US Border Checks
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US Border Checks
Hi Everyone,
I'm planning to travel to the US next year, the last time I was in the US was July 2001.
I have had a criminal record since 1998, just always ticked No to the questions on the back of the Visa waiver form.
I thought for this trip I better do some research into the new technology US immigrations have. There are so many conflicting reports, some say they have access to the UK national police computer and know when your passport is swiped you have a record or not, other reports say that the technology is available but the EU will not share that information.
Does anyone know what information the US immigration officers have when they swipe your passport?
Kind regards
Frankie
I'm planning to travel to the US next year, the last time I was in the US was July 2001.
I have had a criminal record since 1998, just always ticked No to the questions on the back of the Visa waiver form.
I thought for this trip I better do some research into the new technology US immigrations have. There are so many conflicting reports, some say they have access to the UK national police computer and know when your passport is swiped you have a record or not, other reports say that the technology is available but the EU will not share that information.
Does anyone know what information the US immigration officers have when they swipe your passport?
Kind regards
Frankie
Last edited by frankiedj; 30th Nov 2006 at 08:18.
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UCS on line info
Let me see, if you check yes the worst that happens is you get a grilling and denied entry.
If you check no the worst that happens is you get the grilling, a few years to think about it with your new boyfriend and then get sent home.
The border information systems used to be a serious joke but they are getting better all the time.
Why not just ask the US consulate. I was told there used to be a 5 year exclusion period after which you were OK to enter. I have no clue if this is still the rule, or if it was even a rule.
One thing is for sure, lying on that form will put you in far worse do-do than whatever you have done. As you have already done this at least once you are really in a serious trouble if you are found out. They will certainly look for past violations if they bust you.
I'd be thinking, do I really need to make this trip?
20driver
If you check no the worst that happens is you get the grilling, a few years to think about it with your new boyfriend and then get sent home.
The border information systems used to be a serious joke but they are getting better all the time.
Why not just ask the US consulate. I was told there used to be a 5 year exclusion period after which you were OK to enter. I have no clue if this is still the rule, or if it was even a rule.
One thing is for sure, lying on that form will put you in far worse do-do than whatever you have done. As you have already done this at least once you are really in a serious trouble if you are found out. They will certainly look for past violations if they bust you.
I'd be thinking, do I really need to make this trip?
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USA's already become a quasi police state; [Patriot Act, Dept of "Homeland Security"] like criminals and prisoners, ...all foreigners are finger printed and photographed; and the airlines are made to fork over all booking info, including credit card numbers, phone numbers, ...and all this info is forever stored in deep underground computer cities, save from atomic bomb attacks. If you visit, welcome to the land of superlative individual rights, freedom, democracy and the pursuit of happiness. Irrespective of your criminal past in the UK, you will be well treated if you "tell all" and invite big government to be your friend.
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I went to Canada from the US back in 2002 and the form I filled out for the Canadians asked if I ever be arrested, I checked yep and in the space provided the date charge and disposition. It was a disorderly contuct charge and a fine paided. Well the Canadian Customs and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took me in to an office for a little chat. The reason for the chat was to show me that when they ran the check it came up. Most people say no to anything more than five years. We though it was interesting that you would mention something that happed 29 years ago. Had a really nice visit. I was surprised it was still in the record since I had paid a lawyer to get it removed.
As for US being a Police State, that is BS and you know it. I guess we are suppose to just let anyone come here and do what every they what when they want if some citizen gets killed or murdered well just suck it up and live with it. They have been real lucky that we did not respond with our Missle Boats(SSBN's 24 tubes 9 warheads on each missle, Four boats would have settled the matter.) rather than having you just fill out an extra form or two and prove that you are who you say you are.
As for US being a Police State, that is BS and you know it. I guess we are suppose to just let anyone come here and do what every they what when they want if some citizen gets killed or murdered well just suck it up and live with it. They have been real lucky that we did not respond with our Missle Boats(SSBN's 24 tubes 9 warheads on each missle, Four boats would have settled the matter.) rather than having you just fill out an extra form or two and prove that you are who you say you are.
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...land of xenophobic and terrorism paranoia.
Washington, DC (AP) -- "Without their knowledge, millions of Americans and foreigners crossing U.S. borders in the past four years have been assigned scores generated by U.S. government computers rating the risk that the travelers are terrorists or criminals.
The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.
The government calls the system critical to national security following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some privacy advocates call it one of the most intrusive and risky schemes yet mounted in the name of anti-terrorism efforts.
Virtually every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department's Automated Targeting System, or ATS. The scores are based on ATS' analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.
The use of the program on travelers was quietly disclosed earlier this month when the department put a notice detailing ATS in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of federal rules. The few civil liberties lawyers who had heard of ATS and even some law enforcement officers said they had thought it was only used to screen cargo.
