- Sue Smethurst enjoys traveling. It's one of the things
about my job that I absolutely love," says the 30-year-old Australian,
who works as an associate editor for the women's magazine New Idea. She
doesn't even mind flying. "It's one of the great pleasures of the
world to be able to turn off your cell phone and be where no one can annoy
you."
-
- But when her Qantas flight from Melbourne, Australia,
touched down at LAX around 8 a.m. on Friday, November 14, Smethurst found
herself nightmarishly annoyed - by the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS). Smethurst was supposed to continue to New York and on Monday interview
singer Olivia Newton-John. Smethurst had honeymooned in Manhattan last
year and was looking forward to a long, free weekend having a good walk
through Central Park, getting a decent bowl of chicken soup and going Christmas
shopping - all those gorgeous New York things."
-
- Better still, her six-hour layover in L.A. would allow
her to have lunch with her American literary agent. "I had a room
booked at the Airport Hilton, where I was going to my leave bags, shower
and get a cup of coffee."
-
- But first she had to clear LAX's immigration check-in,
which she reached after 20 minutes in line. An officer from the DHS's newly
minted Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau studied the traveler's
declaration form Smethurst had filled out on the plane.
-
- "Oh, you're a journalist," he noted. "What
are you here for?"
-
- "I'm interviewing Olivia Newton-John," Smethurst
replied.
-
- "That's nice," the official said, impressed.
"What's the article about?"
-
- "Breast cancer."
-
- When Smethurst tells me this, she pauses and adds, "I
thought that last question was a little odd, but figured everything's different
now in America and it was fine." What she didn't know was that her
assignment and travel plans, along with the chicken soup and stroll through
Central Park, had been terminated the moment she confirmed she was a journalist.
-
- Fourteen hours later, she was escorted by three armed
guards onto the 11 p.m. Qantas flight home.
-
- "I want to say right off that I adore America and
love Americans," Smethurst says. Still, she remains perplexed and
emotionally bruised by what followed in Terminal Four.
-
- The CBP agent who read Smethurst's traveler's questionnaire
took her to a secondary inspection area 30 feet away and told her to wait,
then left for half an hour. He returned with additional uniformed staff
who, professionally and pleasantly enough, asked more questions.
-
- What sort of stories did she write? What kind of magazine
was New Idea?
-
- Where was it published? What was its circulation? Does
it print politically sensitive articles? When would her interview appear?
Who would be reading it?
-
- "I laughed," Smethurst recalls, because we're
a cross between Good Housekeeping and People magazine. "The most political
thing we'd likely print was Laura Bush's horoscope."
-
- The polite interrogation continued. Who was her father?
His occupation? Her mother's maiden name and occupation? What were their
dates of birth, where did they live?
-
- The agents gravely nodded at Smethurst's replies and
left once more, promising to return. When they came back half an hour later,
one of the officers offered Smethurst a cup of airport coffee.
-
- "I thought at that stage something was quite wrong,"
Smethurst says, "so I asked the man with the coffee if there was some
problem."
-
- "I will tell you when there's a problem," he
abruptly snapped, according to Smethurst. Then he pointed to a nearby sign:
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- Your Silence Is Appreciated
-
- At about noon, CBP informed Smethurst she would be denied
entre into the United States: While Australian tourists visiting the United
States are visa-waived for 90 days, working journalists need a special
I-Visa, which Smethurst had not been aware of and did not possess. She
had, after all, flown into LAX on the same passport eight times previously
without incident. Now she was being asked to raise her right hand and swear
that her answers had been truthful, then was fingerprinted and photographed
- every time she comes to America, her swiped passport will bring up this
documentation of her rejection. As Smethurst's inked fingers were rolled
onto the government form, she noticed its heading:
-
- "Criminal."
-
- Eventually she was escorted under armed guard to a pay
phone to make the call she vainly believed would clear everything up and
allow her to stay in the country. Then, while conversations were occurring
among her husband, editor and consul officers in L.A., Smethurst's baggage
was thoroughly searched and a makeup bag temporarily confiscated. She was
then handcuffed and marched through the airport to another terminal, where
LAX's main detention center is located.
-
- After the phone call she pleaded for food, having now
been away from home nearly 24 hours. Smethurst offered money for a snack
to be brought to her - French fries, potato chips, anything - but was refused.
-
- "Would it be possible to get a cup of tea?"
she asked. This too was denied, because it could be used as a weapon -
someone, it was explained, had recently thrown hot coffee into an agent's
face. When she requested a cup of cold tea, she was similarly refused,
although no one could explain to her how a cup of cold water could become
weaponized.
-
- Finally, around 6 p.m., a "detention meal"
was pulled from a fridge, consisting of an orange, fruit-box drink and
a roll that, Smethurst says, "I could play golf with."
-
- For a while she sat in the main detention center, unable
to eat the food, as eight armed guards watched TV. Then one of the staff
returned with a bag of takeout and began eating a hamburger and fries in
front of her.
-
- "At that stage," she says, "I just lost
the plot completely and threw the roll into the bin in front of me with
sheer, utter frustration."
-
- The CBP would later call this gesture a "tantrum";
Smethurst, in turn, claims that she was thoroughly body searched by female
staff each time she was moved from one part of LAX to another, and that
she broke down in tears several times, swearing to her captors that she
was not a criminal, had done nothing wrong and should be allowed in the
country. She also says one sympathetic staff member told her she'd simply
had bad luck in getting the agent she did at the first customs station,
since the I-Visa rule was enforced at the discretion of agents. Smethurst
could have entered the country by simply declaring herself a tourist on
her traveler's form - a routine practice among reporters entering the U.S.
-
- Eventually, Smethurst's release was won by the Consul
General's Office. The consulate also gained one other concession - the
cup of tea she'd begged for. It was prepared by a senior CBP official whom
Smethurst thought was the kindest American she'd met that day.
-
- "It was the best cup of tea I'd ever had,"
she says. I didn't waste a drop."
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