Around the corner there may wait a new road or secret gate.
The City of Angels is awake.
The City of Angels is awake. It’s not that it’s been asleep, it’s only been taking a nap. For the last three months, we have been doing what is known as ‘sheltering in place’. Meaning that our local government authorities wanted us to basically stay in our house and not go anywhere. And they did make that difficult because they closed all the beaches and the parks, all the bars and restaurants, and all the stores. So really where was there to go?
But finally we are starting to open. Bars and restaurants, barber shops and hair salons, nail salons and department stores are all open for some kind of business. But is it too much too soon or was this all Much Ado about nothing. It depends on who you talk to and what your opinion is of COVID-19. Is it a great pandemic or is it a left wing hoax?
Through history man has always dealt with pandemics before with diseases that could not be cured and that killed hundreds of thousands of people through the ages. There’s the Spanish flu of 1918, polio, black plague, measles, and one of the greatest diseases of all time although not many people think about it anymore is tuberculosis which for centuries all the way back to the Greeks was the greatest killer of humans on the planet. Of the five diseases that I just mentioned only two of them forced humans to change their lifestyle to such degree that it caused people to leave cities or to stay inside. That’s the black plague and the Spanish flu. The other diseases that I mentioned plus many others while horrible did not cause society to change. People caught these diseases and many died but the general population just went on living their lives. So which approach was the correct one? Well we’re told that the difference between this disease and other ones is that it’s so contagious and it has never appeared before on the planet. That we possess no natural defense for it. That’s why health officials said wear a mask, wash your hands, social distance and stay inside.
People want to stay well . They don’t want to go out in public and get sick. But people also cannot stay home forever. It’s summer in Los Angeles and the sun is shining and the weather is perfect. And everyone in the city is suffering from Lock Down Fever. Even before the ‘shelter in place’ order was lifted since Easter you could already tell that people were beginning to disregard the laws. Gone were the empty freeways and the empty side streets and the empty parks. People began coming out more and more and driving places and riding bikes and getting out in the weather and just trying to find some normalcy in a time where there is no normalcy
For 2 1/2 months I stayed inside. I faithfully wore my mask, washed my hands and rarely went out except to go to a grocery store or pharmacy. I sanitize my kitchen every other day with Clorox wipes and every time I stepped back into the house I used hand sanitizer. I also carried hand sanitizer with me everywhere that I went . And I got it! I got a very mild case of it, but it got me. So, I am very scared of COVID-19. The idea of going to a restaurant or a bar is now almost frightening. While I understand that people have to get back to their daily lives and make a living, the casualness with which some seem to deal with COVID-19 to me is mind boggling.
The bars and restaurants in Los Angeles opened on June 5th, and I ventured out to see what would happen. I live not far away from Culver City which for many years was a very sleepy little town that would close up at about 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon but now is a happening crossroads with 20 to 30 restaurants and bars in its downtown district. Culver City for movie aficionados is the home of MGM Studios which later became Sony Pictures. The area that I went to investigate was where Culver Blvd. crosses Main Street in Culver City.
In this area there are 25 bars and restaurants, a Trader Joe’s, and the world-famous Culver Hotel with its jazz club lobby all in a six block radius. The rules were that people had to wear masks as they came into the restaurant, sitting was limited to only 25% capacity and people needed to maintain social distance. Every place handled it differently but the idea of socially distancing when people have not been out in public for 3 months is kind of silly at best. People who wanted to come were doing so to see their friends and eat in a restaurant. Some were coming out in groups of 10 to 15 people and sitting at large tables. One restaurant known as Public School has a very extensive patio but they were only seating 4 tables on the patio at a time so there was immense space between those customers. However, you went around the corner to Roscoe’s Tavern where you were met at the door by a man wearing a mask who took your temperature and told you to wait until a table became available based on social distancing rules. Yet seated right next to the maitre-d’ and potential new customers less than two feet away was a table of 15 people all day eating, drinking and nobody had a mask on, so at best the results were mixed. There were new restaurants that had just opened few months before the COVID-19 fiasco hit and somehow they managed to hang onto their spaces for 2 1/2 months with no business and now they were just trying to make as much money as they could. There is a new Irish bar that had just opened about six months before COVID-19 hit with the social distant rules posted at the door but there was no one practicing social distance. In an Irish bar it’s impossible, it goes against the very fabric of an Irish bar.
