A recent alumnus has a sad tale about the inefficiencies of the federal government’s systems for immigration enforcement. We agree that the story should be anonymous.

Several years ago, while still a student at Williams, I was learning how to drive in the parking lot at the end of Spring Street during Spring Break. I thought it was a safe place because it was a parking lot – and it was empty. I was backing out of a space with my friend, a licensed driver, when we were stopped by police. I was arrested and charged with operating a motor vehicle without a permit. I didn’t know a learner’s permit was required for maneuvers in an empty parking lot, but the law is the law and ignorance is no excuse, so after the mug shot/fingerprint/ bail formalities, I was released on my own recognizance.

A few days later, I appeared in court. Of the 15 or so people there for charges ranging from assault and battery to violation of restraining orders to drug possession, I was the only man who wore a shirt and tie to appear before the judge. I sat next to a woman who was pulled over for driving a vehicle with a broken light. When the officer asked for her license and registration, he found out the car was uninsured. He searched it and found a small amount of marijuana. This was not her first appearance in a court as a defendant, but sitting next to me she admitted, with some embarrassment given the circumstances by which I was there, that she had not been arrested. The marijuana had been confiscated and she was given a summons to appear in court, perhaps because the car was not registered in her name and the marijuana was not on her person but in the car. I don’t know, but it just seemed ridiculous to me that I had been handcuffed and taken away in a cruiser when this woman was given a summons.

The rest is below. Read the whole thing.

When I was called upon, the judge did not ask me for a plea and announced he would be “entering a not-guilty plea on [my] behalf.” He called me to his bench, congratulated me on doing well in school, gave me a booklet with instructions for getting a learner’s permit and told me to go get one and return with it. I did as told and the judge dismissed the case and wished me the best of luck for grad school. He announced to everyone in the court that I was a senior at Williams who was headed to grad school. He treated me more like a proud father than the stern jurist I had been bracing for.

I left the country and entered once again to begin grad school on my same Williams F-1 student visa which was valid for 5 years, then left a year later and renewed my visa after ticking YES to the single combination-question on the visa form,

Have you ever been arrested or convicted for any offense or crime, even though subject of a pardon, amnesty or similar legal action? Have you ever unlawfully distributed or sold a controlled substance (drug), or been a prostitute or procurer
for prostitutes?

Imagine my horror. After some extra fees, fingerprinting and delays, it was determined that this crime was not a “crime involving moral turpitude” or a felony or a crime that carried jail time as the punishment and so even had I been found guilty of the crime, it was not an “excludable” offense for immigration purposes. My student visa was granted for 5 more years and I was on my way. I entered the US with no problems or delay again, this time with the new visa. I left twice more and re-entered with no problems or delays.

A few days ago, 3 and a half years after the arrest, and my fifth time re-entering the United States since, I arrived at Miami International Airport and presented my passport and other documents to the Immigration Officer. After the usual fingerprinting and photo taking (mandatory for all non-US citizens) she asked,

“Have you ever been arrested?”

“Yes,”

“What for?”

“Attempting to learn how to drive without a learner’s permit.”

A stern woman, she cracked a half-smile and gave one of those types of laughs that involved a brief exhale of disbelief and asked,

“They arrested you for that?” – the same question the visa officer asked me when I applied for my student visa the second time and indicated I may have been either a drug dealer, prostitute or pimp. She continued,

“Did you ever commit any other crimes, or were arrested again?”

“No ma’am”

“Nothing else?”

“No ma’am.”

She gathered my documents as if ready to return them to me, then to my dismay produced a red folder, placed them inside, and said, “Follow me.” Shamefully, and with my heart thumping so hard I felt people could see it through my shirt, I followed. I waited briefly in another line and then was taken to a separate room. The room was filled with about 50 people – men, women and children, two of whom were old ladies on wheelchairs. 95% of them were Latino – all with names like, Juan Gonzales, Maria Carlos, Francisco Lopez – the Spanish equivalent of John Smith and Mary Jones.

Next to a sign entitled, “We are the Face of the Nation” outlining,

"We pledge to cordially greet and welcome you to the United States. We pledge to treat you with courtesy, dignity, and respect. We pledge to explain the CBP process to you. We pledge to have a supervisor listen to your comments. We pledge to accept and respond to your comments in written, verbal, or electronic form. We pledge to provide reasonable assistance due to delay or disability."

I sat, passport-less in silence, trying to hide my nervousness lest they interpret it as something worthy of investigation. Nearby, a White customs agent scolded a Spanish-speaking Green Card holder – “This is America. You have been here for how long and you’re telling me you cannot speak English? Listen to me, DO NOT LEAVE THIS COUNTRY UNTIL YOU LEARN HOW TO SPEAK ENGLISH.”

A woman with two young children who had been waiting for more than an hour approached him. He said sternly and with disgust, “Get out of my face. You are annoying me. Sit down, shut up and wait. That is all you can do here.”

Another man was told, “We do not care if you miss your flight. We do not work based on flight arrivals and departures. It is not our problem. Sit down and wait. There is nothing you can do.”

Two hours and forty five minutes later, a Latino customs agent with a very thick Latin accent called my name. He handed me my documents and told me to check them over and see that they were mine. The passport was stamped, “F1/DS” (F-1 Student Visa Status/ admitted for the “duration of status” – basically as long as I continued studying).

