increased scrutiny at POE

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Australian children's author Mem Fox detained by US border control: 'I sobbed like a baby' Author of Possum Magic was aggressively questioned for two hours over her visa status and later received an apology for her treatment by border guards The Australian children’s book author Mem Fox has suggested she might never return to the US after she was detained and insulted by border control agents at Los Angeles airport. Fox, who is famous worldwide for her best-selling books including Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes and Possum Magic, was en route to a conference in Milwaukee earlier this month when she was stopped. British Muslim teacher denied entry to US on school trip  Read more She told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she was questioned by border agents for two hours in front of a room full of people – an experience that left her feeling like she had been physically assaulted. “I have never in my life been spoken to with such insolence, treated with such disdain, with so many insults and with so much gratuitous impoliteness,” Fox said. “I felt like I had been physically assaulted which is why, when I got to my hotel room, I completely collapsed and sobbed like a baby, and I’m 70 years old.” The author attributed the aggressive questioning to border police who had been “turbocharged” by Donald Trump’s proposed travel ban. Fox said she was questioned over her visa, despite having travelled to America 116 times before without incident. She was eventually granted access to the country. After lodging a complaint over her treatment with the Australian embassy in Washington and the US embassy in Canberra, Fox received an emailed apology from US officials. Fox said she was shocked by her treatment and “couldn’t imagine” returning to the US. Fox has written more than 30 children’s books, including the hits Where is the Green Sheep? and Time for Bed. Possum Magic has sold more than three million copies and is the bestselling picture book in Australian history. https://www.theguardian.com/us... US border agents ask Muhammad Ali's son: 'Are you a Muslim?' Boxing legend’s 44-year-old son detained and questioned about religion after flying back to US from Jamaica, lawyer says Border agents detained and questioned the son of the boxing legend Muhammad Ali about his religion when he flew back to the US this month, a family lawyer said. “Where did you get your name from? Are you a Muslim?” they asked the 44-year-old Muhammad Ali Jr, who was born in Philadelphia and is a US citizen. When Ali confirmed to immigration officials at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood international airport in Florida that he was a Muslim, they began questioning him about where he was born, family friend and lawyer Chris Mancini told the Courier-Journal newspaper. The questioning lasted for about two hours. Ali had been at a black history month event in Jamaica with his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali. She was allowed to enter the country after producing a photo of herself with her famous ex-husband, who died last year, but her son had nothing to prove his link to the boxer. Australian children's author Mem Fox detained by US border control: 'I sobbed like a baby'  Read more The 7 February incident was the first time the family had been detained or questioned in this way, despite regular international travel, Mancini said. They consider it religious profiling linked to President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to bring in a “Muslim ban” and his now-suspended executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. “To the Ali family, it’s crystal clear that this is directly linked to Mr Trump’s efforts to ban Muslims from the United States,” Mancini said, adding that they were trying to find out how many others faced similar questioning, and were contemplating filing a federal lawsuit. “Imagine walking into an airport and being asked about your religion,” Mancini told the paper. “This is classic customs profiling.” Ali’s is the latest in a string of complaints about US immigration controls after the inauguration of Trump. Advertisement The former prime minister of Norway was held for nearly an hour at Washington Dulles airport earlier this month and questioned over a visit to Iran three years ago, which he had made to speak at a human rights conference. Meanwhile, the best-selling Australian children’s book author Mem Fox has suggested she might never return to the US after she was detained and insulted by border control agents at Los Angeles international airport. The 70-year-old said she was left “sobbing like a baby” after two hours of questioning while on her way to a conference. A British Muslim schoolteacher travelling to New York last week as a member of a school party from south Wales was denied entry to the US. The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, had previously claimed the US government had committed to allowing all UK passport holders to enter the country. https://www.theguardian.com/us... British Muslim schoolteacher denied entry to US A British teacher on a school field trip was escorted off an Icelandair flight to New York as 39 students looked on in shock. "As I was making my way out of the plane I looked back at the kids to tell them everything was going to be okay. The look I got off the kids, they were shocked, they couldn't believe what was happening. This is when I felt like I was a criminal," Juhel Miah, a math teacher at Llangatwg Comprehensive School in Wales told CNN. Miah, 25, was one of four school staff accompanying the children, aged 12-15, on a trip to New York, that included a one-night stopover in Reykjavik, Iceland. British citizen Miah, who is Muslim, was born in Birmingham, England, and grew up in Swansea, Wales. The trip was due to be his first visit to the US. He was traveling on his British passport with a US visitor's visa, he told CNN. Miah is not a citizen of any other country. 'Ticked all the right boxes' "It all started when I met the first official. I gave her my passport. My first name is Mohammad. Straight away she looked at me and said you have been randomly selected for a security check," Miah told CNN. After a brief search, Miah was allowed to board the plane. But shortly after that, he was informed he had been denied entry to the US and wouldn't be able to travel. "I asked her on what ground was I denied access. I got my ESTA [US visitor's] visa, I have a British passport, I ticked all the rights boxes. She did not give me an answer," he said. Icelandair told CNN, "We refused carriage to Mr. Miah based on a recommendation from the US Customs and Border Protection Agency and line with our conditions of carriage." The school trip proceeded but the teacher's removal from the flight left students "shocked and distressed," the school district said in a statement. The students, aged 12-15, returned from the US on Monday. Miah returned to the United Kingdom the following day. 'Act of discrimination' In a letter to British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Carwyn Jones, the First Minister of Wales, said the incident appeared to be "an act of discrimination against a UK passport holder, and asked Johnson to seek an explanation from US authorities. Jones said the incident appeared to contradict Foreign Office advice for UK citizens traveling to the US, and statements made by Johnson. Days after President Donald Trump's executive order travel ban was signed on January 27, Johnson told the House of Commons, "We have received assurances from the U.S. Embassy that this executive order will make no difference to any British passport holder, irrespective of their country of birth or whether they hold another passport." The British Foreign Office said in a statement provided to CNN, "We are providing support to a British man who was prevented from boarding a flight in Reykjavik," but did not provide further details. The Muslim Council of Wales said it was "deeply troubled" by the incident. CNN has reached out to US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for more information. http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/21/...

