With our borders wide open to terrorists and illegals, does this make sense?

[Ned]

OK, she overstayed her tourist visa about 10 years ago, but isn't questioning her incommunicado for two days a bit of overkill. It's not like she was or is a terrorist. How does the government justify this behavior and procedure, when they give illegal aliens, some of which are real criminals, who don't pay taxes, a free ride and free pass to citizenship, as they "look the other way?"

Hell we know how bad it's gotten. It's gotten so bad state governments are taking matters into their own hands and are trying to force the Feds into actually enforcing immigration law, but they (the Feds) don't have the will or desire in the face of politics, yet they will imprison this poor woman for 2 days while they treat her like a terrorist because of a minor violation more than a decade ago.

I just don't understand this "two-faced" approach to law breakers.

Iceland complains about treatment of tourist (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22263392/)
Woman arrested at JFK for overstaying U.S. visa more than a decade earlier

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland's government has asked the U.S. ambassador to explain the treatment of an Icelandic tourist who says she was held in shackles before being deported from the United States.

The woman, Erla Osk Arnardottir Lillendahl, 33, was arrested Sunday when she arrived at JFK airport in New York because she had overstayed a U.S. visa more than 10 years earlier.

Lillendahl, 33, had planned to shop and sightsee with friends, but endured instead what she has claimed was the most humiliating experience of her life.

She contended she was interrogated at JFK airport for two days, during which she was not allowed to call relatives. She said she was denied food and drink for part of the time, and was photographed and fingerprinted.

On Monday, Lillendahl claimed, her hands and feet were chained and she was moved to a prison in New Jersey, where she was kept in a cell, interrogated further and denied access to a phone.

She was deported Tuesday, she told reporters and wrote on her Internet blog.

On Thursday, Foreign Minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir told U.S. Ambassador Carol van Voorst that the treatment of Lillendahl was unacceptable.

"In a case such as this, there can be no reason to use shackles" Gisladottir said. "If a government makes a mistake, I think it is reasonable for it to apologize, like anyone else."

Van Voorst has contacted the officials at JFK airport and asked them to provide a report on Lillendahl's case, Gisladottir said.

[trojan]

It's the same reason the IRS takes no prisoners (so to speak) and loves to crow about it: intimidation.

It may not be nice, but if the government can encourage correct behavior through bullying, it saves us all cost.

[RGoltsch]

I just got done reading this story, then popped over here to see if anyone had posted it. While I don't condone this woman's treatment (Shackles?), she did break the law in a foreign country. If one of us were to break the law in another land, we might see similar or worse treatment.

On a few occasions, I have been asked questions when dealing with foreign countries that my truthful answers wound up costing me more in time or money. If I had lied and simply said I was only visiting Brazil on a sightseeing trip, I could have been there two months earlier.

I was told by a Brazilian lawyer that if the immigration folks decided that my visa was of the improper type (Tourist when actually coming in for technical work), the local authorities had the right to refuse entry to their country and lock me up at the airport until Monday morning (I was arriving Saturday afternoon). Assuming the judge came in on Monday, he or she would decide my fate, which would probably be deportation. Needless to say, I made sure that I took the time to follow all their rules and get the right documentation.

My fear is what this woman faced...she was locked up without access to her own country's representation for a few days. I find it best to simply follow the rules and not have to worry about running afoul of customs or immigration agents.

Not trying to be harsh, but nowhere in the report does it state that she denied the accustaions that she had overstayed her visa.

If a bad guy thinking of breaking a law over here sees this story, maybe he'll think twice about doing it. "Gee, those Americans are cracking down.....even their allies are jailed if they break the law."

[jjjenny]

This woman did break the law and was caught, but, her treatment was really harsh. I wonder, had she been from Mexico, would she have been treated that badly?

[Ned]

It's interesting that most people reading this story are focusing on this woman and the fact she did break the law. This is true in the comments I've read elsewhere too.

My point is that this seems like terribly unequal treatment under the law. We shackle a person and hold them incommunicado for two days for a 10 year old Tourist Visa violation, but do nothing to those who enter the country illegally (no Visa) and flaunt our laws and tax code, and even offer them amnesty.

Personally, I think something's definitely wrong with that picture.

[RGoltsch]

While the shackles may have been overboard for what turned out to be just another tourist, how did the Homeland Security people know this until they checked her history? To me, the treatment was harsh, but necessary at the start...but after they decided they were going to send her back home, the shackles and cuffs were, to me, just to intimidate and embarrass her.

I read her translated blog: http://eggmann.blog.is/blog/eggmann/ (http://eggmann.blog.is/blog/eggmann/)

She said that she was given one phone call, but it wouldn't allow her to make overseas calls. She should have called her consulate. That is what we are all taught to do. In her blog, she admits she snuck her cell phone into the bathroom and sent a text message out to someone she knew. At this point, her cell phone was confiscated too...

My reading of her blog says she was held at the airport on a Sunday for 10 hours (5 Hours in one office, 5 in another) after her arrival, then she was brought to a detention center in what she assumes is NJ. There, she was allowed to make her phone call. To my thinking, she should have called the consulate then.

After being interviewed for a few hours and held in a cell in NJ for 9 hours, she was brought back to the airport. She was sent home on the next flight.

Maybe I am wrong, but that doesn't sound like two days in custody. It sounds like they caught her, interviewed her, and sent her home on the next available flight the next day. I think there was a bit of embellishment going on in her blog.

And one more thing.......this story came out on December 14th over in Iceland. It is now December 17th. Has anyone seen any reporters asking for DHS' take on all this? Perhaps there is another side to this story? We have been all wringing our hands over one side of the story. The only thing I saw was that a report was requested by the US Ambassador.

Lastly, I was reading online a while ago about the border patrol in Arizona. If they manage to catch an illegal, they do round them up and send them back home:
Had they been caught, a Border Patrol agent would have put them in a dogcatcher-style pen in the back of his truck. They would have gone to the Border Patrol station and would have been fingerprinted with a biometric scanner that can tell agents if they have been caught crossing the border before, or are wanted for crimes in the United States.

If the immigrants had no criminal record in the United States, they would be bused back to Mexico in a few hours.

Taken from http://www.azguard.gov/PublicAffairs/PAO%20Pages/09152006%20OJS%20TN%20Danger%20at%20the%20crossing %20story.htm (http://www.azguard.gov/PublicAffairs/PAO%20Pages/09152006%20OJS%20TN%20Danger%20at%20the%20crossing %20story.htm)

Unfortunately, they don't catch as many illegals as manage to enter.