I Was a U.S. Diplomat. Customs and Border Protection Only Cared That I Was Black

The only thing that really surprised me was that my friend was able to return to the United States without any documentation after losing his wallet. Then again, he was a white kid with a Louisville accent. Like he said, "Not a hard decision for them which side of the border I should be on". I was scared shitless of losing my passport and I-20 the whole time I was there, being a non-citizen.

I found the Mexican officers' demeanor to be similar to the German federal officers one sees in German airports; not constantly smiling (except perhaps at children), but if you cross glance with them they'll usually smile & acknowledge you. Also as with most people surrounded by foreigners they'll definitely smile if you say something nice in their language.

The fact that the saga went on for months at the same border post despite complaints?

People like to distinguish between incompetence and malice but there is not much point in it; in either case the outcome shows that people in charge are not capable of performing their duty and should be relieved.

> When I asked him why I was being sent to secondary, the officer told me that it was a computer-generated random inspection.

But I’d been watching him the whole time. The officer wasn’t in his booth as I approached, so he couldn’t see his computer, which means that he didn’t see my SENTRI card, and couldn’t have known whether his computer had tagged me randomly for secondary inspection. It seemed that as soon as he made eye contact with me, the officer decided to send me to secondary.

If a bad person can simply clear his name by sending a same-name person to complain, we have a security bypass.

I'd recommend Gladwell's last book 'Talking to Strangers' about how preconceptions and cognitive biases shape our interactions and how things can quickly derail as a result. You could put a spin on their motives that it is a prejudgement of her as a person of interest - but that then becomes an issue of individual training or a systemic failure in the whole force to not let that happen.

I lived in the US for 3 years on an E-3 visa (like a weird H1B that's only for Australians). I wasn't eligible for any of the expedited entry procedures like Global Entry since I was an Australian without a green card.

The journey starts in the foreign airport. Did you know that the US has its own security in many foreign airports? After you've already been through the airport's own security and are waiting at the gate, just prior to or even during boarding, the US can have you pulled aside and searched thoroughly once more. They'll make you take off your shoes, jackets, go over you with a wand, unpack all of your carry-on luggage on a table and then make you pack it again. This happened to me on 3/4 international flights returning back to the US from Europe (France, Germany).

Then, once I arrived in the US, I had to go through the "foreigner that needs to see a human" line. Have a look at the wait times for that line, as reported by CBP [0]. I ran an average for October 2019 at SFO and the _average_ wait time was 26 minutes but depending on when you arrived, it could be hours. In my experience ~45 minutes was the norm (I chose unlucky arrival times I suppose).

When you get to the human, they basically treat you like a criminal. They take your fingerprints, make you look into a camera for biometrics and interrogate you about why a foreign peasant deserves to enter the utopia that is America. On each visit after renewing the visa, you also have to carry a massive pile of documentation with you (documentation that was already submitted to the State Department as part of the visa application).

And then, after immigration, you have to go through customs. Normally customs isn't so bad but every now and then you can get pulled aside for a baggage search. This means being told to stand in a line for easily an hour without any indication of why, no access to food or drink and of course you can't use your phone either.

I've travelled fairly widely and the US border really is the worst I've had the misfortune of crossing. When I enter the US the whole CBP process gives a sense of dread and makes me feel like a huge pile of weights is being dumped on top of me. When I leave the US it's like I'm finally free and returned to civilization. Even "oppressive" countries like Russia and Turkey feel better than the US.

[0]: https://awt.cbp.gov/

This is the Juarez-El Paso border crossing, not a reenactment of "The Comedians" with Richard Burton and Liz Taylor. First rule of government interaction: if it can be used against them it can also be used against you. Police shitlists should never be used as an explanation, rather they should serve as a call for savage consequences.

I doubt that org can be fixed at all.

Anything short of that means it wasn’t racism?

The reason they cared she was black is that they were racist... In one of the interactions she documented, the CBP officer told her he knew "what drug smugglers look like" and said "you know what I mean".