I have taken an informal poll of my very good friends here in Los Angeles to see who was up for going out to grab something to eat or meet somebody in a bar for a drink. Well the results were pretty much 85% of those polled were not ready to come out because they were afraid of catching the virus in public, the other 15% couldn’t wait to go someplace where they could actually socially interact with other people.
Myself I’m kind of on the fence. Staying at home for 2 1/2 months and missing social interaction and the daily activities of my life was very difficult for me. I would honestly say that it affected my mental state. Yet the fear of catching this disease in a social setting when there is no cure and no vaccine scares me even more.
So, Los Angeles is open! But we are open with uncertainty! There is no clear path to the future, and it causes dismay and restless nights about what the future will hold for you as an individual, your city as a community and our country as a whole. New cases of COVID-19 , new hospitalizations and a rising death toll are concerning to health officials here while to others it’s just the price of living your life. Which is the right philosophy? Well that’s up to the individual but as we try to return to something that resembles normal life before the pandemic we’re actually looking at a whole new reality with no conclusion and no clear solution.
One of my grand plans before I left to drive across the country was to stop everyday to see something interesting, take a hike, or visit some place I haven’t been before – but after driving four days non-stop across the United States (of course only 300 miles a day) I was anxious to get to my final destination, Atlanta. So Days 5 and 6, I really didn’t stop, I just drove.
Abilene, Texas was a nice town. The night I arrived I wanted to get some something to eat in a nice restaurant and I found a nice place using Yelp. The bartender recommended a pub near the local college to check out, and I ended up in a few games of friendly pool with some locals who were very nice. Abilene is actually considered a very good place to visit and live – this link will tell you a lot about Abilene history and livability – https://livability.com/tx/abilene . But overall Abilene did not leave much of an impression on me. I was only there for a night and my apologies to anyone who reads this who is from Abilene but I just decided to move on down the road.
But as I was headed east on Interstate 20 I did come to an interesting little town called Cisco, TX. Cisco seems to be surrounded by a lot of trees which was different after 4 days of driving across desert and flatland. That was because of Lake Cisco, a man-made lake created in the 1920’s.
One of Cisco’s claims to fame is that Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton Hotel chain bought and operated his first hotel in Cisco. The story goes that Hilton came to Cisco to buy a bank, but the bank cost too much, so he purchased the Mobley Hotel in 1919. The hotel is now a local museum and community center. The hotel had about 40 rooms and did a very brisk business right from the start as this occurred during the beginning of the Texas oil boom. It’s now on the National Historic Register, and right next to the community center is a little park called the Conrad Hilton Park with a small statue of him there.
The rest of the drive that day is kind of a blur as to what happened because the entire focus of the trip was now just trying to get out of Texas and across as much of Louisiana as I could make in my 300 mile radius. I spent the night in Greenwood, Louisiana.
One last comment about Texas before I move on. What is it in Texas with the super high transition ramps to other freeways? They’re in every city no matter how small or how large, and they just keep going higher and higher and higher. Other states have them as well but Texas seems to have a real proclivity for building these structures. As I drove across the country along the southern route, Texas by far had more of them than any other place I’ve ever seen. Fort Worth has so many freeways crossing and re-crossing each other that the confusion of roads and bridges and transition roads is called the “Mixmaster.”
Day 6 was just spent driving I-20 through Shreveport, Louisiana on to the Mississippi River. I crossed the river at Vicksburg, MS. This is the site of a huge battle during the Civil War between the North and the South. The North had been trying to take Vicksburg, a major port city for the Confederates on the Mississippi for months. Every time they were rebuffed by the Southern soldiers. Finally Lincoln placed a relatively unknown general in charge of the effort, U.S. Grant. Grant laid siege to the city for 45 days cutting off all food and water. The Southern command finally surrendered, and the victory turned Grant into a Northern national hero.