paladin · Feb 25, 2017 7:17 PM · 10,855 views

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very good. I like this. This should be increased and USA should be great again. Fucking retards from third world country like me should work for betterment of their own country and people. I am very happy and dont have any complaint though i would love border-less world.

paradox · Feb 25, 2017 8:27 PM

U.S. detains and nearly deports French Holocaust historian By James McAuley February 26 at 2:12 PM PARIS — Henry Rousso is one of France’s most preeminent scholars and public intellectuals. Last week, as the historian attempted to enter the United States to attend an academic symposium, he was detained for more than 10 hours — for no clear reason. On Wednesday, Rousso arrived at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport after an 11-hour flight from Paris, en route to Texas A&M University in College Station. There, he was to speak Friday afternoon at the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study. But things did not go according to plan: Rousso — an Egyptian-born French citizen — was “mistakenly detained” by U.S. immigration authorities, according to Richard Golsan, director of the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M. “When he called me with this news two nights ago, he was waiting for customs officials to send him back to Paris as an illegal alien on the first flight out,” Golsan said Friday at the symposium, according to the Eagle, a newspaper that covers the College Station area. The university then sprang into action, the Eagle reported, with President Michael Young reaching out to law professor Fatma Marouf, who earlier this month had assisted in writing an amicus brief against President Trump’s executive order banning refugees from around the world and travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations. Marouf quickly and successfully intervened with immigration authorities, and Rousso was released and allowed to deliver his lecture. After weeks of headlines related to Trump's travel ban, incident drew immediate attention around the world -- especially in a France on the eve of presidential elections this coming April and May. Emmanuel Macron, the popular centrist candidate for the French presidency, used the Rousso affair to repeat his pitch to U.S. scientists and researchers who he has said would be better off in France rather than in the America of Donald Trump. "There is no excuse for what happened to Henry Rousso," Macron wrote Sunday on Twitter. "Our country is open to scientists and intellectuals." For his part, Rousso confirmed the details of his experience Saturday on Twitter: “I have been detained 10 hours at Houston Itl Airport about to be deported. The officer who arrested me was ‘inexperienced.’” It remains unclear what about Rousso was identified as suspect by immigration authorities. Egypt — from which Rousso and his family, as Jews, were exiled in 1956, after a slew of anti-Semitic measures imposed by the administration of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz — was not among the seven nations in the travel ban, which had been suspended by the time he arrived in the United States. Furthermore, France is a beneficiary of the U.S. visa waiver program, which permits French citizens to enter the United States without a visa. All that is required is an online ESTA application before departure. For Marouf, Rousso’s ordeal was indicative of a strict new U.S. border control regime: “It seems like there’s much more rigidity and rigor in enforcing these immigration requirements and technicalities of every visa,” she told the Eagle. Rousso’s scholarship focuses on the memory of the Vichy regime, the darkest chapter in modern French history, when the government of unoccupied France collaborated with Nazi Germany in World War II. Vichy authorities are particularly infamous for assisting the Germans in rounding up and deporting tens of thousands of Jews from France during the Holocaust, which Rousso once called “the past that does not pass.” He spoke Friday on a similar subject in College Station, in a lecture titled “Writing on the Dark Side of the Recent Past.” Fellow historians took to social media after news of Rousso's experience, many pointing out what they considered the uncomfortable irony of the arbitrary detention of a Holocaust historian. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian at New York University, said on Twitter, “His work on cost of forgetting past (Vichy) so relevant.” “Thank you so much for your reactions,” Rousso posted Saturday evening on Twitter in response. “My situation was nothing compared to some of the people I saw who couldn't be defended as I was.” “It is now necessary to deal with the utmost arbitrariness and incompetence on the other side of the Atlantic,” Rousso wrote Sunday in the French edition of the Huffington Post. “What I know, in loving this country forever, is that the United States is no longer quite the United States.” https://www.washingtonpost.com...