Relieved that I was not being jailed and/or deported, I replied,

“Yes, they are in order. Thank you.”

“Okay, you may leave.”

“May I ask for a reason for this delay?” I inquired.

“Well, let’s see. You entered the country and put your fingers on the pad. The system analyzed your fingerprints and pulled up your record and it said you had been arrested. But it didn’t say why. So we had to determine why before allowing you to enter. We saw that you had been arrested for driving under the influence.”

“No, no. Wait, wait. That must be a mistake. I was never driving under the influence. It was not a DUI. It was for learning to drive without a learner’s permit. We will have to have that fixed, please. They are two very, very different offences.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s it; driving without a permit. Not DUI.”

“Okay, good. However, I have entered four times after that arrest and this never happened. Why now?”

He shrugs as if to say, “I don’t know” but with a look of, “I don’t give a shit.” I continue,

“Okay. Well, I am assuming now it has been fixed so it was annotated and this delay won’t happen again now that you know it is not an excludable offense, right.”

“No, it doesn’t work like that.”

“So you mean, every time I come back to the US I will be delayed for three hours?”

Smiling, he adds, “Yes, every single time. You see, it will always say you have been arrested. But it will never say why. So we will always have to check.”

I sigh deeply. “This is ridiculous.”

“You shouldn’t have come to this country and broken the law,” he adds, with a degree of scorn that surprised me coming from a man who was obviously an immigrant himself.

“Well, I am not arguing that. I just mean, for your sake, wouldn’t it be better for you and your workers if the system just let you add a note so you don’t have to do the same thing over and over? Wouldn’t it be more efficient?”

“So now you’re accusing me of being inefficient?”

“Of course not sir, you’re misinterpreting what I said. I am saying the system is inefficient. It makes your job harder.”

“If you want a more efficient system, go study in another country,” he replied curtly.

Realizing I was about to miss my next flight, I turned around to leave. Behind me, I could hear him yelling, “you’re lucky that’s all you have to deal with; in my country, you’d be jailed for 5 years for that crime!”

Now, judging from his Latin accent, I am guessing that when he said “my country” he was not referring to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and even if he was, I am not sure of any country in the world where one can be jailed for 5 years for learning to drive without a learner’s permit under the instruction of a licensed driver – in an empty parking lot. But I had no time or energy to argue, and more importantly, I was too terrified to stand up for myself because I was at the mercy of these agents who knew exactly how powerless I was and they did not hesitate to remind others around me of that fact when they seemed to forget it.

Is it really true that every single time I cross a border into the US this will happen? I hope to God not, but given the way things work when it comes to immigration matters, I would not be surprised. This may seem like an issue that has no effect on the wider population – just a pain in the ass for delinquents like me who “come to this country and break the law.” But it presents some much bigger questions that may be worth discussing at a forum such as this. My non-excludable crime, for which I was found not guilty and which was dismissed, took more than two hours of work time for a CBP officer to process. My full name is not very common (I’d dare say there is no one else in the world with my combination of names) and I am travelling from a country that is not, and has never been, blacklisted by the United States either for terror-related issues or illegal immigration.

I am guessing that this is the fastest one can expect such an issue to be resolved based on my name and citizenship. Given that at this one port of entry, on a day that was relatively quiet, within a two hour window there were more than 100 people in my situation, I wonder, what is the economic impact of the inability, or unwillingness, of Customs and Border Protection to annotate their database with a very simple explanation of traveler criminal records (verified; checked; not excludable; operating motor vehicle without permit?) How many hours are clocked by CBP agents at the many ports of entry who verify the same thing over and over? What is the cost to airlines that must pay employees to reschedule flights for passengers who miss theirs due to these types of detentions?

For businesses who require their non-citizen employees to travel overseas and back often? Or the emotional impact on travelers who are coming for funerals or to visit sick relatives – at least one man was visiting his sick mother-in-law and one woman was brought to tears for whatever reason I do not know. Certainly, it was a terrifying experience sitting in an overcrowded room, my passport taken, my only instruction, “wait,” amid a strict ban on any electronic device thus preventing any form of communication with relatives or friends concerned about my not being out of the airport hours after my plane arrived.

While my friends, family, Williams faculty and even one Williamstown police officer all agreed that it was completely unnecessary and bordering on malicious for me to be arrested for such a minor offence, one can still argue that I broke the law and must deal with the consequences. By the strictest interpretation of the law this argument is correct and I accept that. However, I believe that I have paid my dues for this crime. I paid my bail, I went to court, I answered to the judge, I did as was told, I paid the court fee, I paid for the extra security checks to get my visa, I waited for the security checks to be cleared and I was patient and waited at the room I was sent to for this to be verified during my return to the US this time. So why is the law allowing me to be punished repeatedly for a crime that I have already been punished for, and more importantly, why is so much valuable time and money being wasted because of a seemingly
simple technical inadequacy?

I wanted to ask to speak to a supervisor, as their “pledge” assured me I could, but I was looking out beyond the glass door from this room where I was made to feel like I had absolutely no rights – and probably didn’t – and I saw freedom. And after being detained and terrified for nearly three hours, I really just wanted to run as fast as I could from that place. After my conversation with this agent it seems I would have to get used to this feeling because as he promised, I would be brought to that room every single time I return to the United States while CBP burns through taxpayers’ money with their treadmilling over the same point again and again.


[20] Comments