I would understand this behavior if he at least was wearing a F*&k Bush t-shirt:
But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.
Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit - meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon - eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.
And then:
Ms. Cooper said that at the airport, when she begged to know what was happening to Mr. Salerno, an agent told her, “You know, he should try spending a little more time in his own country.”…read on
That was probably music to Tom Tancredo’s ears. I doubt Geno would serve him a Philly cheesesteak either, but shackels?
I like Digby’s take:
One of the most frustrating things about the authoritarian house that Bush built is the argument that you have to trust them, they’re only doing it to “keep the country safe.” But when you put a large bunch of bozos in boots and uniforms and give them the authority to be assholes — some of them will inevitably be assholes. If you’ve read anything about the totalitarian states of the 20th century, you know what can happen.
Filed Under: Homeland Security, Immigration, Scandals
Tags: Immigration, Scandals
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dude.
[Edited for effect. Dude, yourself! I see what you’re trying to do. ALL CAPS and/or All Bold comments are considered shouting in all but a very few contexts. This is not one of those contexts. Please stop shouting. Thank you. Site Monitor]
too true. I’v been frisked at every airport I went through since 9/11. I just happen to be picked randomly, no doubt.
I need a president that wont drive my crazy,,, one who knows when its time to hey hit the highway!
Let us pray this happens come this November,,,,,or whenever the courts decide of such.
Friar Tuck @ 3:
All my bags are packed
Im ready to go
Im standin here outside the WH door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the january 09 dawn is breakin
Its early morn and Paraguay beckons
So curse me and party for me
Tell me that youll never miss me
Speak my name like youll never heard of it
cause Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go
when they build the gw library, why don’t they make man-sized
capsule and put gw in it for prosperity to find. but with a warning
label that contents are under the IQ of desiccated crap and a large
stench will occur on opening.
We have a retard in the white house and retards protecting our borders.
Will any of the candidates for president roll back the Police State Bush and Cheney have created??? Someone should ask them that one.
Can you believe that tourism to the US is actually down?
People should be afraid. Think about what happened to Governor Siegelman and he was an American. The government is capable of anything and most people either don’t realize it OR just don’t care if it isn’t happening to them.
I’ve said it before and might as well say it again now…
Welcome to what is rapidly becoming the Western Bloc…right here in the good ol’
United
States of
Authoritarianism
Heh. The sad thing is to those racist pricks in the INS that an Italian is hard to physically distinguish from an Arab, and we all know those darkies are alike, right? (Gag!)
I wait to see what happens when, say, a Greek Orthodox priest tries to get in for a visit….
And the fallout….
Damn just Damn.
What the fuck are wrong with these people??? And even a fucking rethuglican senator couldn’t spring him! When the fuck will there finally be a civil uprising to this madness? When there’s no difference between us and North Korea?
Funny, isn’t it, that these are the same people who for 20 years went on and on ad nauseum about the inherent evils of ‘big government’.
But if it’s their ‘big government’, then Heil Shitler and shut the fuck up.
Government by the arseholes, by the arseholes, by the arseholes.
These kinds of things make me hate my country. Yes, hate. There, I said it.
Good Morning America, Looks like a lot of shitty news coming from your side of the pond.
(except of course the news that Karl Rove might be arrested, that’s wonderful.)
And once again bush was allowed to close to a microphone and embarrassed his country and break one of the primary rules of International Protocol by going political in a foreign country AND at the celebration of the 60th year of the Jewish Statehood.
Yes, the man is very embarrassing to all of America. Those who are not embarrassed must be the 24% moron Factor.
This story is familiar to me I get stopped (only in America) many times when I come home to the states, the reason? I have a thick Italian accent and look Italian. So this story, while it is terrible, is not one that is not heard of over here. You should hear some of the horror stories that American Ex-Pats and Europeans have to tell about their experiences with America Customs people.
Rebel Yell @ 13:
it’s already happening. when was the last time msm reported on a protest?
♠Bangkok-Bob♠ @ 16:
Mr. Bob, the people here couldn’t tell a Sephardic Jew from a Baluchi, so what do you expect? Americans are some of the dumbest people on the planet.
How long before it’s ok for them to shoot people they don’t like the look of?
MargeAggedon @ 19:
You mean they stopped? Just look at all the incidents of gay-bashing and attacks on blacks and tell me they actually stopped.
This is horrible, but I’m not surprised after what happened to us.
We adopted a girl from South Korea. She was 19 at the time of the adoption, but we had her in our home since she was 15 and wanted to help her mother by putting her through college. We went through with an adoption to assure funds for her education here in case anything happened to us. The adoption stipulated that it did NOT change her immigration status, so after her HS graduation she returned home to work and financially help her mother for the summer. We (and our lawyer) collected all of the proper paperwork for her to apply for a student visa for her return, as required by the law.