The Vicksburg National Military Park is here that you can drive through and see almost the entire battlefield. Even places where people currently live and own homes are included in the National Monument. It is really quite moving when you consider the sheer amount of death and destruction because the weapons of war had far outstripped the stratagems that were used to guide men into battle. Although the sheer amount of information about who was fighting at what position on the battlefield, and who did what, and who died here after a while becomes overwhelming.
Here I have a a comment about growing up in the South. I’m of a certain age when the people of the South still talked about the War of Northern Aggression. Every little boy that I know including myself grew up pretending to be a Confederate soldier fighting against the Yankee intruders. Thank God that is all changed to a large degree. I don’t think many little boys grow up anymore wanting to pretend fight the most deadly war that the United States has ever fought which was based on slavery, and that we fought against each other. What the southern states in the late 1800’s did to hang on to some integrity after losing the Civil War was to put memorial plaques up everywhere that something happened during the Civil War. And they’re literally thousands of them in every state. Starting at Louisiana and continuing on into Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia, thousands of Civil War historical markers everywhere covering everything from houses to where people slept, to where battles were fought, to where it seems like famous people took a crap. They are everywhere.
True family story – My mother used to like to read the markers and often complained to my father when he was driving that he would not stop and let her read them. So once on a trip to Mississippi after her constant complaining, my father began to stop at every maker and read them out loud in their entirety. After 10 miles of this history lesson, my mother gave in and never complained about reading the historical makers again.
I spent the night in Meridian, Mississippi.
Waking up the next day, I headed straight toward Atlanta through Birmingham on Interstate 20. As I drove further and further east that day my anxiety over why I was taking this trip and what I hoped to accomplish in Atlanta grew. Why had I driven 2400 miles to another city to prove what? To whom and why? Plus driving for 7 straight days with huge bridges, big trucks, crazy drivers, and the endless boredom of just looking at scenery pass by made me a nervous wreck the further I drove.
Yet I could also reflect on the amazing size of our country and the constant changes in scenery and climate. I started on the Pacific Ocean through the changing scenery of California, Arizona, New Mexico to the Flat Lands of Texas. Than in East Texas things start to change with trees, and the drive just gets Greener and Greener and Greener as the humidity soars, and plants and trees start to take over everywhere. I travel back to the South often but I am always amazed at how green it is and how many trees there are.
I finally got to Atlanta about three in the afternoon. I had chosen to stay for the first few days near my nephew Justin and his family who live in Woodstock , GA about 27 miles outside of downtown Atlanta. I had rented an Airbnb just a couple of miles from his home. Yet, in my exhausted and anxiety ridden state, I just could not handle driving on Atlanta’s infamous I- 285 Perimeter which is like a racecourse with too much traffic and huge trucks and Atlanta’s very aggressive drivers all doing 10 miles per hours over the speed limit. So I choose to take smaller state highways around to Woodstock, but that gave me the opportunity to understand how much Atlanta and the surrounding area had grown through the years. What had been open country and small towns was now malls, housing developments and apartment/condo complexes. Rows of them in all directions.
Arriving at my AirBnb, I unpacked my car and set up my temporary quarters. While worried, I was also very excited to see what the next two months would hold for me as I began my adventure in Atlanta. Performing and seeing what opportunities either in show business or real estate existed here, and the chance to really start to understand the city that I’ve passed through so many times during my life but have never stayed for more than a week at a time. After 7 long tiring days, The Grand Adventure was about to begin.
On Wednesday, May 22, I left Los Angeles (Santa Monica to be specific) to start a 2000 plus mile journey across the country to perform my one man show – Mi Casa Su Casa – at the Atlanta Fringe Festival. This would be my 7th driving trip across the country, but the first one I had taken in 25 years.
The reasons for the trip were numerous – some professional and some very personal – but the end result was that I was leaving my home of 19 years to see if life in another city was something to consider. I was moving to Atlanta for 2 months to see if this was the next phase of the adventure.
I had left the South 40 years before for various political and personal reasons. It was the tail end of the Civil Rights era, but the rampant racism that still existed in the places that I lived plus the desire to pursue a professional life in the entertainment business made the move to New York and eventually Los Angeles the correct decision for me at that time.