The Homeland Security Department called the program "one of the most advanced targeting systems in the world" and said the nation's ability to spot criminals and other security threats "would be critically impaired without access to this data."
Privacy advocates cry foul
But to David Sobel, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group devoted to civil liberties in cyberspace: "It's probably the most invasive system the government has yet deployed in terms of the number of people affected."
Government officials could not say whether ATS has apprehended any terrorists. Based on all the information available to them, federal agents turn back about 45 foreign criminals a day at U.S. borders, according to Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection spokesman Bill Anthony. He could not say how many were spotted by ATS.
"Homeland Security ought to focus on the simple things it can do and stop trying to build these overly complex jury-rigged systems," said Barry Steinhardt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, citing problems the agency has had developing a computerized screening system for domestic air travelers.
That data-mining project -- now known as Secure Flight -- caused a furor two years ago in Congress. Lawmakers barred its implementation until it can pass 10 tests for accuracy and privacy protection.
In comments to the government about ATS, Sobel said, "Some individuals will be denied the right to travel and many the right to travel free of unwarranted interference."
Sobel said in the interview that the government notice also raises the possibility that faulty risk assessments could cost innocent people jobs in shipping or travel, government contracts, licenses or other benefits.
The government notice says some or all of the ATS data about an individual may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits. In some cases, the data may be shared with courts, Congress and even private contractors.
Travelers denied access
"Everybody else can see it, but you can't," Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration lawyer who teaches at Cornell Law school, said in an interview.
But Jayson P. Ahern, an assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the ATS ratings simply allow agents at the border to pick out people not previously identified by law enforcement as potential terrorists or criminals and send them for additional searches and interviews.
"It does not replace the judgments of officers" in reaching a final decision about a traveler, Ahern said in an interview Thursday.
This targeting system goes beyond traditional watch lists, Ahern said. Border agents compare arrival names with watch lists separately from the ATS analysis.
In a privacy impact assessment posted on its Web site this week, Homeland Security said ATS is aimed at discovering high-risk individuals who "may not have been previously associated with a law enforcement action or otherwise be noted as a person of concern to law enforcement."
Ahern said ATS does this by applying rules derived from the government's knowledge of terrorists and criminals to the passenger's travel records.
Ahern declined to disclose any of the rules, but a Homeland Security document on data-mining gave this innocuous example of a risk assessment rule: "If an individual sponsors more than one fiancee for immigration at the same time, there is likelihood of immigration fraud."
Ahern said ATS was first used to rate the risk posed by travelers in the late 1990s, using personal information about them voluntarily supplied by air and cruise lines.
A post-9/11 law vastly expanded the program, he said. It required airline and cruise companies to begin in 2002 sending the government electronic data in advance on all passengers and crew bound into or out of the country. All these names are put through ATS analysis, Ahern said. In addition, at land border crossings, agents enter license plates and the names of vehicle drivers and passengers, and Amtrak voluntarily supplies passenger data on its trains to and from Canada, he said.
In the Federal Register, the department exempted ATS from many provisions of the Privacy Act designed to protect people from secret, possibly inaccurate government dossiers. As a result, it said travelers cannot learn whether the system has assessed them. Nor can they see the records "for the purpose of contesting the content."
Toby Levin, senior adviser in Homeland Security's Privacy Office, noted that the department pledged to review the exemptions over the next 90 days based on the public comment received. As of Thursday, all 15 public comments received opposed the system outright or criticized its redress procedures.
The Homeland Security privacy impact statement added that "an individual might not be aware of the reason additional scrutiny is taking place, nor should he or she" because that might compromise the ATS' methods.
Nevertheless, Ahern said any traveler who objected to additional searches or interviews could ask to speak to a supervisor to complain. Homeland Security's privacy impact statement said that if asked, border agents would hand complaining passengers a one-page document that describes some, but not all, of the records that agents check and refers complaints to Custom and Border Protection's Customer Satisfaction Unit.
Homeland Security's statement said travelers can use this office to obtain corrections to the underlying data sources that the risk assessment is based on, but not to the risk assessment itself. The risk assessment changes automatically if the source data changes, the statement explained.
"I don't buy that at all," said Jim Malmberg, executive director of American Consumer Credit Education Support Services, a private credit education group. Malmberg said it has been hard for citizens, including members of Congress and even infants, to stop being misidentified as terrorists because their names match those on anti-terrorism watch lists. He noted that while the government plans to keep the risk assessments for 40 years, it doesn't intend to keep all the underlying data they are based on for that long.
Homeland Security, however, is nearing an announcement of a new effort to improve redress programs and the public's awareness of them, according to a department privacy official, who requested anonymity because the formal announcement has not been made.
The department says that 87 million people a year enter the country by air and 309 million enter by land or sea."
And if you have any doubts about America's mission, as George Bush had said: "You're either with us or against us."
