US is unfriendly to visitors: survey

[stevedeshazer]

Tuesday Nov 21 10:23 AEDT

The United States is the world's most unfriendly country for international travellers, a survey suggests.

The global survey showed the US was ranked "the worst" because of rude immigration officials and long delays in processing visas.

More than half of the travellers surveyed said US immigration officials were rude and two-thirds said they feared they would be detained on arriving in the US for a simple mistake in their paper work or for saying the wrong thing to an immigration official.

<snip>

"The survey shows there is more fear of our immigration officials than of terrorism or crime."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=164329

It's official, for the umpteenth time. We are scorned. World wide.

[Auggie]

1. I don't see how anyone can put up with us

[cynatnite]

2. A lot of animosity some folks have here for foreigners....

This is truly sad, but no surprise.

[GoneOffShore]

3. It's unfriendly to anyone coming in.

What happened to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free"?
To a traveller returning to the US it's a very poor greeting that Customs and Immigration present. Possibly the only one that reaches the same level of rudeness would be Singapore - "Your hair is rather long".

Every time I return I'm astonished at how rude American C&I is compared to other countries. And how suspicious.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Perhaps you remember the horror stories from the PDX immigration and

customs service.

The one about the German woman being summarily deported after having been given inaccurate information made the papers, as did the one about the Chinese businesswoman who was jailed overnight because the immigration officer thought her passport looked "too old," but the Asian-American press had other stories, such as the one about the elderly Taiwanese woman who would have been sent back for "refusing to answer questions." Well, duh, she didn't speak English, but it wasn't until her son, who was waiting for her, pushed his way through to see what was going on, that the immigration officers even considered getting a Chinese interpreter.

In another case, that Korean company in Springfield, Oregon, sent for an engineer to work on a problem, and PDX immigration wouldn't let him in. He asked them to phone the company in Springfield, and they wouldn't even do that. He then phoned the company, and they told him to take the flight back to Korea and come back in through Seattle or San Francisco the next day. He did that, with no problems.

In still another case, a young Japanese woman came through Portland to spend a couple of months with her sister, who was having a baby. She didn't speak much English, and when questioned, she said that she had come "to take care of baby." The officials immediately assumed that she was an illegal nanny and sent her back. Meanwhile, her very pregnant sister and brother-in-law were waiting for her in the arrivals lobby, but unlike the Taiwanese man, they didn't find out what was going on until it was too late.

As I implied, Portland airport had two to four flights from Asia coming in each day until Delta airlines closed down its Asia flight hub there in around 2002, but the immigration office had NO onsite interpreters.

[stevedeshazer]

16. Yes, I do now!

Thanks for the reminder.

This is just one more scandal swept under the rug, and it happened in my home town.

I had nearly forgotten this altogether. :crazy:

[Deja Q]

5. And yet more and more people are coming here with H1Bs...

Funny how we're hated yet people still want to take advantage of us...

When it comes to the media and looking at the sources, in the end NOTHING is adding up.

[justice1]

6. It's no better for Americans,I am so tired of SSSS on my airline tickets.

[pitohui]

8. yeah they're just as scary and rude to americans

i guess it's equal opportunity rudeness

some of them try not to be rude, but it is still scary when you are pulled aside so often for extra screening

i am trying to think of a country now that i have entered that has a more intimidating entry or exit process and really right now i can't think of one

and some countries you think of as corrupt have been kind as all get-out, such as kenya where a man came and helped us around a long line so we wouldn't have to wait for our entry visa

[jannyk]

12. Israel...

my husband was sent to Israel back in '98 on business (semiconductors), I went with him. We were actually 'interrogated' by young soldiers. "Which company were we visiting? Who were we meeting? What time was the meeting? "Why did we have a Turkish stamp in our passports (it was a cruise for christ sakes) It went on for about half an hour and then when we left we went through the same thing.

Then coming back from Paris a couple of years ago - they asked my husband if he'd ever been to the middle east. He'd completely forgotten the trip to Israel (travelled so much on business) and said no. This led to an hour in US detention and another 'grilling'. After that we replaced our passports with new ones.

[jannyk]

9. Ooooh, you get those too?

Ain't that the most depressing thing when you see those"S's" at the bottom of your tix? My husband and I mostly fly together. I'm a 54 yr old, british white woman. He is a 56 yr old chinese man. I have got the dreaded "S's" 4 times - he, never. What the hell gives with that?

[Kelly Rupert]

14. I got two this last weekend.

Goin' and comin'. I got no idea what's up with that.

[Bjornsdotter]

7. Yep

My cousin was detained and fingerprinted when he came through customs last month...the reason...he had a new passport.

Cheers

[Minnesota_Lib]

10. Not to mention restaurants with those "if you don't speak English, scram!" signs...

..that RW'ers applaud so much in the name of anti-immigration.

[AspenRose]

11. Hell, we don't even treat each other with respect

What makes us think that we treat people from other countries with respect?

:think:

[Kelly Rupert]

13. Well, if they want us to be friendly

maybe they should try being less foreign, huh?

[NVMojo]

15. the TSA treats Americans like shit in the security check lines, what do they expect?