Flying While PAKISTAN (Part 1)

The United States is the only country in the world that subjects me to invasive physical searches and threats when crossing its borders—and I’m American.  I’ve been denied a research visa to India during a particularly fraught time in U.S.-India relations; I’ve had a Pakistani work visa held up for a nerve-wracking amount of time due to Pakistani concerns about American vigilantes; I’ve had to make a 500-mile round-trip journey to the French consulate in Chicago for the sole purpose of giving my fingerprints for a long-stay visa; and I’ve been rudely questioned by surly British border agents at London Heathrow multiple times (but who of any worth hasn’t?).  However, nowhere but my country-of-origin regularly sends me to something called ‘Secondary Review’ at Passport Control, and then also shows a disturbing proclivity at Customs to go through my books, research materials, and underwear. 

And worse.  But we’ll get to that.

By way of background, regular readers of this blog probably know that I spent the past semester teaching at the Shaikh Ahmad Hasan School of Law at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).  This was my second stint teaching at LUMS over the years.  Fortunately, I was actually able to finish out this semester with my lovely group of students; the first time I taught at LUMS—back in the fall semester of 2001—9/11 intervened.  I was in Lahore, teaching at LUMS, on a Fulbright, when the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked (it all happened while I was away from campus for an hour trying to buy my first mobile phone).  During those uncertain times, the Fulbright program decided to shut down in Pakistan (as it did in Israel, Indonesia, and some other places too).

During that autumn in 2001, I ultimately relocated 200 miles east to Delhi to finish my Pakistani Fulbright in India.  As a result, my fellowship money got held up; it had to be disbursed to me in a roundabout way to satisfy the Government of India; but that was the extent of my (inter)governmental troubles.  I even went back to Pakistan a couple of times during this time to visit my then-partner.  I think the Pakistanis told me one time at the land border (just west of Amritsar) that I couldn’t take a copy of India Today into Pakistan; on the way back, the Indians maybe had me put my backpack through an X-ray machine.  But I was white, the holder of a U.S. passport, on a Fulbright to boot, and had gone to law school.  In other words, I was not worth their time, and whatever prurient interests there may have been in my undergarments were stymied by the chaste responsibilities of a personal and governmental sense of hospitality.

As for Secondary Review, most regular readers of this blog probably do not know what it is—and for good reason.  It’s not conducted in any open space in American airports (the situation was different in Abu Dhabi; but more on that in a future post).  And it’s also not for white people.

I say this because the three times I recall being sent to a room with other people to undergo Secondary Review—one additional time, I was just asked, immediately beyond Passport Control, for an additional form of identification showing my U.S. address—I have been the only white person in this room.  Indeed, a chorus of eyes always welcomes me to this room, lyrically posing an indelicate question:  “What the fuck are YOU doing here?”

It’s an indelicate question, but a fair one.  In fact, I’ve even been asked this (in more words than less) by a Secondary Review officer.  In this respect, the first time I was sent to any sort of intensive Secondary Review was back in the Fall of 2006, when I was returning to New Haven after spending a long weekend in Buenos Aires (these were still the days when frequent flier miles still allowed you to travel to interesting places for free).  After waiting around in a fairly dingy and secluded room with other (brown and black) travelers, I was called up to a desk for a round of questioning by an officer who was thoroughly confused about what I was doing there.  While having my passport in his possession, his initial set of questions were more in the nature of “Uhhh… uhhh… what is your name? [I am buying time until my computer tells me something important] … What is your nationality? [I still have no idea what is going on here.]” than “What have you done wrong?” 

At some point during this interrogation, the questions turned to what I did professionally.  I answered that I was on a fellowship at Yale Law School.  Some more questions were then posed, including where I grew up.  Finally, he asked me where I went to college.  I answered “Harvard.”  Much to my surprise, that immediately ended the interrogation, as the officer exclaimed “Harvard!  Harvard?  Harvard!  You are free to go!!!”

During the course of that 2006 Secondary Review, while I was never really told what had caused me to be flagged for questioning—partly because the officer conducting it never himself seemed entirely sure—one prime suspect was my history of traveling to Pakistan.  That being said, I had been traveling back and forth to Pakistan (where a former partner of mine grew up and still lives) since 1997.  But it was only in 2006 that I started to come under suspicion by Passports and Customs peeps.

None of my luggage was gone through by hand at Customs after Passport Control’s Secondary Review of me in 2006.  This would all change later.  In future posts, I will describe in detail the additional scrutiny and abuse that I have endured when entering the United States, but for now I want to flag three important questions which I think need attention, especially at this moment in time.  These are:

1)  The link between racial profiling by U.S. police departments and racial/nationality-profiling by the U.S. homeland security apparatus.  In this respect, I appear to have been made an honorary Pakistani.  In all honesty, this is just great; I have always cherished my time in Pakistan.  But I do want any Pakistani citizenship honors to be bestowed by the Government of Pakistan, and not the United States Government.

