Hassan Aden — via Facebook.
Writing on Facebook on Saturday, retired cop Hassan Aden said he was returning from Paris where he helped his mother celebrate her 80th birthday when he was singled out and pulled from line by a customs official at John F. Kennedy International Airport who asked, “Are you traveling alone? Let’s take a walk.”
“I was taken to a back office which looked to be a re-purposed storage facility with three desks and signs stating, ‘Remain seated at all times’ and ‘Use of telephones strictly prohibited’—my first sign that this was not a voluntary situation and, in fact, a detention,” Aden wrote. ” By this point I had informed CBP Officer Chow, the one that initially detained me, that I was a retired police chief and a career police officer AND a US citizen—he stated that he had no control over the circumstance and that it didn’t matter what my occupation was.”
According to Aden after handing his passport over he was told that someone was using his name and that he had had to be cleared “so that I could gain passage into the United States… my own country!!!”
Aden said that he was not allowed to leave or contact his family at the same time an official told him he wasn’t being detained.
“He had the audacity to tell me I was not being detained. His ignorance of the law and the Fourth Amendment should disqualify him from being able to wear a CBP badge—but maybe fear and detention is the new mission of the CBP and the Constitution is a mere suggestion,” he wrote. “I certainly was not free to leave.
[…]
“I spent nearly 30 years serving the public in law enforcement. I interface with high level U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Court officials almost daily,” he wrote. “Prior to this administration, I frequently attended meetings at the White House and advised on national police policy reforms. All that to say, if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone with attributes that can be ‘profiled.’ No one is safe from this type of unlawful government intrusion.”
I’m a little torn here. What happened to Mr. Aden was not, in any way, right. Just another instance of the police state. Mr. Aden, unlike many people being caught up in the nets of the current police state, had considerable resources to call on. I’d say it’s a good thing for a cop to experience what it’s like, being in the clutches of such; that said, it’s not an experience I would wish on anyone. In the end, Mr. Aden was released, and reunited with his loved ones. That certainly cannot be said for scores and scores of people who are being picked up, detained, and wrenched away from their families and their lives. And no, please don’t point out that what happened to Mr. Aden was somehow in defense of stopping a terrorist; it wasn’t, and no, please don’t point out this is way different from the current “round ’em up and deport them!” business, it isn’t. It’s all one and the same thing: xenophobia, accompanied by the clang of The Gold Curtain™. America First, y’all.
Via Raw Story.
This campaign of intimidation is not designed just to keep terrorists out, it is designed(possibly the real design reason) to stop US citizens from going abroad and finding out the truth about the US and Trump. Propaganda works better if there is no way to check it. The next step will be an Internet block on foreign news sources because they do not give the sanitised pro US view
One of the first things I said when discussing bugging out to Mexico in three years was “I wonder if we’ll be allowed out in 3 years time.”
I’m glad no one is safe, because there’s nothing worse than talking about why it’s really not ok that this famous/little old lady/schoolteacher/scientist/cop person was targeted (but no word about the “deserving victims”)
+++
Well, you gotta make up for the losses in tourism from foreign visitors.
It is also a disincentive for USAbandoned “citizens” to visit or return the cesspit.
“I spent nearly 30 years serving the public in law enforcement. I interface with high level U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Court officials almost daily,”
It’s gotta suck to wake up one day and discover you’ve been on the wrong side all along.
I apologize, I just realised me@4 was less clear then normal: By “USAbandoned ‘citizens'” I meant passport-holders who do not live in the States. That phrase can also be applied to many people inside (confined to?) the States, albeit my comment @4 applies to such persons only with a hefy dose of mildly deranged penguin logic.
(And, of course, in usual Typos-offering style, return the cesspit → return to the cesspit…)
Tan skin + Arabic-sounding name > squeaky-clean record.
In the interests of science, Mr. Aden: please get yourself, say, $50M and try that re-entry again.
Do all police uniforms have an elastic strap over the badge number now? Hate to see anyone have that experience, but there’s a connection, lines to draw from one dot of the police state to another.
Newsflash: names are not unique identifiers.
georgewiman @8
Look carefully at the photo; that’s the Famous Thin Blue Line to let us all know about the heroes standing between the law-abiding US and the murderous THEM.
/s
fusilier
James 2:24