Icelandic woman detained at customs
I recently came across an article posted in the International Herald Tribune about an Icelandic woman who was detained by the Department of Homeland Security at JFK International Airport. She was kept awake for 72 hours, given only bread and porridge once, and otherwise mistreated and humiliated because she had overstayed her student visa by 3 weeks 10 years ago. When she was finally deported back to Iceland (and banned from entering the US again for 10 years), she wrote about her experience in her blog.
Overstaying your visa means that you have to apply for a special visa the next time you visit. She was not aware of this requirement because she had come back before without trouble. The crime clearly did not fit the punishment here - it was a (unfortunately legal) abuse of power by the DHS. Since a lot of my friends are foreign nationals, I just wanted to warn them to make sure all their paperwork was current and they were careful about visas and such.
And yes, I did email the US embassy in Iceland to check this story before I posted it.
Overstaying your visa means that you have to apply for a special visa the next time you visit. She was not aware of this requirement because she had come back before without trouble. The crime clearly did not fit the punishment here - it was a (unfortunately legal) abuse of power by the DHS. Since a lot of my friends are foreign nationals, I just wanted to warn them to make sure all their paperwork was current and they were careful about visas and such.
And yes, I did email the US embassy in Iceland to check this story before I posted it.