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when visiting the US
Mar. 19th, 2005 22:01it's apparently a bad idea to tell immigration that you are a blogger. you'll get the third degree, strip searched, denied entry, and flagged for any future entry. i must be kidding? i wish. canadian blogger jeremy wright was detained and interrogated by immigration when he tried to travel to NYC for a meeting with a US media company to discuss a job.
jeremy has removed the original posts including the nitty-gritty details from his website. i am not sure whether he's afraid that they might cause him more problems in the future; that's certainly possible. i am therefore feeling a little torn posting about this. but he still has one final post up, which contains this exchange between an immigration officer and himself:
Him: Why would you visit someone in the states you’d never met (I mentioned I was planning to visit several people whilst down there)
Me: Well, I have met most of them, but I’ve talked to them dozens or hundreds of times online.
Him: Do you have any of their phone numbers?
Me: No, but I talk
Him: You can’t talk to someone without a phone number. Stop lying to me.
Me: No, really, I can talk from my computer to theirs
Him: Don’t be a smartass. If you don’t have their phone number, and you’ve never met them, how can you have ever talked to them.
Me: … (at this point I’ve learned that sarcasm doesn’t help, nor does answering questions he doesn’t want to hear the answer to)
Him: So, you’re trying to tell me that you’re going to visit someone who you’ve never met, never talked to and who knows nothing about you? And I’m supposed to believe this?
Me: … (This was two hours in, and minutes before I demanded to be released)
good grief. yeah, this makes the border more secure; immigration officials who live in the stone age.
like lots of people on my flist, i've met scores of wonderful people whom i never called on the phone -- we talked in newsgroups and in email. i have gotten job offers from people who had never met me. i have close epistolary friendships with some people. i bet using the term "epistolary" at the border would be a really bad idea too.
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politech_bot
jeremy has removed the original posts including the nitty-gritty details from his website. i am not sure whether he's afraid that they might cause him more problems in the future; that's certainly possible. i am therefore feeling a little torn posting about this. but he still has one final post up, which contains this exchange between an immigration officer and himself:
Him: Why would you visit someone in the states you’d never met (I mentioned I was planning to visit several people whilst down there)
Me: Well, I have met most of them, but I’ve talked to them dozens or hundreds of times online.
Him: Do you have any of their phone numbers?
Me: No, but I talk
Him: You can’t talk to someone without a phone number. Stop lying to me.
Me: No, really, I can talk from my computer to theirs
Him: Don’t be a smartass. If you don’t have their phone number, and you’ve never met them, how can you have ever talked to them.
Me: … (at this point I’ve learned that sarcasm doesn’t help, nor does answering questions he doesn’t want to hear the answer to)
Him: So, you’re trying to tell me that you’re going to visit someone who you’ve never met, never talked to and who knows nothing about you? And I’m supposed to believe this?
Me: … (This was two hours in, and minutes before I demanded to be released)
good grief. yeah, this makes the border more secure; immigration officials who live in the stone age.
like lots of people on my flist, i've met scores of wonderful people whom i never called on the phone -- we talked in newsgroups and in email. i have gotten job offers from people who had never met me. i have close epistolary friendships with some people. i bet using the term "epistolary" at the border would be a really bad idea too.
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politech_bot