Aboard a Concord Trailways bus this morning from Manchester, New Hampshire, to Boston, we were delayed while two men boarded and announced that they were immigration agents checking to determine whether passengers had the appropriate papers for travel. These men were not dressed in any official uniform and wore no badges or insignia confirming any actual authority. [I later learned from the Bus driver that one of the men had discretely shown him a badge out of the view of the passengers.] As the two men walked down the aisle, they spoke to a couple of passengers who identified themselves as non-citizens who are legal residents. In both instances, the passengers did not have their actual green cards on their person. These passengers were chided that it is against the law to travel in the US as a permanent legal resident without carrying your official documents on your person. I do not doubt, in these days and times, that they accurately stated the law. I confess that I was not aware of that particular constraint, even with 30 years of legal training and experience.
In over 50 years of traveling about the country, I have never before been aboard a public transportation vehicle that was detained by immigration agents for inspection of papers. These agents did not request the papers of every passenger. Each passenger was required to furnish a picture ID in order to purchase a ticket. It was clear, however, that the agents were not referring to any list or manifest as they conducted their inspection. The agents then departed and the bus departed from the station.
The experience left me with two very different impressions. The first and most immediate impression was a sense of how a non-US citizen, who is legally entitled to be in the US and to travel, must feel these days when traveling in this country. I recognized that the experience might be discomfiting to a visitor on a travel visa, despite the fact that such shows of authority have never seemed necessary prior to the World Trade Center attack. But it had not previously occurred to me that individuals who have a permanent resident status or are naturalized are now subject to the same interdiction. The feeling was one of palpable tension, and all conversation on the bus stopped and remained completely quiet until the men left the bus. There was some discussion afterward about why they inspected the bus and why they did not check the identification of every passenger.
The second impression was that I have traveled about the world, including recent trips to Venezuela, Mexico and Fiji, and not been stopped and asked for my identification papers. In travels to these countries, there was never a scarcity of police or official presence in public places. And I have in fact approached such police for assistance in locating a place or finding something I needed. Not one of these encounters felt intimidating or made me feel unwelcome. Of course, a passport has been requested when checking into a hotel and to support a credit card purchase.
I have never been stopped and questioned about my freedom to travel, even in these countries that have been portrayed by the US government and the US mainstream media as somewhat dangerous or subversive. Fiji and México have had tumultuous changes of government, and the enmity between George W. Bush and Hugo Chavez is now legendary. Yet in none of these countries was I ever made to feel that the governments did not want me to be in their country, or that they were worried about my presence there.
In fact, my only other truly negative experience also occurred in the United States. Returning on a flight from Jamaica with my ex wife [who is Caucasian] and children, I was detained by US Customs agents who apparently thought that I [who am Black and Native American] might be trying to get into the country illegally. I had shown the agents a valid passport, even though only a driver’s license or birth certificate had typically been required at the time. I believe that experience was motivated by rather blatant racial discrimination more than the “national security” concerns that currently seem to underlie these shows of authority today. [We could also discuss the potential ethnic and religious discrimination behind these "national security"policies in another piece.]
The topping on this delicacy of a travel experience was a conversation overheard while passing through the security checkpoint at the airport. The agents were talking among themselves in a normal and matter of fact tone, as employees typically do to pass the time when there is no rush of passengers. One agent, obviously new to the job, stated to another that he was glad that the security job with TSA had come through. He said that he had tried and could not get a job at McDonalds. While I do not frequent McDonalds, primarily because of health and nutritional concerns, I would not disparage the employees who work in those fast food establishments. However, it was more than a little disconcerting to hear that the rigorous standards applied to the officials in whose hands the protection of our "national security" has been placed is below the hiring standards for a fast food restaurant that requires no training or experience.
This is still supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, but when I think of how our freedom is being trampled and treated with such carelessness and disregard, I cannot help but cringe a little.
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