Flying While Brown and Bearded

"(Getty Images) The immigration officer held out his hand for my passport. He was large and red-faced, with graying hair and not much neck. Behind him lay a crumpled Dunkin' Donuts bag. He emitted a suburban sort of provincialism, and yet he sat magisterially in his high chair, wielding his stamp like a scepter. At that moment, his power over my fate was great enough to override even certain constitutional provisos, entitled by the widening exceptionalism of national security."

""Why so many Arab stamps?" he asked. "Oh, I grew up in the Middle East. Lots of regional travel for high school tournaments, you know," I answered, attempting the twang of American camaraderie even as he held in his hands the fullest evidence of my internationalism. The officer flipped some more, shaking his head. "Why would someone your age travel so much? To those countries?""

A young traveler at JFK encounters a large, red-faced immigration officer who inspects his passport and fixates on numerous Middle Eastern stamps. The officer questions the traveler's student status and reasons for regional trips, implying deportation and treating routine reentry as suspicion. Repeated detentions and interrogations at U.S. ports of entry create a theatrical enforcement where officers wield discretionary power and national security rationales can override constitutional protections. The traveler attempts to appear innocuous and compliant but endures invasive scrutiny and a final admonition, "America is watching you," illustrating racialized surveillance at the border.

Read at The Nation