“Those other court rulings are clearly erroneous by any logical reading of the text.”
CBP was authorized by an Act of Congress and Congress can make no law prohibiting the free expression of religion.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3846
You were lucky. Shortly after 9/11 I went through security and the alarms went off. Unknown to me, a pair of scissors had been knocked off my desk into my carry-on computer bag (I blame the cat). I didn’t get a body cavity search but the TSA folks weren’t happy campers.
If you want to get through CBP quickly then you need to get a Global Entry card. You automatically get TSA PreCheck for domestic and breeze through CBP for international (works for flights and cruises).
And this incident, where passengers on a domestic flight were asked for documentation when de-planing, seems unusual, even though the article states a DHS official says it’s routine. The last italicized paragraph adds to the murkiness.
I’ve travelled enough to know that a) some CPB personnel can be real asswipes even to American citizens and b) TSA screening is often a joke. In contrast, my experience in some other countries is that they do a much better job at handling those 2 functions in a professional, effective and efficient manner. They are polite but much more thorough.
"If you want to get through CBP quickly then you need to get a Global Entry card. "
The American NASA scientist had Global Entry.
Unless the bill requires the CBP to interrogate Muslims differently, I don’t understand your point.
According to this, there were 724,000 people detained/arrested/refused entry in 2012 (during Obama’s administration):
Other incidents in the Obama administration (where was the outrage???):
https://www.rt.com/usa/abdurrahman-npr-border-detain-291/
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/08/u_s_filmmaker_repeatedly_detained_at_border/
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-08-15/bollywood-star-detained-by-us-customs/1392366
Oh, there was outrage over those incidents and accusations of profiling. But now we seem to have the glee of Filch, with Umbridge in charge of Hogwarts, who rifles through his file cabinet looking for the “permission for whipping” form.
I, for one, am wary of giving too much power to people who could be petty bullies just waiting for a chance to victimize someone.
“Immigration Agents discover new freedom to deport under Trump”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/ice-immigrant-deportations-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand the US has been far too lax about illegal immigration for far too long, and it is good that its laws are finally being enforced. But the danger is not in the enforcement of immigration laws, but in the xenophobia that is driving the actions against many groups, whether here legally or not.
I agree about the xenophobia concerns and I’m all for legal immigration but 1) the previous president had greatly increased deportations and turning back people at the border without all the fearful rhetoric and bias towards certain countries/religions and 2) we’re talking also about harassment of US citizens here. To me, that is not a step towards reining in illegal immigration as much as it is discrimination and an overreaching of power.
Additionally, some of the enforcement seems to have little to do with national security and more to do with strongman politics.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-hospital-seizure-20170223-story.html
All the grandstanding and “round em up” rhetoric that is energizing the base is blowing up in his face.
I think one thing everyone agrees upon is that our immigration system does need an overhaul and that includes enacting laws that make sense and are enforced. How you go about doing that though makes all the difference in the world. And feeding a political base should not be the main objective in that effort.
I just read the LA Times article and three thoughts crossed my mind.
Of course, I am probably ignoring the real point, which is to spread fear.
I lived overseas for 13 years (1995-2008) and was married to a non-US citizen who eventually obtained a green card. CBP personnel were always a concern for me, and then us. At some stage, after the birth of our son, we learned that he, 2 years old, was on the do not fly list…Sometimes we had very professional, courteous officers and sometimes they were not pleasant at all. We were always very polite no matter their conduct. Also, I have travelled to 35ish countries and many of their border guards are equally unpleasant. I believe what is happening now that is mentioned above has been occurring for a long time it has just not gotten the attention. Also, I am sure with the recent discussions, there are some CBP personnel that have ratcheted up their interrogations as they are emboldened.
I too have no problem with enforcing our immigration laws but you can do it without scare tactics. Its all quite disingenuous because good deal could be accomplished by mandating e-verify but then a lot of cheap labor would disappear.
It also reminds me of when I have my hair in braids, or I have it big and natural and TSA feels the need to subject me to extra screening by pawing thru my hair.
“Unless the bill requires the CBP to interrogate Muslims differently, I don’t understand your point.”
He was singled out because of his name and then interrogated because he was Muslim. There was no other reason.
As a US citizen, CBP cannot deny re-entry. If it’s a law enforcement issue, then the police or FBI would be the appropriate agencies. Asking about his religion and beliefs is over the line. No question.
It has been tried before in recent history. But the attempts whether passed (as in 1986) or not passed (more recent attempts) have not been particularly successful. Considering that each major party is not unified on the subject, and some of the noisiest activism on the subject is based on hot buttons of race/ethnicity/religion, it is not surprising that more recent attempts have failed. Everyone agrees that the system is broken, but there is no agreement on what the fix should be.
My husband was detained a few years ago , along with several other international flight passengers. The reason for my husband’s detainment was because he was robbed in the airport upon landing in Denmark. He spent the week which was supposed to be a visit with his elderly mother , trying to obtain his lost ID and documents so that he could simply come back home. One of the problems was that NONE of the CBP agents had any clue how to interpret his temporary travel documents obtained from both the embassy of his home county OR the USA.
He really wasn’t treated with any different attitude because of where he was from than the others who were detained. He said the agents were all pretty jerky to everyone from the Swedish nanny without the proper visa to the loud mouth, belligerent middle eastern men claiming that they were being profiled.
If , ( I am holding my judgement for the time being ) He was asked repeatedly about his religion , then that is clearly out of line.
Millions of passengers arrive through international terminals in our airports daily and it isn’t unusual to have passengers flagged and detained for many reasons, many which likely have no merit.
One must also keep in mind that it wasn’t too long ago that US immigration policies were structured deliberately to strongly discourage or even bar immigration from certain regions of the world for racial and/or religious reasons.
For instance, the strictly limited set quotas on the numbers of Asian immigrants each year compared with their Northern White European counterparts wasn’t lifted until the mid-1960’s.
Another thing to keep in mind which may factor into the illegal immigration issue from the immigrant perspective, the fact the immigration process can be ridiculously lengthy with many bureaucratic snafus due to lack of adequate numbers and quality of staffing.
For instance, it took my father 20 odd years after getting his Green Card to get his citizenship despite a conscientious immigration lawyer working on his behalf because the INS kept “losing” his forms.
His immigration lawyer felt what my father experienced was so outrageous that when my father finally obtained his citizenship right when I was in the middle of undergrad, he refused any further payment for his services beyond the initial retainer and fees at the beginning because he felt it wasn’t right to take advantage of someone who he felt was screwed over so badly by the INS bureaucracy and the immigration process. And his story is far from an isolated case judging by what I’ve heard from other immigrants and friends who work as immigration lawyers.