Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Border Crossings, aka Interrogation Central
Am currently on a bit of a whirlwhind trip thru a few cities in the Eastern bits of Canada. I hesitate to say "coast" b/c I'm not in the Maritimes :)
Last Sunday (that was mere days after the UK gel/liquid incident) I drove to NYC with some friends. The border line was long (to put it mildly) and when we finally (after at least two hours) got to the head of the line the customs officer (while not rude) was certainly... very customs officer-like. How better to describe that I know not.
CO (customs officer): Sir, have you ever had any problems crossing the border?
JH: Nooo...
CO: Let me ask you that one more time sir, have you ever had any PROBLEMS crossing the BORDER?
JH: Um... it depends on how you define problem?...
CO: Why don't you tell me what happened and I'll decide?
...
The upshot is that we had to go into that special room where they send ur passports (I think there's a magical chute between the little booths and THE ROOM). As my friend pointed out, if it wasn't racial profiling, we didn't know what to call it. There were about 20 ppl waiting, 1 caucasian person. Everyone else basically looked Hispanic or Middle Eastern...
posted by allimalia 9:54 AM
