with the
exception of me and the friend I traveled with), and almost all had
arrived from Dubai, Amman or Damascus. Many were US citizens.

We were in the front row, sitting a few feet from two guards' desks.
They sneered at each bewildered arrival, told jokes in whispers,
swiveled in their office chairs and greeted passing guards who stopped
to talk - guards who had a habit of looping their fingers into their
holsters. One asked his friend how many nationalities were represented
in the room. "About twenty. Some of everything today."

No one who had been detained knew precisely why they were there. A few
people were led into private rooms; others were questioned out in the
open at desks a few feet from the crowd and then allowed to pass through
customs. Some were sent to another section of the holding area with
large computer screens and cameras, and then brought back. The
uninformed consensus among the detainees was that some people would be
fingerprinted, have their irises scanned and be sent back to the
countries from which they had disembarked, regardless of citizenship
status; others would be fingerprinted and allowed to stay; and the
unlucky ones would be detained indefinitely and moved to a more
permanent facility.

There was one British tourist in the group. Paul (also not his real
name) was traveling with three friends who had passed through customs
soon after their plane landed and were waiting for him on the other side
of the metal barrier; he suspected he had been detained because of his
dark skin. When he asked if he could go to the bathroom, one of the
guards said, "I wouldn't". "What if someone has to?" I asked. "They will
just have to hold it", the guard responded with a smile. Paul began to
cry. I watched as he, over the course of four hours, went from feeling
exuberant about his trip to New York to despising the entire country. "I
speak the Queen's English", he said to me. "I'm third-generation
British. I came to America because I've always wanted to come here, and
now they've got me so scared that all I want to do is go home. We're
paying for your stupid war anyway."

To be powerless and mocked at the same time makes one feel ashamed,
which leads quickly to rage. Within a few hours of my arrival, I saw at
least ten people denied the right to use the bathroom or buy food and
water. I watched my traveling companion duck under a barrier, run to the
bathroom and slip back into the holding section - which, of course,
someone of another ethnicity in a state of panic would be very reluctant
to do. The United States is good at naming enemies, but apparently we
are even better at making them, especially of individuals. I don't know
if it's worse for national security - and more embarrassing for
Americans - that this is the first experience tourists have of our
country, or that some US citizens get treated this way upon entering
their own country.

The guard who had been picking his molars for hours quietly
mispronounced the names of people whose turn it was to be questioned,
muttering each surname three times and then moving on. When he called
Omar from City College to his desk, I moved closer to hear the
interview. "Where did you go?" the officer asked. "What is your address
in the United States? Is your brother here illegally? Do you support
Hezbollah? What do you think of Hezbollah in general? How do you pay for
your life here? How many people live with you? Are you sure it's just
you and your brother? Who are your friends?" Omar answered respectfully
and emphatically; he was then asked to wait by the side of the desk,
from which he was ushered toward one of the rooms.

After four hours, I finally demanded to speak to the guards' supervisor,
and he was called down. I asked if the detainees could file a formal
complaint. He said there were complaint forms (which, in English and
Spanish, direct one to the Department of Homeland Security's Web site,
where one must enter extensive personal information in order to file a
"Trip Summary") but initially refused to hand them out or to give me his
telephone number. "The Department of Homeland Security is understaffed,
underfunded, and I have men here who are doing fourteen-hour days". He
tried to intimidate me when I wrote down his name - "So, you're writing
down our names. Well, we have more on you" - and asked me questions
about my address and my profession in front of the rest of the people
detained. I pointed out a few of the families who had missed their
flights and had been waiting seven hours. His voice barely controlled,
his lip curled into a smirk, he explained slowly, condescendingly, that
they need only go to the ticket counter at Jet Blue and reschedule so
they could fly out in an hour. One mother responded with what he must
have already known: Jet Blue goes to most destinations only once or
twice a day and her whole family would have to sleep in the airport.

A large crowd began to gather. Everyone wanted to voice complaints. I
explained to the supervisor that his guards had been making people
afraid. He flipped through the green files, tossing the American
passports to the front of the pile. "You should have gone first, before
these people. American citizens first - that's how it should be." In the
face of dozens of requests and questions, he turned and left.

The guards processed me then, ignoring the order of arrivals, if there
ever had been one. They refused to distribute more complaint forms or
call the supervisor back down at the request of Arab families. One
officer threatened, "I'm talking politely to you now. If you don't sit
down, I won't be talking politely to you anymore." One announced that
because "the American girl" had gotten angry, the families would have to
wait a few more hours. "The supervisor is not coming back".

I reassured my Homeland Security interrogator that I did not make any
connections with Hezbollah or with anyone I knew to be associated with
such an organization. I am not a member of any terrorist group. In fact,
my visit to Syria had been so apolitical and touristy that I felt an
embarrassing affinity with the pastel-shirted families waiting by the
Air France baggage carousels in the distance, whom I knew I would
eventually join.

As I walked out of the enclosure, some people thanked me, squeezing my
arm and putting their hands on my shoulders. It was shocking that
briefly standing up to someone overseeing an abuse of civil rights - in
JFK airport, in the United States, where we supposedly have laws and a
democratic judicial system - could be perceived as heroic. I had nothing
to lose, but the other people being detained had everything to lose.

In the past five years I have worked for human rights and refugee
advocacy organizations in Serbia, Russia and Croatia, including the
International Rescue Committee and USAID. I have traveled to many
different places, some supposedly repressive, and have never seen people
treated with the kind of animosity that Homeland Security showed that
night. In Syria, border control officers were stern but polite. At other
borders there have been bureaucracies to contend with - excruciating for
both Americans and other foreign nationals. I've met Russian officials
with dead, suspicious looks in their eyes and arms tired from stamping
so many visas, but in America, the Homeland Security officials I
encountered were very much alive - like vultures waiting to eat.

http://www.alternet.org/story/95351/

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