A scary ordeal at U.S. immigration

[Kellanved]

Trip Home From Europe Becomes Kafkaesque Ordeal



NEW YORK A German woman married to a Brooklyn schoolteacher had been told that she had all her permits when she took a quick trip to show off her infant daughter to her parents in Germany.
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But her return home in late December turned surreal and terrifying when Homeland Security officials at Kennedy Airport rejected her documents, confiscated her passport, then detained her and the 3-month-old for 18 hours in a room with shackled drug suspects. They let her go only after ordering her to leave the country no later than Jan. 22.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/125919.html

[silverweb]

1. Unbelievable.

I thought that foreigners who married Americans were given automatic legal residency? There are some hoops to jump through, of course, to prevent abuse of the system, but has it changed that radically?

I am ashamed of what my government has become.

:(

[Voice_of_Europe]

2. Link to German story.... more facts

<http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,282986,00.html>

She specially visited the INS bureau beore she flew out of the country where they told her that her visa was prolonged!!!

The guys at customs denied it!

After the ordeal she went to ISN again and they told here again! PROLONGED! VALID!!

And why the hell didnt they even let her have a phone call with her husband???
The man must have died of fear without hearing anything from his wife and child! He could have confirmed everything
Imagine: Their german relatives confirm her departure and she never shows up at the pickup in NY!!? What would YOU think?!

Outrageous!!

Pleading to the guards that her husband was waiting some few hundred metres away...that she needed to nurse her child was just answered with "shut up!"
Telling them that INS TOLD HER its valid and that she wouldn't ever have left the country without them confirming: Same answer "shut up!"
Telling them she needed to change diapers on her child Clara .. "shut up"!! Foreign newborn children obviously have to expect same treatment as terrorists
All they told her: "you're going home with the next plane to Germany"
she only could answer under tears "but NY is my home since 5 years"...


after 18 hours ordeal she was allowed to leave the airport and get home and get some cloths and stuff for here baby ONLY IF SHE BOUGHT A TICKET TO GERMANY RIGHT AWAY!!

After she was in NY again she visited the INS bureau again.. "Valid!" they told her, "Case closed"...

But it wasn't closed! Antje and Clara faced a LIFELONG BAN from entering the US ever again since she illegally entered the country (with a valid visum!!)
She had 30 days to proof she was legal and ISN didnt help her doing it!!

Finally she was allowed to stay...
BUT GREEN CARD gone!!!
She had to stay another 2 years in country without travelling anywhere, without seeing her parents to get the Green Card again!

Yet again only with the help of the media (media angles in this case, for once not media whores) she could grab attention of some officials..


The outcome:
2 adys before she would have had to go back "home" to Germany they told her: FOR HUMANITARIAN REASONS she is allowed to stay as a special case!!! And she hasn't even something written to confirm it!!!

She has done nothing and now has the stigma of a criminal who is a special case and probably only allowed to the US because she is the mother of a US child since it was born in US which she has to nurse. What else humanitarian reason can you think of?

Probably few steps away from taking the baby from her!!??



As a European I can guarantee you that I won't set foot into the US for many years to come if ever I can avoid it because we hear those horror report en mass!! Practically everybody I know thinks ilke this here...

[Kellanved]

7. Yeah, that one is quite a bit more critical

Comparing the US border to the GDR's border and everything.

[non sociopath skin]

3. All too believable ...

... see my wedding story in the strand about the "Bombs in my Bag" lady.

I hear more and more Brits swearing that they'll never visit the States again.

Sad.

The Skin

[JaySherman]

4. How long before they start doing this to U.S. CITIZENS too?

Americans returning home from abroad getting denied entry and detained. It would seem to be an inevitable eventuality.

[Voice_of_Europe]

5. Travel history...

specially when you have been to "axis-of-evil" countries like France or Germany...

Customs ask you stupid questions anyway when they see some stamp in your passport they don't like.

I know many people with dual nationality and they always keep their US passport "clean" and go to carib vacation in cuba with their other passport.

I recall from earlier years that I used to be proud of "collecting" stamps of foreign countries immigrations and having customs people of tourist destinations being astonished and happy and friendly to see how many countries I had already been to...
Nowadays you have to worry about each stamp wether you will get problems entering another country which hates that stamp...

[gator_in_Ontario]

6. My Canadian wife and I

have enough stories of nightmares at both borders to fill a book. Maybe we will write one...NEVER with a 3 month old baby though...sheesh.