Why do I always have such hassle entering the States? Yesterday I found out...
Arriving into Los Angeles my anxiety rose to its usual levels on entering America. Besides crossing countless international borders over the years I have always found coming here the hardest. Back in 1990, arriving from London into Newark, I was given the third degree, as I was six months later bouncing home from Guatemala, via Huston. Coming from Latin America at a time of multiple civil wars (I had El Salvador and Nicaragua stamps in my passport) it seemed fair enough. But on each of my last three visit, as a reputable businessman, dressed appropriately, and acting with utmost decorum, the reaction has been the same. Having stood for almost an hour in the queue, my passport is taken by the black uniformed immigration officer, studied, and then handed on to another. It happened last year coming into Las Vegas, and six months earlier into JFK. Yesterday was the same.
'Follow this man,' said the officer coming out of his booth and handing my passport over to another pistol-packing official. 'He'll take ya down there to holding room Z.' Holding Room Z? It sounded like something from the Matrix... a sci-fi anti-chamber where alien beings were processed. Here I my passport was handed over to a third officer and I was told to sit down and wait, my name would be called in due course.
Holding Room Z was in fact the Admissions Review area of the airport, where travellers with suspicious dispositions, fake passports, Interpol records, outstanding murder charges - whatever - were questioned before being allowed (or denied) entry. Rows of plastic seats faced a panel of five desks behind which sat those that decided if you could stay or if you had to go... right back on the flight on which you'd just arrived. Mostly my fellow undesirables were of Asian origin: Korean, mainland Chinese, Pilipino. There was another Brit off the same flight as me, carrying a guitar as hand luggage with ginger dreads falling all the way down his back. A Nigerian girl was being given a grilling. 'Where have you been prior to coming here,' the office demanded. In an almost inaudible voice I heard her answer, Dubai. 'What were ya doin' in Dubai?' I couldn't hear her answer but evidently it assuaged the fears of the office as he handed her the passport and told her she was free to go. So why me? I had filled in my Esta US visa waiver on line and had been approved. I was here for a bona fide conference. I was kosher, above board, a record without blemish... or was I?
As I sat there waiting my turn I started to think. Yes, this was my 'clean' passport. As the boss of a travel company I have always managed to get two, one I try to use in Europe and the States with relatively few visa stamps, the other for the rest of the world. But was their systems now so advanced that they could now track my movements regardless? Did they know that since my last visit I had been to Syria, Mexico, Burma, Indonesia, India, Pakistan! If so I imagined this could cause them some head scratching and me a great many questions.
At last the office that had had a go at the Nigerian girl took my passport and sat down behind his computer. He didn't call me up, or look at me... just started to hit the keys on his keypad and stare intently at the screen. Once an office was working on a case it seemed to last no more than two or three minutes, but mine went on and on. I began to worry about my driver, would he wait - I was now 2 hours late. Would I need him at all?
'Mr Bealby,' the office said at last, 'come on up!' I did as I was told and sat in front of the desk. 'Bet ya thought I'd forgotten 'bout ya?'
'Well,' I answered in my most polite voice, 'I was beginning to wonder.'
'When did you last lose a passport?' he asked. (Ah, so that was it...)
'April 2010,' I answered immediately, '... in Nairobi' I’d wondered if that stupid mistake, the only passport I had ever lost - I left it in a coat pocket which I left in a hotel - would come back to haunt me one day.
'Well the thing is the airline still has you travelling on that passport, not this one!' He looked at me. 'It's lost, records don't match, we get suspicious.'
How annoying, I thought. I had changed it with BA and checked when checking in.
'So it hasn't been used?' I asked, 'I mean my identity hasn't been cloned?'
'Not yet,' he replied, 'and you'd better hope it don't. Then you got real problems. Thing is it hasn't been found and it hasn't expired and until one of these things happens it can still be a problem. And in the meantime make sure British Airways change their records or you'll have this issue each time you come to the States.'
He handed me my passport and told me I was free to go.
Thankfully the hotel driver, a charming chap called Jordan, was still waiting for me and 45 minutes later I was drinking a cold beer overlooking a dead-calm Pacific ocean, with the rays of the sun warming my face.
Its always a hassle, but it is always worth it.
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