[Humiliation as American experience]
US public diplomacy shattered at JFK Airport (2)
by
Mehmet Kalyoncu*

Understandably, the US authorities raised the level of security and hence the level of scrutiny at the airports after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. However, their sense of insecurity at the same time paved the way for airport security and immigration officers to become extremely hostile and insensitive towards the passengers going in and out of the United States. If there has been one change introduced with the new Obama administration after the eight years of the Bush administration, it is certainly not a change in US immigration officers’ treatment of visitors seeking entry into the United States. Obviously, it requires concrete policy changes and not just nice words about reaching out to the Muslim world.

These visitors may be esteemed scholars, journalists, artists, musicians, religious leaders, politicians, students, businessmen or businesswomen. No matter who they are in their own countries, once they arrive at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport after hours of tiring flight, they are immediately reduced to mere beggars in front of the immigration officer, hoping to clear their entry into the United States with a minimum amount of humiliation. The very fact that a passenger’s entry into the country is contingent on the decision of the immigration officer he or she is talking to at the kiosk and that it does not really matter whether or not the US consulate back home issued a valid visa is humiliating enough. Having invested so much time, money and hope in the process of obtaining a US visa, the passenger is forced to compromise the last bit of dignity in order not to be denied entry into the United States at the last moment.

The JFK effect on America’s deteriorating image

Such compromises include being scorned and yelled at by someone who is barely a high school graduate and hardly speaks proper English, having to wait for long hours without knowing the reason for waiting, having to remain silent while that officer is sniffing through your private belongings such as photographs in your digital camera and personal items in your purse, being questioned in a small room like a terrorism suspect, and finally not being able to object to the mistreatment because you do not want to get yourself into any further trouble. After all, no matter who you are and no matter whether you have a valid visa, the immigration officers apparently have the right to deny you entry into the United States and oblige you to return to your home country at your own expense, if you do not behave.

The travesty in US immigration practices is not limited to civilian passengers only. There are even major international organizations that suffer from the implications of the immigration policies deliberately devised to restrict their movement. The case in point is the diplomatic status of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the United States. As a matter of fact, it is the absence of the diplomatic status of the organization, which is second in size only to the United Nations. The OIC represents 57 Muslim countries and countries with substantial Muslim populations. It is a major partner of the United Nations in areas ranging from poverty reduction to protection of human rights and to maintenance of international peace and security. The US president has had a special envoy to the OIC for the last nine years. Yet, the same organization is not as privileged as the International Coffee Association, International Fertilizer Development Center, Pacific Salmon Commission, International Cotton Institute and Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation to have diplomatic status in the United States. The representatives of the OIC, including its ambassador to the United Nations, are denied the diplomatic immunities and privileges that the representatives of other regional and international organizations naturally enjoy while functioning within the territories of the United States. It does not really make sense for the US president to appoint a special envoy to an organization he does not even see as on par with the International Fertilizer Development Center. Or perhaps it does make sense in explaining how much substance President Obama puts into such an appointment.

At the end of the day, nice speeches and bombastic promises do not solve America’s image problem abroad, especially in the Muslim world. Before embarking on a so-called campaign to earn the hearts and minds of those who already dislike, if not hate, the United States, the White House and the State Department should start checking the US consular and immigration practices that encourage tens of thousands of non-Americans every day to resent the United States due to the humiliation that they are exposed to at the US consulates abroad and at the immigration offices at US airports.