Even EU citizens had to fill out special paperwork on the plane, and then get your fingerprints and iris scan taken. Now you have to fill out special paperwork

Even EU citizens had to fill out special paperwork on the plane, and then get your fingerprints and iris scan taken. Now you have to fill out special paperwork online, and get a "preapproval for travel" (it sounds so draconian, you can't believe), and fill out paperwork on the plane, and scan your iris, and give a fingerprint, and they can still reject you at the border for no reason. It's fucking nuts. There was a case not long ago at Dulles International, in VA (but really, the major airport for DC), with an Italian law student arrested and sitting in jail for nearly 2 weeks for no reason at all. He was visiting his American girlfriend and his English was bad, so they tossed him in jail on suspicion of wanting to overstay. They would not let him return to Italy on the next flight, they just tossed him in jail, in a foreign country. If his girlfriend's family hadn't been well-off and connected to the state senator, who could say what would have happened? That's the airport I fly through. My husband speaks perfect English, but how scary is that? Reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14visa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/14/us/14visa.html (And, on a personal opinion note - Dulles is really the airport for the nation's capitol, but it's more like the nation's asshole. I have been to almost all major city airports in the US and it is by far the worst. It is staffed entirely by horrible, unthinking, semi-literate power-crazed thugs - men and women. They yell instead of putting up guides or signs. They yell louder if you do not understand English. And that's where I got questioned for 15 minutes after returning from Vienna. And this is the face we show to hundreds of thousands of foreigners every year, traveling to witness the greatest country in the world.)