Yet, I often returned to visit family and friends, and even worked there at times. The South and the style of living there was never far from my mind, but I was convinced that I could not live there again. However, Life marches on unrelenting. The film business came to Georgia in a huge way and to such a large degree that there is now more film production work in Atlanta then in Los Angeles.
I had/have an extremely good life in LA. I own a large home that has become a very popular Airbnb destination. I have the ability to direct theatre and film projects that are only limited by my desire to create them. I have many wonderful friends and a strong support system that I can call on when I need too.
Yet I felt stuck. Stuck in my own life. No one is to blame for this but me. But stuck is not a great place to be for anyone. I was bored with myself and felt I was repeating the same things over and over again. And at my age, there was not alot of time to lose by repeating myself.
So I decided to shake things up by moving to Atlanta to pursue an idea. And I would going to use the invitation to perform at the Atlanta Fringe Festival as the opening gambit in this journey of self rediscovery.
I said farewell to my partner and headed south to San Diego using I-405 to I-5 and into San Diego. I had traveled this way a few months before and had ended up in Yuma, Arizona. I grew to like Yuma a lot and so for the first stop on my cross country journey that is where I decided to land.
Taking I-8 out of San Diego, I was finally head straight East. This short interstate highway runs through some amazing country. About 40 miles out of San Diego, you have climbed to over 4000 feet while passing Native American Nations one after another. You pass through countryside that seems like you are riding through the old West expecting an outlaw to jump out from behind the nearest boulder and rob you. Then you drop down to pure desert. Slowly as you drive toward the Colorado River, the land begins to take on the color of green and you enter one of the biggest agriculture sections of the US. All the while you are driving within just a few miles of the Mexico/USA border.
I stopped at a little town called Jacumba Hot Springs where the main attraction is a small hotel/resort called The Jacumba Spa. But literally less than a football field away is the border fence. I drive down to the fence where you could see the new fence and the old fence side by side. And where on our side is a dirt road to patrol the fence. On the Mexican side, a rancher uses the fence to tie up his horses while they graze. Plus more than two miles down the new fence line, it stops completely. Anyone any time of day can just walk around the fence into another country. There is no camera, no fence, no sign saying stop, no nothing.
I drove on to Yuma and spent the night. I also took the opportunity to visit a few places that night and the next day before I pushed on. Night spots that I had found the first time I was there, and some historically interesting places that have factored in the history of the West and the USA. Yuma is historically interesting because of its place in settling the West. With one of the few safe crossings on the wild Colorado River of the late 1700’s, the Spanish used Yuma to settle San Francisco and Los Angeles and build the missions along the California coast. It at one time was a important rail head for cattle. The Arizona Territorial Prison (referred to in the film, 3:10 to Yuma) was famous for the criminals jailed there and treatment of its prisoners. Finally, while Yuma is now slower and more off the beaten track, it is still a very popular destination for senior folk looking for a quiet, mild winter and is home to some of the largest agri-businesses in the US. There is a lovely historic downtown area with a couple of excellent art musuems, and there is great access to the Colorado River for swimming, boating and fishing.
Photos of these various historic places in and around Yuma will follow in a photo gallery. Look out for it. Thanks.
NEXT STOP: Somewhere in Arizona
One of the easiest and best hike in Las Vegas is the Historic Railway Trail that over looks Lake Mead and Hoover Dam. TripAdvisor gives this trail a 4 1/2 rating and calls it the #15 thing to do in Las Vegas.
The Historic Railroad Trail is an easy, dog-friendly hike along a former railroad grade. It provides panoramic views of Lake Mead, overlooking the Boulder Basin area. As hikers travel through five large tunnels, they will experience a portion of the railroad route that ran from Boulder City to Hoover Dam from 1931 to 1961.
As one of Southern Nevada’s most unique trail experiences, the trail was designated as a national recreation trail on June 4, 2015. It shares the rich history of the construction of the Hoover Dam and the creation of Lake Mead.