The travelers are not allowed to see or directly challenge these risk assessments, which the government intends to keep on file for 40 years.
The government calls the system critical to national security following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Some privacy advocates call it one of the most intrusive and risky schemes yet mounted in the name of anti-terrorism efforts.
Virtually every person entering and leaving the United States by air, sea or land is scored by the Homeland Security Department's Automated Targeting System, or ATS. The scores are based on ATS' analysis of their travel records and other data, including items such as where they are from, how they paid for tickets, their motor vehicle records, past one-way travel, seating preference and what kind of meal they ordered.
The use of the program on travelers was quietly disclosed earlier this month when the department put a notice detailing ATS in the Federal Register, a fine-print compendium of federal rules. The few civil liberties lawyers who had heard of ATS and even some law enforcement officers said they had thought it was only used to screen cargo.
The Homeland Security Department called the program "one of the most advanced targeting systems in the world" and said the nation's ability to spot criminals and other security threats "would be critically impaired without access to this data."
Privacy advocates cry foul
But to David Sobel, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group devoted to civil liberties in cyberspace: "It's probably the most invasive system the government has yet deployed in terms of the number of people affected."
Government officials could not say whether ATS has apprehended any terrorists. Based on all the information available to them, federal agents turn back about 45 foreign criminals a day at U.S. borders, according to Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection spokesman Bill Anthony. He could not say how many were spotted by ATS.
"Homeland Security ought to focus on the simple things it can do and stop trying to build these overly complex jury-rigged systems," said Barry Steinhardt, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, citing problems the agency has had developing a computerized screening system for domestic air travelers.
That data-mining project -- now known as Secure Flight -- caused a furor two years ago in Congress. Lawmakers barred its implementation until it can pass 10 tests for accuracy and privacy protection.
In comments to the government about ATS, Sobel said, "Some individuals will be denied the right to travel and many the right to travel free of unwarranted interference."
Sobel said in the interview that the government notice also raises the possibility that faulty risk assessments could cost innocent people jobs in shipping or travel, government contracts, licenses or other benefits.
The government notice says some or all of the ATS data about an individual may be shared with state, local and foreign governments for use in hiring decisions and in granting licenses, security clearances, contracts or other benefits. In some cases, the data may be shared with courts, Congress and even private contractors.
Travelers denied access
"Everybody else can see it, but you can't," Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration lawyer who teaches at Cornell Law school, said in an interview.
But Jayson P. Ahern, an assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the ATS ratings simply allow agents at the border to pick out people not previously identified by law enforcement as potential terrorists or criminals and send them for additional searches and interviews.
"It does not replace the judgments of officers" in reaching a final decision about a traveler, Ahern said in an interview Thursday.
This targeting system goes beyond traditional watch lists, Ahern said. Border agents compare arrival names with watch lists separately from the ATS analysis.
In a privacy impact assessment posted on its Web site this week, Homeland Security said ATS is aimed at discovering high-risk individuals who "may not have been previously associated with a law enforcement action or otherwise be noted as a person of concern to law enforcement."
Ahern said ATS does this by applying rules derived from the government's knowledge of terrorists and criminals to the passenger's travel records.
Ahern declined to disclose any of the rules, but a Homeland Security document on data-mining gave this innocuous example of a risk assessment rule: "If an individual sponsors more than one fiancee for immigration at the same time, there is likelihood of immigration fraud."
Ahern said ATS was first used to rate the risk posed by travelers in the late 1990s, using personal information about them voluntarily supplied by air and cruise lines.
A post-9/11 law vastly expanded the program, he said. It required airline and cruise companies to begin in 2002 sending the government electronic data in advance on all passengers and crew bound into or out of the country. All these names are put through ATS analysis, Ahern said. In addition, at land border crossings, agents enter license plates and the names of vehicle drivers and passengers, and Amtrak voluntarily supplies passenger data on its trains to and from Canada, he said.
In the Federal Register, the department exempted ATS from many provisions of the Privacy Act designed to protect people from secret, possibly inaccurate government dossiers. As a result, it said travelers cannot learn whether the system has assessed them. Nor can they see the records "for the purpose of contesting the content."
Toby Levin, senior adviser in Homeland Security's Privacy Office, noted that the department pledged to review the exemptions over the next 90 days based on the public comment received. As of Thursday, all 15 public comments received opposed the system outright or criticized its redress procedures.
The Homeland Security privacy impact statement added that "an individual might not be aware of the reason additional scrutiny is taking place, nor should he or she" because that might compromise the ATS' methods.
Nevertheless, Ahern said any traveler who objected to additional searches or interviews could ask to speak to a supervisor to complain. Homeland Security's privacy impact statement said that if asked, border agents would hand complaining passengers a one-page document that describes some, but not all, of the records that agents check and refers complaints to Custom and Border Protection's Customer Satisfaction Unit.