paladin · Feb 26, 2017 6:11 PM

Software engineer detained at JFK, given test to prove he's an engineer Donald Trump's temporary immigration ban and the ensuing heightened security procedures for travelers from outside the U.S. have caused a great deal of trouble for visitors to the country. On Sunday, though, things got taken to the next level when the Customs and Border Protection office reportedly claimed its latest victim: 28-year-old Celestine Omin, who was traveling from Lagos, Nigeria on business. Omin, a software engineer at Andela — a tech startup that connects developers in Africa with U.S employers — had a particularly unwelcoming reception when he deplaned at John F. Kennedy Airport and was given a test to prove he was actually a software engineer. SEE ALSO: Powerful magazine covers depict America after Trump's immigration ban A LinkedIn post detailing Omin's challenging experience explained that upon landing in New York after spending 24 miserable hours on a Qatar Airways flight, he was given some trouble about the short-term visa he obtained for his trip.  According to the post, an unprepared and exhausted Omin waited in the airport for approximately 20 minutes before being questioned by a Customs and Border Protection officer about his occupation. After several questions were asked, he was reportedly brought to a small room and told to sit down, where he was left for another hour before another customs officer entered and resumed grilling him. "Your visa says you are a software engineer. Is that correct?" the officer reportedly asked Omin. After verbally confirming his occupation, Omin was given a piece of paper and a pen to test his knowledge as a software engineer. Omin was instructed to answer the following questions: "Write a function to check if a Binary Search Tree is balanced." "What is an abstract class, and why do you need it."  Follow Celestine Omin @cyberomin I was just asked to balance a Binary Search Tree by JFK's airport immigration. Welcome to America. 11:26 AM - 26 Feb 2017 · Manhattan, NY    6,5266,526 Retweets    5,5525,552 likes According to the LinkedIn post, Omin who has over seven years of experience in his department, was seriously sleep deprived and emotionally flustered by this point. Thus, he felt the questions were "opaque and could have multiple answers." In fact, to him they looked suspiciously like the officer simply Googled, "Questions to ask a software engineer," which he addressed in comments on his Twitter account. 26 Feb Celestine Omin @cyberomin @ssharwood I was too tired to even think of a BST solution. I have e been travelling for 23hrs. But I was also asked about 10 CS questions.  Follow Celestine Omin @cyberomin @ssharwood sad thing is, if I didn't give the Wikipedia definition for these questions, it was considered a wrong answer. 6:37 PM - 26 Feb 2017    262262 Retweets  <li class="Tweet-action" style="dis

paladin · Feb 28, 2017 8:10 PM

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increased scrutiny at POE

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