Joho the Blog
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December 03, 2005
When I came through JFK yesterday at 4:30pm, we were warned as we approached Immigration that the Immigration computers had been down nation-wide (!) for 1.5 hours. (I can't find any mention of this in Google News, by the way.) The line for foreigners snarled on out of the room. It looked like some of them were going to spend the night sleeping on chairs at JFK. We US citizens, on the other hand, made it through our line in five minutes. There's a case for a country treating its citizens better than it treats non-citizens. But there's also a case for treating visitors better than citizens. It's called "hospitality" and it used to be the mark of civilization. (Cf. all of The Odyssey and how Abraham and Sarah welcomed three weary travelers (Gen. 18:1-5).) [Tags: immigration hospitality odyssey abraham] Posted
by D. Weinberger at December 3, 2005 09:25 AM
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Comments
Why do you want the terrorists to win, David?
/sarcasm
Posted by: scott | December 3, 2005 09:57 AM
The united states isn't civilized. We're in the process of de-civilization.
Posted by: Daniel Nicolas | December 3, 2005 01:56 PM
I'm ok with the terrorists winning, scott, so long as they first have to stand on line.
/sarcasm
Posted by: David Weinberger![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/nav-commenters.gif)
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December 3, 2005 02:28 PM
It was getting like that even 15 years ago and in the last five years the process of making visitors feel unwelcome has been polished and perfected with a great energy. Getting into the US for a visit is now such a nightmare that I simply refuse to go there any more; the greetings are more cordial in France, Portugal and other places.
Have you ever seen the stupid questions on the green visa waiver form? The ones such as "are you visiting the US to participate in drug trafficking", "are you a Nazi war criminal", "are you an international terrorist" and so on? It also asks whether one is a communist (and as far as I am aware, this is not actually illegal in the US) and there is a thinly-disguised homophobic agenda in there with the questions to do with HIV status. In all, it's a useless, invasive and very unpleasant document.
Posted by: julian | December 3, 2005 04:51 PM