Homeland Security's statement said travelers can use this office to obtain corrections to the underlying data sources that the risk assessment is based on, but not to the risk assessment itself. The risk assessment changes automatically if the source data changes, the statement explained.
"I don't buy that at all," said Jim Malmberg, executive director of American Consumer Credit Education Support Services, a private credit education group. Malmberg said it has been hard for citizens, including members of Congress and even infants, to stop being misidentified as terrorists because their names match those on anti-terrorism watch lists. He noted that while the government plans to keep the risk assessments for 40 years, it doesn't intend to keep all the underlying data they are based on for that long.
Homeland Security, however, is nearing an announcement of a new effort to improve redress programs and the public's awareness of them, according to a department privacy official, who requested anonymity because the formal announcement has not been made.
The department says that 87 million people a year enter the country by air and 309 million enter by land or sea."
And if you have any doubts about America's mission, as George Bush had said: "You're either with us or against us."
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USA's already become a quasi police state; [Patriot Act, Dept of "Homeland Security"] like criminals and prisoners
There are many, many critics of the Bush administration here in the US, including many in the press and many in Congress. If this were a police state, they would be in prison. They're not.
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Sorry to change the topic, but as someone with no criminal records/ immigration violations, a historically frequent visitor to the US and someone who spent almost 5 years in the US in university, I've started asking myself this same question since the last couple of years. It is really hit or miss, but some of the encounters I've had with the US border officials have been such that they really do treat foreigners like a criminal, sometimes in an extremely rude manner. I have always done my best to keep smiling and a sense of humor-- how humiliating-- this is one of the few areas in life that I would stoop to such a level.
Don't get me wrong. Once inside the country, 95 per cent of US citizens are absolutely fantastic and it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The problem is the welcoming committee in blue with badges and guns.
I've heard some attitudes that national security is the #1 concern, and that if visitors don't understand or like it then they should not come. I guess OK, although it does little to foster a positive image of the US and create greater harmony in this world.
Don't get me wrong. Once inside the country, 95 per cent of US citizens are absolutely fantastic and it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The problem is the welcoming committee in blue with badges and guns.
I've heard some attitudes that national security is the #1 concern, and that if visitors don't understand or like it then they should not come. I guess OK, although it does little to foster a positive image of the US and create greater harmony in this world.
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I've heard some attitudes that national security is the #1 concern, and that if visitors don't understand or like it then they should not come. I guess OK, although it does little to foster a positive image of the US and create greater harmony in this world.
Looking after ones security is one thing, circling the wagons and preparing to repel boarders is another matter entirely.
The good ol'e US of A was founded (in a european sense) on immigration, so where has it gone wrong? or is this just a manifestation of a paranoid, insular, inward looking border policy?
Given the serious levels of "blowback" that the US is experiencing through its flawed foreign policy, I wonder how long it will be before the average American can look beyond their own borders and actually question their place and current contribution to the world at large. Only then perhaps will we see some common sense prevail.
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It is really hit or miss, but some of the encounters I've had with the US border officials have been such that they really do treat foreigners like a criminal, sometimes in an extremely rude manner. I have always done my best to keep smiling and a sense of humor-- how humiliating-- this is one of the few areas in life that I would stoop to such a level.
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Had to be rescued by the locals.
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Did you have an American accent?
and my French is basically non-existent.
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The difference is that you probably didn't have to wait in line at Immigration in Paris for 2 hours (I've waited as much as 3 memorable hours once, in Houston GEORGE BUSH Intercontinental Airport [as the Continental Airlines Captain emphasized during his pre-arrival announcement]), nor were you probably fingerprinted and photographed unless you were a really bad boy (or made some kind of joke or comment containing the phrase "cheese-eating surrender monkies" within hearing distance).
Last edited by Panama Jack; 6th Dec 2006 at 05:26.
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Running today on Sydney's major newspaper website:
Border line Behaviour
You Americans really need to recognise how the rest of the world is perceiving you these days.
I for one, will never ever visit the U.S. on holidays ever again. It is just too unpleasant.
Border line Behaviour
You Americans really need to recognise how the rest of the world is perceiving you these days.
I for one, will never ever visit the U.S. on holidays ever again. It is just too unpleasant.
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The difference is that you probably didn't have to wait in line at Immigration in Paris for 2 hours
On my return flight from CDG, I arrived 2 hours prior to my flight, and I still only just made it. The queue to check-in was 60 minutes. The queue for passport control for non-French citizens was another 45 minutes -- the queue for French citizens was less than a minute. Did that suck? Yes. Do I rant that I'll never return to France? No.
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You Americans really need to recognise how the rest of the world is perceiving you these days.
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Thanks for letting me know. The next time W. calls up, I'll give him the what-for and tell him to shape up ICE.