Today the news on Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan was detained in New Jersey airport for 2 hours with the intervention of the Indian Embassy before he was allowed to clear the immigration. This has become big news simply because he is a Bollywood star.
After the 911, US is probably the strictest country in the world, in the way they control the entry and exit of foreigners. It causes a lot of convenience to genuine visitors, but considering a country at stake, any right minded person will do the same. I really feel safe to be in America because of such tight screening!
I was in and out of US almost every weekend from the Mexico border and during that period of time, it was common to get stucked in the immigration for 3 hours before one was allowed to pass through, so Shahrukh Khan just waited for 2 hours, he should not have complained. Of course the Americans do not watch Hindi movies therefore they could not recognize his face as a Bollywood superstar. When passing through the US border, Malaysian passport holders regardless, are considered as from sensitive country. And we were finger printed (both hands 10 fingers) and photographed, with scanners, web cam and input into computers, together with passport information were then checked against immigration records, after this procedure was cleared, and all the necessary information need to be sent again to FBI for final clearance. This last clearance procedure took longer time, perhaps the FBI centralized the screening in very few secret locations and was extremely busy over the task to be performed.
As we crossed fairly frequent enough, some of the officers, even the more senior ones could recognize our faces and things got a little bit easier, and those officers who dare to make decision will let us go without having to go through this tedious checking procedure. Most of the officers are nice and friendly and occasionally we did bump into 1 or 2 nasty ones; and the experience with them was not pleasant at all.
Crossing the border from inland is subjected to a more comprehensive checking compared with flying in by air. All incoming flights to USA, the list of international passengers information needs to be submitted at least one day prior to the flight for their screening. Therefore, upon arrival to LA airport, the immigration is normally smooth and without much problem.
It is good to be back in Malaysia, we feel really at home, the feeling of you are in your own country makes you feel at ease! Our smart immigration officers used to utter a few words in Bahasa just to test out whether you are genuine Malaysians. Nowadays with the chip based passports, the automatic immigration clearance is state of the art, and world class, and I am really proud of Malaysia on this!
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