Are You Kidding Me?

I woke up in KC at 4am to catch a 6:30am flight to Houston and then San Jose.  At 1:15pm, I encountered the immigration line...about 45min long...not a welcome sight after almost 9hrs of travel.  

Little did I know that long line was soon going to be an afterthought.

When it was my turn, I confidently walked up to the desk to show them my passport and health form.  Then the immigration agent asked for my return ticket.  Huh?  I told him I didn't have one.  He walked away and came back with another person who escorted me to a waiting area.  No one would tell me anything.  

Meanwhile, Alex was waiting right outside to pick me up.  I explained to her that I didn't know what was going on, and she wanted to talk to someone via the phone.  I told her no one would talk.  She wouldn't accept that, but it didn't matter how many times she kept asking me to ask.  No one would talk.  

There was also a guy there crying into his phone.  He was probably in his 30's.  I didn't understand why he was crying.

And then, after about 30 minutes...

Another immigration agent handed me paperwork.  My passport was given to the United Airlines agent.  I was informed that I was deported and would be detained at the airport until the next flight at 9am.  No one would talk to me about anything.  The only thing they would say is "rules are rules".

When I told Alex, she went ballistic.  She demanded to talk to someone, and when the United Airlines agent finally agreed, he simply said to her that there was nothing anyone could do.  

I was dejected and accepting the rude experience of being stuck in the airport for almost 24hrs without my bag.  But Alex wouldn't.  She thankfully had contacts in the government, and after four hours, I was allowed to buy a return ticket and comply with the rules and avoid deportation.  Unfortunately for the Argentinian man and several others in recent days, they were forced to leave.  

This is a systemic problem right now in this country.  When I traveled to Costa Rica in December, nobody asked for a return ticket.  When I board my flight to Costa Rica in both December and March, the only things the airline needed to see were my passport and health form because they knew I needed those to get into the country.  This tells me the return ticket requirement is either new or newly enforced.  Otherwise, the airline would have checked for it because they have to fly deported travelers back to their home country.  I know Costa Rica is hurting because COVID has decimated tourism, so their economy certainly wants to welcome as many people as possible.  And yet, someone in the immigration department thinks this approach is a good idea?  It isn't just me or the specific agent.  This is happening widespread. 

While I'm a proponent of open borders, I can appreciate the need to control who comes into a country and under what circumstances.  But to treat humans who are visiting a country this way does not make sense to me.  I didn't know about the rule or else I would have bought a return ticket.  In the US, we have something called "due process".  You are innocent until proven guilty.  We take these constitutional freedoms for granted.

Doesn't anyone realize a better approach is to ask a traveler to comply with the rules, and only if they refuse is it time to deport them?

I also began to relate to various immigration conversations in the US over my adult lifetime.  I thought about the Muslims who struggled to move in and out after 9/11.  I thought about the Hispanics who continue to struggle because of illegal immigration.  I now realize the US can do better.

Finally, I've learned a lot about trauma in the past year, and this event was yet another traumatic incident for me.  One of the reasons Alex broke down in the car was she realized what I also realized...that just walking up to an immigration booth in the future would trigger this trauma in me.  I don't know that I can do it again in Costa Rica.  I don't want to go to a place that is going to treat me inhumanely.  We are better than this.