In 2017, the Historic Railroad Trail was graded and received a new layer of decomposed granite, improving its accessibility and the overall visitor experience. The trail can be accessed near the Lake Mead Visitor Center or via the Hoover Dam Parking Garage.
This is the only remaining section of Hoover Dam Railroad system that is not highly disturbed or under water
You can walk, run, bicycle or even push a stroller on this flat easy trail. Along the trail you will see a section of rough, rocky road on the south side of the railroad bed that is believed to be the first section of pioneer trail or road for the construction of Hoover Dam. Approaching Tunnel 1, on the right, look down the ravine to see concrete plugs taken out of Hoover Dam to install the turbines.
All tunnels are approximately 300 feet in length, and 25 feet in diameter. The tunnels were oversized to fit penstock sections and large equipment being transported to Hoover Dam.
Tunnel 1 has eight sections of vertical supports, five of which have horizontal planks to prevent the fall of loose rock on to the tracks so there would be few delays during the 24-hour dam building schedule. Weight from the rock has damaged the outermost, eastern arch.
Tunnel 2 burned in an arson fire in 1990. You can see it looks different from the other tunnels. It was sprayed with shotcrete to fortify the now looser rock.
Rocks excavated from the tunnels were undoubtedly used for the fills. The outermost east arch was deformed by pressure of the rock in tunnel 3.
Tunnel 5 was burned in 1978 and was then sealed. The tunnel was restored, sprayed with shotcrete and reopened in July 2001. The trail continues to Hoover Dam and the visitor center parking structure. The gates after Tunnel 5 are locked at sunset.
Nine steam and four gas locomotives and 71 people used to operate the system. It was a standard-gauge, 90-pound rail construction that used Oregon fir ties.
This section of the railroad was used in the motion picture “The Gauntlet” starring Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke for a sequence in which they were on a motorcycle being chased by an assassin in a helicopter.
You can access the trailhead from the junction of Nevada Way and US 93 at the northern end of Boulder City, Nevada, take US 93 approximately 2.4 miles in a easterly direction to Lakeshore Drive. Turn left onto Lakeshore Drive and proceed a short distance past the Alan Bible Visitor Center. The trailhead is located on the right side of Lakeshore Drive.
Note: Major parts of the information included in this article are taken from the National Park Service Lake Mead National Recreation Area website and the National Recreation Trail website. Photo credit: Photos were taken from NPS.org and NRT Database.
So recently, I went to get my TSA Pre-Check eligibility in Los Angeles. I paid $85 for a 5 year membership to be able to bypass the long security lines at airports in the US. The ability to not have to pull my computer out, have to take my shoes off, or have a surly TSA agent stick their hand in my private areas. That sounded like a really good deal to me if for no other reason than just in terms of sheer time saved.
So I was eager to check out how this would work on my first international flight since receiving my TSA Pre-Check approval. I have been sometimes selected for this program randomly, but not officially. I had already booked a flight to Copenhagen after I had applied for the program (which takes about 3 to 4 weeks) so when I got my KTN # (Known Traveler Number) I called my carrier, Norwegian Airlines to give them my number. I was kindly told in a sing-song Scandinavian voice that Norwegian did not take part in the program so I could not use my KTN for this flight.
OK, I had to stand in line like everyone else again. Ok, I could that. I had done that before – many times if you have read my blog before. However, what follows are the worst two experiences that I or my family have ever had at the hands of the TSA.
I am all for border protection and legal immigration. I am all for the rule of law and applying it equally. I am not however, for a bunch of foul-mouth, self-entitled, rude, self-important jerk-offs yelling at US citizens, legal Green Card holders, and proper visitors to the US with proper visas, especially when those being yelled at are myself and my wife. The TSA feels that they are answerable to no one and that should change ASAP.
My wife had gone to Europe to see her family for 3 weeks, and I was joining her for the last 10 days in Hamburg, Germany. We were going to return together on a Norwegian Airline flight from Copenhagen and land in Los Angeles.
