> "I was asked if I was Muslim and what I did and where I lived."
The hell? I know I'm a naive white guy who doesn't travel much, but can they really ask you your religion when you cross the border? That sounds illegal and unconstitutional and offensive as hell.
CBP has broad powers to investigate. They can ask who you're sleeping with, your sexual orientation, what your religion is, your parent's religion, and on. Most Americans aren't used to this, but foreigners visiting your country have been putting up with this stuff since 9/11.
Everything on your person is subject to search. They've now extended that to things not physically on your person (e.g. cloud accounts, social media logins, etc).
PS - It may be illegal to deny entry due to many of these things. We're talking about what they can "legally" ask about, and the answer is just about anything.
Others can be denied entry for a long list of reasons:
https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/757/~/friend,-r....
And there is little to stop an individual border officer from simply using one of those reasons as a pretext to arbitrarily deny entry.
I don't follow what protected classes have to do with this. Class protections stop someone from being denied employment, denied services, or discriminated against. It doesn't make it some kind of secret, or "don't ask, don't tell."
CPS have been given the power to investigate US Citizens for other criminal infractions (like smuggling, identity theft, and terrorism) so they can ask invasive questions and refer it to other law enforcement.
Detaining someone could "open the door" to violent beatings, talking to someone could "open the door" to threatening them, but until those beatings, threats, or actual discrimination occur it isn't considered illegal.
You can detain someone for many reasons, some of them legitimate, some of them illegitimate. What is the other reason to ask someone their religion at the border?
To determine their eligibility to enter. Much like figuring out political views, it can open up avenues of discussion which may flag problems.
Are you OK with prohibiting entry on the basis with religion, or do you really not see how asking someone their religion to determine their eligibility to enter is prohibiting their entry on the basis of their religion?
Lets say for the sake of argument there is a key tell that is very effective for spotting a violent criminal. Do we have to ignore that tell if it falls into a sketchy subject matter like race or religion? Likewise, what if there is a "key tell" that someone is not a violent criminal. Do we have to ignore it if it falls into a sketchy subject matter like race or religion?
To be clear, i am not implying that Muslims are that "key tell", statistically they're far from it simply due to the number of them. It was just a question, unrelated to Islam.
Personally, i don't care what the "tells" are, race or religion. I think they're all valid. I simply disagree that the tells are effective enough to warrant questioning someones religion at all. Seems like more of the super expensive and famously ineffective TSA safety theater.
Eg, i feel pretty justified in assuming and acting on (ie, walking away from them lol) anyone from the west bureau baptist church. I have yet to see a rational, non-hatefilled comment come out of WBBC (not sure what acronym they go by). So why do i have to strictly assume innocence?
If they start bombing or hijacking planes next week, can we not ban them from flying? It seems quite reasonable.
I'm not saying we hang them all, because they have not all been proven violent, but it's a small sect with extremism and clear patterns. Can we not use this information? Do we have to ignore it?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
ie, as i said:
> Seems like more of the super expensive and famously ineffective TSA safety theater.
Theater is the right word.
That is the exact opposite of a generalized large population like Christians, Muslims or "Men".
[1]: Number posted by someone else here in this thread. Point is, small group, tiny, specific.
You're talking about something like 40 people that meet together all the time (I'm guessing way more than just on Sundays), many of which are a part of the same family.
Maybe I misunderstood the point though!
There's like 40 people in the wbc. Even if you have a 100% false positive rate and just include everybody, that's 40 people. Plus, if we know they're bombing things we know who they are. We don't know who potential attackers on the US are, besides the counterfactual media narrative that they may be Brown.
Relatedly.
As a white dude, I often assert my rights to avoid the pornoscanner and opt out. Once in a while get sent to secondary screening, because my shaving soap seems to have a similar gas chromatography spectrum to an explosive. They swipe me down, swipe down the soap container, and then the machine turns red and beeps. Further investigation ensues, and I am released.
They never treat me as a potential terrorist. That's probably because they know these machines are pretty terrible, and that the false positive rate is huuuge. But if I were? If this was indeed a dangerous substance and I a dangerous human? Well, the first time, they left me unsupervised in the same cubicle where they were storing their walkietalkies on a charging rack. Unsupervised, beyond just "stay there". Seriously.
They know it's a false positive and it's treated very lightly - again, I'm a White dude with no obvious marginalizing markers. So yeah.
If by "tell", you're talking about pulling aside everyone who "seems Muslim" (obligatory discussion of how Sikhs are often the target of hate crime from people who think they are Muslim because of their headwear here), you're pulling aside just under 1/3rd of the worlds' population. You can't use that information because it's literally useless.
The further complication here is that white nationalist terrorists are just as dangerous as non-white ones, but this administration is focusing on non-white terrorism to the exclusion of everything else.
To be clear, i most certainly did not mean that. In fact, i feel like i said everything i could to explain i mean exactly the opposite of that. I also mention, as you mentioned, that statistically Muslim means nothing.
This is a touchy subject, so please try to "if you meant"s in my mouth. I'm sure you meant no harm, but .. you know how these discussions can get :)
This is already happening.
The second is that the Constitution prohibits religious tests for Federal office; this has trickled down a general prohibition against religious tests. (The wording of that part of the Constitution allows for a very narrow interpretation of which offices cannot have religious tests, but it's never actually been put to a test in court, because we just don't do religious tests, period.) Culturally, it is very offensive to me as an American to be instituting them at the border.
Yeah, I generally think that religious tests are repugnant. Though there's the issue of Islam being a fancy religion with all the bells and whistles, such as an immutable holy language, a political ideology, a broad jurisprudence, and a warlord-prophet elevated nearly to the level of its god. I think it should be fair to ask if they hold any of the views which are obviously incompatible with 21st century western society; tossing gay people off high places like rooftops and cliffs, instituting a religious tax against non-muslims, humiliating the outgroup in the street (which is a much broader definition of humiliate than you normally use, probably includes sexual assault).
I'm in a bit of a pickle with my own principles; because none of this should happen in principle, but the intention is largely valid.