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Home arrow NIJC Immigration News Blog arrow U.S. Citizen Recounts Detention by Homeland Security at JFK Airport

U.S. Citizen Recounts Detention by Homeland Security at JFK Airport Print E-mail
Monday, 18 August 2008
From Alternet: "I was recently stopped by Homeland Security as I was returning from a trip to Syria. What I saw in the hours that followed shocked and disturbed me."

Emily Feder, a reporter for Alternet, returned from a tourist visit to Syria and was detained by the Department of Homeland Security when she tried to return home to the United States. Her essay reveals the fear tactics and profiling that U.S. immigration officers practice every day as both citizens and visitors attempt to enter our country.

 

Be sure to read the full article. Here is an excerpt:

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 14-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.

 
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