tedgale might do me the courtesy of reading what I'm saying before commenting on it.

Or switchging her brain on to understand it.

So let's go through this again. Or is there something governments put into the water in North America to stop their cowed subjects from understanding a very simple point?

Most countries have rules for keeping undesirable foreigners out. I say "most" because Britain, for example, has rules for keeping only undesirable non-EU foreigners out, so we have to treat 10% of the world's population - the 10% that account for about 50% of the world's cross-border travellers - as British. But, allowing for EU countries' strange definition of "foreigner", most countries have pretty much the same rules for discriminating between desirable and undesirable foreigners.

America's rules aren't that different from anyone else's. <b> But they adminster those rules in a way that goes to extraordinary - and extraordinarily expensive - lengths to be as gratuitously obnoxious as possible </b>

NO other country in the world - apart from Japan, which no American till now has regarded as a model of good manners to foreigners - treats all foreigners like criminals to start off with.

And no other country deliberately, visibly and unapologetically, expects guests to wait at their borders till all their own citizens have been processed. Or assigns MORE officials to processing their own citizens than to foreigners.

Now the second of those might sound trivial. To North Americans who think this, do you really assume I get served first at home when we have visitors? Or get the best bits of meat?

And, if I did, what wouod that tell you about me?

flanneruk sir...

May I remind you that at Heathrow there are two queues at immigration...one for Europeans and one for others and quite frankly it takes much longer to clear the others because of additional requirements.

It seems to me in my experience there are just as many lanes open for foreigners as well as US residents at most of the airports I pass through (JFK the most) although I won't defend the fingerprinting and picture taking which is paranoia on the part of the current administration, it still takes longer to process non US residents (and although Canadians are exempt from the fingerpriting and picture taking, they still have to wait on the non US resident queue; at least that's the way I think it is).....also the paranoids running the US Department of Homeland Security require on US bound flights a second level of random checking at the gate (all the more to show their disdain for the security of other countries)..I have been at the gate at Heathrow where flights leaving for the US and Canada were at adjacent gates...the Canadian flight loads with no problems...the US flight loads with some moron &quot;arbitrarily&quot; choosing passengers to be frisked and their carryons gone through not that it does any good but it makes some very happy and proud to be Americans (it makes me sick) but perhaps in another 239 this national nightmare will have passed.

bob_brown

Lol at the Junior bit. Junior is a fairly common name in Jamaica - I'd love to see this guy cope with a plane load of Jamaicans which would include at least three juniors.

Flanneruk wrote:

&quot;Tedgale might do me the courtesy of...switching on her brain...&quot;

I am not &quot;she&quot; on this board, nor to anyone on it.

A simple faute de frappe?

Or homophobia?

If he doesn't know your sexual preferences how can it be homophobia?

There he goes again....

<i>And no other country deliberately, visibly and unapologetically, expects guests to wait at their borders till all their own citizens have been processed.</i>,

please do tell us <b>flanner</b>, at which border crossing in US the above is true?

Please.....


Like I said before, stick to the London underground advice, your field of expertise, because you just keep on digging a deeper ignorance hole for yourself everytime you talk about international travel.

First, Australia immigration/customs procedure and now this?

&lt;&lt;&lt; please do tell us flanner, at which border crossing in US the above is true? &gt;&gt;&gt;

Perhaps he's been reading FlyerTalk

Speaking of FlyerTalk, here's proof that Americans also have to contend with Their Finest Minds when entering the US

www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=827685

Few years ago, flying into Manchester for a long weekend:

Officer: pleasure or business?
Me: pleasure
Officer: how long are you planning on staying:
Me: just 3 nights
Officer: What do you want to accomplish during your stay?
Me: nothing really. just want to relax, have some quality time with friends, and enjoy 2 hours at Old Trafford on Saturday.
Officer: Yeah, but what do you really want to accomplish?
Me: I'm sorry sir, but I really don't understand what you're asking. If by accomplishing you mean &quot;what is the purpose of my trip?&quot; then once again:
relax
friends
Manu match
Officer: ok, as long as you don't want to accomplish anything else, &quot;welcome to UK!&quot;
Me: thank you (walking away puzzled...

To this day, I call the immigration officer &quot;Mr. Accomplish&quot; :-D

or perhaps it was some sort of language difference???

Flanneruk: &quot;So let's go through this again. Or is there something governments put into the water in North America to stop their cowed subjects from understanding a very simple point?&quot;

Speaking of being &quot;gratuitously obnoxious&quot;, Flanner, do you think it just might be something in your own prissy attitude that gets you singled out for more attention at U.S. Customs? Remove the rod.

wolverine: flanner doesn't actually travel to the US. This should be clear from the repeated factual errors about things like staffing of citizen versus foreign national lines. Judging from his seeming lack of knowledge about how onerous the UK passport control process can be, it is doubtful he even makes it out of the UK very often.