When she went to the our embassy in Seoul to get the student visa as she was instructed her visa was refused and the embassy employee slammed a window shut in her face. She was then stuck in Seoul for a year until Carl Levin interceded and she was granted the student visa. The reason she was refused? Because of the adoption Homeland Security did not feel she had sufficient ties to her home country to insure she would return! She was considered a “flight risk”. The fact that she was legally our daughter and had never violated a visa meant nothing to them. We could not even contact the embassy directly to try to straighten this out - all email and phone calls were routed through Washington and we were told we had “no rights” in this matter. Regardless of the fact that we had been declared her legal parents in a US court.
At least she didn’t sit in a jail like this poor guy, but our border system and immigration laws are seriously screwed up. But if this country keeps going in the same direction it has we’ll have more people scrambling to get out than in.
ashton @ 8:
True. Even though Bush now has the dollar at half the value it was compared to the Euro eight years ago.
Bush Hates America - For Our Freedoms
Atilla the Hungry @ 22:
These are excellent points you bring up. Europeans could have a hell of a vacation in America with the dollar being so weak against the Euro, but nobody want to go to America.
dadams @ 5:
The GW library will consist of a single bible, and a stack of comics.
He might throw in a coloring book or two.
Bozos with the authority to be assholes. Cops are out of hand in America. That’s right, I said it.
They’ll lie in court, knowing full well the judge will side with their “impartial” testimony.
Power corrupts.
C&L, i have a complaint!
I went to work this morning as i always do and now i come home and there are no less than eight threads here i want to spend hours commenting on, but there is just so much of my energy left to go around.
Can’t you try to slow down the bullshit in the world just a little bit so we can all have our say?
;)
Widespread @ 26:
Come now, this is news to you? The cops were the big killers in the Holocaust, far worse than the Waffen-SS. The cops weren’t much nicer in the USSR, either.
Restore the Constitution @ 7:
Absolutely!
Atilla the Hungry @ 22:
I think that BushCo. and friends are trying to break this country financially. Tourism would bring a cash influx, so they put a stop to it.
They want all ‘Merkins to be ignorant, god fearing, bigoted, ethnocentric, angry, violent puppets.
In other words, they want troops that are too stupid to ask questions, and are willing to go to other countries to fight and steal for big business.
JoGoBamma(formerly Jo) @ 29:
Hillary just called and says “hell no!”
JoGoBamma(formerly Jo) @ 29:
Maybe not before they hold accountability for the past actions of this administration.
Anyway …. Devo ora andare incontrare i miei amici per la prima colazione. Arrivederci l’America
BB (going to beach after breakfast … ciao)
♠Bangkok-Bob♠ @ 32:
What? Politicians give up power? Funny, I don’t recall Octavian complaining about Julius’s little “enhancements,” do you?
General_Rennenkampf @ 20:
You’re right. And because I think this is also relevant to the thread;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/....._d4p1.html
“Some Detainees Are Drugged for Deportation: Immigrants Sedated Without Medical Reason”
MargeAggedon @ 34:
Dammit, did we have to get Galba right off the bat? Couldn’t the American Republic have at least gotten an Augustus?
Numinous @ 30:
More practically, they have to destroy the dollar because it is the only way to finance the enormous debt they have created.
xoites (One White Vote for Obama) defends Constitution @ 27:
they simply have you outnumbered.
“They were pretty shocked that the government could do this sort of thing, because it doesn’t happen that often, except to people you never hear about, like Haitians and Guatemalans.”
Excellent. They didn’t care when it was people they didn’t give a rat’s ass about. That’s how change happens. Mess with the kids of the well-connected.
dadams @ 5:
They may as well since his supporters say future generations will better appreciate him. I just wish it had been done years ago.
Those assholes at the border are the reason I’ll never return to the US to spend my money. I somehow got on one of their lists, and I’ll never allow them to fuck me over like they did ever again. One of them even apologized to me saying they are not allowed to use their discretion anymore.
Good job DHS, your country is so much safer now without me there spending my money and paying sales taxes and helping your slumping economy.
This is a God Damned outrage! Every person on this site needs to send this article to their elected rep(s) and DEMAND an explanation as I will be doing right f!@#ing NOW.
♠Bangkok-Bob♠ @ 24:
Yep. A weak currency is generally good at improving a country’s economy… given that said country has something other countries want. And this is where America fails.
We could have tourists flooding here, but no one in their right mind wants to come here with the absurdly paranoid security. We could be selling cheap products, but the only thing we produce is burgers and fries at a local fast food chain. We could be providing cheap research, but our schools have become extremely dumbed down, and those jobs have moved off to China and India. We could be selling cheap food, but having the government pour money toward corporate farms to not grow anything, or throw away food, has prevented that from happening.
There’s no point in basement bargain prices when you have nothing. Nothing is free, so you can’t put a price on it.
Creat enough fear and xenophobia and your Customs and INS officials become the Gestapo.
Oh America, when the hell will you learn? Free, my ass.
Now that I think about it, this seems more like something out of later Ming-era China, or the Tokugawa Shogunate, or North Korea, not a Democracy where everyone’s invited…
MargeAggedon @ 34:
Marge,
just what the hell is going on down there? I know I felt scared transisting SFO and LAX last year but seeing this shit makes me want to stay the hell out of America period!
smchris @ 38: