"Everyone knows someone who has a friend who knew the guy who tried to dry his poodle in the microwave."I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not talking about some urban legend that gets passed through 10 generations of "friends of friends", I'm saying that many people have had bad experiences with US Immigration, and word gets around. I personally know someone who now enters the US by land via Canada because of his repeated horrendous experiences at the air border.
"I'm not saying that Immigration and/or Homeland Security is great, but the rumor-mongering is unjustified."
Rumours? It goes a bit beyond rumours, don't you think? It's large-scale and well-documented. Personal anecdotes alone do not make something true, but that's not the case here. The personal anecdotes just add a more of a "this could happen to me" dimension to otherwise abstract reports of it happening to someone else.
"And you know this because...."
Because .. it's self evident and obviously true? What are you trying to say - that the hostile suspicion of foreigners at the US Border is not policy?
"I know a Stanford CS PhD student who was put through hell by the Australian equivalent of US Immigration/Homeland Security"
I'm not trying to say we're much better, although at least we don't fingerprint. I have many (in some cases personally witnessed/experienced) grievances against the Australian system.
No need to turn this into a "my country is better than yours" pissing match, I have a real fondness for America and wouldn't even bother having a strong opinion if I didn't care ; )
"Nevertheless, I don't get hysterical about it."
Sigh. I hope I didn't come across as hysterical. I put a bit of emotion into my writing in an attempt to get the point across that it's important to me, not as a sign that I have taken leave of my senses.
"I don't know how things are in Australia, but we can't identify criminals and the like without actually checking."
Huh? We're talking about the US Border, specifically about foreigners trying to visit, many who have never been there before. Are you suggesting that there is a huge list of outstanding arrest warrants for foreign criminals whose faces and fingerprints are on record, and this system is an attempt to catch them? Or that US Border agents are cooperating with overseas police forces to catch escaping criminals or something?
Of course not. I actually don't know why they do it. The whole thing is post-9/11 so I suppose it's part of the "war on terror", but surely the number of "terrorists" who are on the run but whose fingerprints have somehow been recorded is vanishingly small.
Anyway, I hope that with the new administration in charge and the memory of 9/11 receding, this horrible system will be turned off.