I should explain here that my wife is from Denmark. She has lived here for 7 years, and we have been married going on 5 years. Her permanent green card application has taken forever. In older days, the process took about 2 years from applying to receiving your permanent residence card that would be good for up to 10 years before you have to reapply. During that two-year period, the applicant was granted a temporary Green Card which allowed them to stay, and exit or enter the USA. Now because of Obama, Trump, 9/11 and other factors, this process can take up to 4 years and still not be resolved. The people going through this process are not illegal, but that temporary card can be taking away at anytime. And that can and does create a lot of anguish and anxiety for the individuals and their families.
Applying for the card is also an expensive choice costing with legal fees more than 3000 dollars with no guarantee that you will be allowed to stay. You can choose to do this process yourself to save some money, but it will still cost upwards of 1500 dollars. Once you are granted temporary status, it can be taken away at a moment’s notice and you are put on a plane at once and away you go back to your home country, even if you are married to a US citizen. If you are here on a visa of any nature and it runs out and you do not return to your home country, the only other choice you have other than marriage is to go underground. That is what many immigrants used to do, but if you are ever caught you are banned from entering the USA in many cases, forever. So the idea that getting a permanent green card is easy or simple, or that you can fake it by getting married is simply not true. It is a long, hard process that is expensive and is very stressful on a person or family.
Now Los Angeles is one of the busiest entry points into the USA. A TSA customs employee told me that at any one time there are 3000 people standing in line at customs waiting to be processed, and more than that are processed through the security lines. That is every working hour of the day – 7 days a week. That is a lot of people, stress and constant screening to process. It can put an amazing strain on people and a system. Yet, that is no excuse for bad and rude behavior to citizens and visitors alike just because your job is stressful. And TSA is making no excuses for its incredibly awful service and terrible treatment of people.
So I get to the airport and get my e-ticket for my flight to Denmark. I stand in the 45 minute line to get into the security line. One of my complaints is that no airport is the same in terms of how they handle this procedure. Every single one of them does it different, and at LAX which has 7 terminals – they do it all different as well. So there is no standard, no set way. Different places want you do to different things. And with the increase of machines helping with moving the bags and shoes, and new x-ray machine the process is constantly changing. Plus at LAX because of the sheer number of people, the guards scream instructions at you all the time. Someone should train them to understand that humans automatically turn off paying attention when someone screams at them continuously. We just tune out.
This day the message being screamed at us was”…nothing in your pockets at all. No passport, wallet, paper – nothing. Put everything in the container.” I managed to do that, however I always keep my boarding pass with me, so I stuck it in my back pocket. I go through the x-ray machine, and I am immediately pulled out of line and surrounded by two TSA guards.
They showed me the x-ray image where there is something in my back pocket. I pull out my boarding pass. A single piece of paper. But because of this I am now going to experience a full body search instead of a wand. I asked why and they said that it was a new policy. They were professional about it – telling me what they were going to touch and I said ok – meanwhile, my computer, passport, wallet, medicine, shoes were waiting at the end of the collection point where anyone could have taken them.
They checked my waistband, my pockets in the back and felt up my butt. “Now turn around!” I asked why because the x-ray clearly showed that there was nothing in the front part of my body. “Procedure” was the answer has he felt up my legs, grabbed my privates very hard and checked my front pockets. Than I was told to take off my socks? What were they going to find in two sport socks? At this point, I began to complain loudly about the overkill. I have a KTN number, it was a piece of paper, nothing in my socks. The sock check was over so I grabbed them and started away. I was shoved back into place by a large female officer, and when I pointed out that my passport was out in the open for almost 10 minutes now – she literally screamed in my face, “…we have cameras all over the place. No one is going to steal your lousy passport.” This is the same TSA that has failed every major test of their system since testing began. Sure they were going to notice one guy’s passport being pick up at the end of the conveyor belt.
Than they checked my hands of whatever chemicals that they check for – Pass. Than I was dismissively told to “move along.” That did it. His and his partner’s entire attitude was offensive and over the top. I told the officer that he was rude and this entire procedure was a pure power play. That the full body check was entirely unnecessary because of a single piece of paper that they could clearly see in the image screen. He demanded to know if I want to speak to a supervisor. I told him what was the point – 10 minutes had already been wasted, and I would simply be put in another room to file my complaint and more time would be wasted. But I retold them that they were very rude. As I walked away the female officer screamed again, “Did I want to speak to a supervisor?”
