My father returned from a trip visiting family in Bangladesh this past Thursday. His flight arrived earlier than expected, around half past 10 in the morning. He braced himself for the inevitable additional screening that occurred whenever he re-enters the country. Screening that usually takes about an extra hour or two before he’s released with a quiet dejectedness that came with traveling abroad as a Muslim American citizen. This time was different.
On Thursday he was detained for five hours.
The officers that pulled him aside took his ID, his passport and phone as part of standard protocol. My father questioned why his phone’s passcode was asked for and was met with the guarantee of even longer detainment (10-15 hours) if he did not provide the officers access. He presented them his redress control number (part of the Homeland Security’s DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program for individuals who face delayed re-entry into the US) but found that the officers gave it no weight or mind. For a few hours, my father watched four officers circle through his items repeatedly, looking for something that wasn’t there.
At the three-hour mark, he was lead to a separate room for further screening. After taking in his surroundings in this new location, he was shocked to find that he was the only passenger remaining from his flight that had landed in the earlier that morning. He remembered wearily watching an officer pull his information and scour his profile for any shred of incriminating evidence, finding nothing and then repeating the process. At one point, this officer approached him and asked about my father’s German residency. My father has never once stepped foot in the country.
He was finally released around 3 p.m., but stayed an additional two hours in the airport for luggage. While waiting, he struck up a conversation with a Pakistani couple who were visiting the US for the first time on visas and were also held for additional screening. He was frustrated to hear that they were released two hours before him, a man who has been living in the states for 25 years and has been a citizen for a decade.
He left the airport a little past 5 pm in the evening.
My father is delayed every single time he re-enters the US, but he has never been held for this long. I remember bearing witness to this firsthand in 2013 when I accompanied him on a trip to Bangladesh. Our connecting flight to New York on our re-entry delayed our journey home when an airport security officer almost let us pass, before thinking twice and rereading the name on my father’s passport: Mohammed Nur. We were pulled aside at JFK airport for additional screening and ended up missing our flight back to Orlando.
There are no cursory glances when you are a Muslim American traveling to and from the United States. Precaution and national security are undoubtedly priorities around our nation’s airports, but where does the line blur between scrutiny and biased profiling?
As I listened to my father relay to me the events that occurred on Thursday, I could hear his frustration and exhaustion bleed through the phone. There were bouts of silence in our conversation, as he let himself sit in humiliation over the previous day’s events. He sighed quietly and admitted:
“Entering the airport is like a nightmare for me.”
And I have never wished more for this nightmare to end.