2)  The grotesque ‘welcome’ that the United States presents to many of its foreign (imputed or otherwise) guests.   I believe that until we return to (or develop) a deep sense of hospitality and manners towards people who travel to our shores and borders, the U.S. government will not be able to overcome a very widespread image—based in reality—that it is ‘mean’ in every sense of the word.

3)  What happens when you tell Americans in uniform that they can go wild:  what they desire, what they desire to do, what they do do.  This particular issue connects not only to the issue of ‘governmental manners’ but also to John Yoo’s 'naivety.'  It also serves as a lead-in to a future post, where I will detail a threat made to me by a (male) U.S. Customs agent in 2011 to anally rape me if I did not divulge confidential information about my interviews with Indian nationals (I have been conducting such interviews for some time in relation to a book I am writing about non-state Muslim dispute resolution in India).  This rape threat was made in a context where I was also told that “No law can help you.  No law applies here on the border.”  Sadly then, it really was not much of a surprise to me to find out, while I was in Lahore, that (ostensibly heterosexual?) men working for the U.S. government had been rectally raping/feeding terrorism suspects.  Boys gone wild.

To be continued.  Comments welcome; I am moderating them.

Comments

[Doug Richmond]

Shouldn't the title be "Flying While Pakistani" rather than "Flying While Pakistan"?

[Jeff Redding]

Artistic license? In any event, I am still not 'Pakistani' (officially), but I do have visas in my U.S. passport that quite prominently say "Pakistan."

[Observer]

Can't imagine why the US government would take a special interest in people who travel regularly to places like Pakistan, Algeria, or Yemen, most of whom aren't white.

On the other hand, to be fair, we should be submitting more regular travelers to Sweden to Secondary Review, so more white people would be screened.

[Jeff Redding]

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/norway-shooter-anders-breivik-smiles-21-year-prison/story?id=17072142

[Observer]

Anders Breivik is your example of why USCIS shouldn't distinguish between countries in screening people? Really?

You really don't think that the United States government has a legitimate security interest in giving special scrutiny to people who travel to certain parts of the world? Been following the news from Paris?

[Jeff Redding]

Observer: What is your non-racist point? If there isn't one, please stop commenting. I will delete future comments that are not constructive.

[anon]

Jeff

I understood your point to be that you were repeatedly surprised, as were others, that YOU were singled out for scrutiny: and, this sense of surprise (and objection) seemed to be based on your race ("what the f are YOU doing here" based only on your skin tone).

So, I don't understand your point. Are you saying that racial profiling is wrong, and therefore it is a credit to the authorities that you were subjected to enhanced scrutiny based on your travel patterns and not on your skin tone or ethnicity, or, are you complaining because racial and socio economic profiling did not excuse you (HARVARD!!!) from the humiliation of scrutiny?

[Jeff Redding]

Anon: There isn't a neat narrative point here, especially because this is just the first of a multi-part series. One thing you might have already picked up on, however, is how prone to abuse this entire system of scrutiny is. In fact, one of the first things I thought after I got out of Secondary back in 2006, was "Ha, Unabomber!" Also, I guess the boys in Customs didn't (don't?) find Harvard boys sexy enough to molest. I just wish they didn't want to touch other people improperly too.

[Matt]

For what it's worth, one of my best friends (a very clearly white guy from Idaho) got sent to secondary review when returning from a family vacation from Egypt about 4 or 5 years back. His wife, who had gone through immigration before him (I don't know why they didn't go through together) didn't know what had happened to him until he got out after about 30 minutes or so. They were both lucky it didn't take too long, but it was unpleasant.

[Jeff Redding]

anon: I've deleted what appear to be four nearly simultaneous posts by you. In any event, enough with the quoting out of context and baiting. Take this behavior elsewhere.

[Jeff Redding]

I've also deleted what might have been a response to anon's baiting. In any event, if anyone has a question about what I "mean" by this post, you may ask me directly whether than engage in back-and-forths in front of me about my words (whether in defense of me or not). In not asking me directly, you are perpetrating the dehumanizing experience that many people go through at Secondary Review, where ignorant border officers debate, right in front of these people, the "meaning" of their lives and whether they are "dangerous."

[Adam]

Jeff, Sadly much of American citizenry have no concept of what this country's immigration/homeland security laws entail. American citizens who marry foreign nationals and then contact an immigration lawyer to find out what needs to be done are often shocked beyond belief that marriage alone does not magically transform the foreign national - a'la a wave of the magic wand - into someone who can come and go like the citizen him/her-self.

[Jeff Redding]

Adam: Thanks for your observations. I'm wondering, however, *who* would want to come-and-go like this citizen! So far as I can discern, membership doesn't have its privileges (to mis-paraphrase an old American Express slogan). But I'll talk more about that later in future posts.

[Adam]

Most Americans never have the experience you've had and so have no conception of what secondary inspection is like. And everybody else, well....it speaks volumes for how highly individuals hold the USA. They will endure a lot to come to this country and live and work here. And I'm not even talking about the people who are doing so in violation of the law.