As I collected my items that had sat on the conveyor belt for 15 minutes almost and started to check if everything was there, I realized I was extremely upset. I have heard about rude or over the top behavior by TSA agents, but had never experienced myself in all the trips I have taken. I felt like I had been assaulted almost. A man standing next to me who must have seen part of the exchange stated to me that he had a Pre-Check number and he got pulled out every time. His comment was he did not know why he had gotten the KTN# because it was basically useless. I wondered to myself if the same fate would happen for me now.
Then the return –
So the brief history of my wife. She is a Danish citizen and while waiting for her permanent Green Card to come, her Danish passport expired. So she sent off for another from Denmark which took about 6 weeks, and in the meantime she got an extension placed in her old passport by the local immigration office. We are lucky that we live in LA, so there is a local one. Yet, if during that time a family member or emergency happened in her home country, she could not travel at all. No airline would accept her and no country would receive her until she had proper travel documents.
Plus because the process takes so long now, her temporary green card had expired. But instead of giving her a new card, the US made her travel with an expired temporary green card and a visa extension in her expired Danish passport. Her Danish passport is in her maiden name so each time she travels anywhere, she carries two passports (one old with the extension visa and the new passport), her marriage license with her married name, and her expired Green Card also in her married name.
Now just before her trip, she got notice that her permanent Green Card was approved she was here in the country permanently – but they would send the card in about 3 to 4 weeks. She would receive the card after her return to the country. So for this trip she carried the 2 passports, the expired Green card, her marriage license and the letter that said she had the permanent card with the ID# on it.
She had done this trip to Denmark about 4 time now, plus trips with me to Cuba, Mexico (twice) and Canada. She is always questioned but not for long and customs is relatively easy.
Recently, her fingerprints ended up in the system, so now she is pulled out of line every time and taken to a sealed TSA room known as “secondary check”. Here she is told to sit for up to an hour while they check her through the computer system. This is always on a first come, first serve basis. There is no allowance for green card holders and people already with the proper visas. The secondary check is for anyone that may appear on the screen of the customs agent at the first check-in. If they see anything that flags you, you are escorted by an armed officer to the secondary check room for the reason they were flagged.
This is not the little room that they show in all the movies with two-way mirrors and agents staring at you trying to figure out which country you are a spy for. This is a large room where everyone is treated like cattle. No one but the officer and the person pulled out of line can go inside. There is no cell phone communication allowed inside. None whatsoever. There is no time limit as to all long they can keep you, they will answer no questions about the person inside from anyone including family. They handle many languages and cultures and constantly have to deal with people who are confused, scared or literally do not speak English. So it is hard on the personnel and the person pulled out of line and can created some very stressful and tense situations. Yet again that does not excuse really rude behavior from anyone or agency.
My wife was in this room for 3 hours (a visit that has always only taken an hour), while I waited outside after a 12 hour flight and 2 hour check in that the Copenhagen airport. I was not allowed to know what was happening with her, and when I asked I was told in no uncertain terms to sit down and be quiet. So I sat in baggage claim for three hours with her bags and no idea if or when she would get out. She did manage to secretly text me a couple of times, but it was just to let me know she was still ok.
While there she witnessed TSA officers threatening legal immigrants with deportation if they did not shut up. Pulling cell phones out of confused foreigners’ hands who did not speak English and screaming at them. Not letting mothers talk to their children. Not letting relatives speak to the people in the room. There were chairs for about 12 people and there were more than 50 people in the room, so people had to sit on the floor. Why does this process need to be so aggressive and ugly? What is the point of this kind of behavior by professional airport and customs officials?
Now again let me state that I want border protection. I want to feel safe when I fly, but I don’t want officials of my country screaming at me and mine, or legal visitors and residents because they are over worked. There is no excuse for it. I wish someone in Washington would do something about this, but in the current political climate that is not going to happen, and this problem of rude, overworked, over-entitled TSA officers and personnel is only going to get worse.
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