The Bowdoin Orient

As I write this, I am over 38,000 feet in the sky, 600 miles south of Iceland. In front of me, to the west, the setting sun is turning the sky a light shade of orange. Below me, as far as the eye can see, clouds spread out and hide the sea from view. The meal service has come and gone. Now we are at the part of the flight where the cabin becomes silent as people sleep, hoping to overcome jet lag. 

I’ve decided to take this time to discuss something that is preoccupying me as I sit here, high above the waves, aboard LX52 to Boston. Given the news of the past month, I will forgive you for thinking that this is going to be an article about Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. To tell you the truth, that saga isn’t what’s worrying me. 

Instead, I am nervous about something that awaits me (and every other person aboard this flight) when I arrive at Boston Logan Airport in a few hours’ time: immigration. Of all the things that are involved with my travels to and from the U.S., nothing makes me more anxious than the five or so minutes I have to spend dealing with an officer of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). 

As a Swiss citizen, I have travelled considerably and have had to deal with immigration idiosyncrasies in countless countries. My worst experiences upon arrival have invariably been in the U.S. This has always struck me as being somewhat at odds with the image that America portrays to the rest of the world. 

As you queue up at Logan Airport to be processed by a CBP officer, you cannot help but notice the saccharine “Welcome to the United States” video, which plays every five minutes on the TV screens in the immigration hall. It shows people of all races and national origins looking up at the camera and smiling, while a peppy tune plays in the background. Every so often, we’re enticed with a flyover of a beautiful landscape out west, a bald eagle, or happy people being served coffee in a diner. 

It’s an attempt to distill the essence of American hospitality into a short clip to make arriving foreigners feel more at ease in the country. If only the immigration procedure that follows could match the friendliness that exudes from those TV screens. 

As a foreigner, when you are finally called up to the desk, you are “greeted” by a CBP officer. In my case, she may then ask me what the purpose of my visit is, where (and what) I study, as well as a host of other questions that are fairly typical of immigration procedures in countries the world over. In contrast to the rest of the world, CBP officers have the dubious distinction of consistently behaving towards foreigners as if we are either (a) all out to destroy America, (b) intent on spying for our insidious—Communist-Fascist—masters, or (c) planning to defraud the Social Security system. 

The fact that CBP officers may look upon foreigners with suspicion is excusable enough—border agents the world over have the same attitude. What is less acceptable is the incongruity of the cheery video welcoming us to America and the attitude adopted by the CBP officers that screams “Get out, you filthy scum, we never want to see you here again.” 

I have visited totalitarian dictatorships where the entry procedure was less antagonizing than anything I’ve experienced in the United States. When I visited the same country that Dennis Rodman has been frequenting of late—which I cannot name for legal reasons—the immigration official just took my passport, stuck it into an ID scanner, grunted and then stamped my travel documents. That was it.

In contrast, during a visit to Atlanta (a city which I called home in the 1990s) a few years ago, the immigration officer asked me, dead serious,  “Why would you ever want to visit Atlanta?” Talk about bad publicity. And I’m not the only foreigner to have noticed the gruff attitude of the men and women who protect America’s borders. 

Last year two European children were detained for many hours for the “crime” of travelling alone to visit their grandmother, who lives stateside. Cyprien, one of the most popular YouTubers in the francophone world, made a video a few years ago about his travels in the United States. He loves many things about this country, as I do. But he was less than enthusiastic about the cold welcome extended to him by the CBP officers when he arrived at JFK Airport, and he made a point mentioning the experience to his viewers. An experience with CBP officers gets any visit to the United States started on a bad note. It also may have a negative impact on the amount of travel to this country; there is little reason to visit a country if you’re going to be welcomed (and treated) like a common criminal upon arrival. 

But has the U.S. done anything to resolve this image problem? No. When the head of the Department of Homeland Security met with the leaders of several major travel companies, including American Express and Carlson Wagonlit, the men and women present were unequivocal in expressing that the U.S. immigration system was discouraging clients from choosing to visit or even fly through the country. Not only were the policies hurting their businesses, they said, it would also have a negative impact on the U.S. economy. The meeting (which took place under the Bush administration) ended on a sour note. No such meeting has taken place since President Obama took office. 

There is no reason for the people who protect America’s borders to be so caustic in their interactions with the visitors who have decided to come for all that this exceptional country has to offer. When people visit the U.S., they should feel welcomed—from the moment they step up to the immigration counter, right up until the moment their return flight takes off.