That soon ended. The first Homeland Security person looks at my passport and boarding card and waves me on. The next, however, gave me a look like he was Elliot Ness eyeballing one of Capone's gang. I was told (not asked) to wait right there.
After a couple of minutes he returned with a colleague and they stood staring at me then my passport, then me, then my passport. Thoughts started running through my head. Was it because I lied on my application? I mean it's been two years since I got that passport and I've probably gone a little less "brown" since then.
Eventually the supervisor type guy said that there was something wrong with my passport and that it looks like it may have been tampered with. Well, that changed the mood because I was pretty sure that tampering with a passport was a crime and he was basically accusing me of having done just that.
Next he asked me how long I'd had the passport.
"What passport? That one in your hands or an American passport? I've had a passport since April or May 1985, although I was on my mother's passport back in the late 60s. I was born in Jackson Heights and what the hell is wrong"!
By now I was mad as hell. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong with the passport. I told him that the passport was fine when I entered the country three days earlier.
Then he went off for a while and I was left to stand in their special holding pen surrounded by people getting through screening without difficulty. Finally he returned.
"You will have to get this problem sorted when you return to Dublin".And, that's how he left me, except I was then told I had been selected for extra screening and had go through the whole shoes-off, pat-down, every-item-in-my-possession-given-extra-scrutiny treatment. At least this task was undertaken by another person and not either of the two who I seriously wanted to injure right then.
"What problem"?
"I can't tell you that".
"What do you mean, you can't tell me that? How am I supposed to get the problem sorted if you won't tell me what the problem is"?
"That's not my problem".
"What do you mean it's not your problem. This passport was issued by the government and now you're telling me that something's wrong with it".
"I have nothing to do with issuing passports".
{I'm not sure if what I'm about to say is acceptable to the race police these days, but what the heck.}
It's been my experience in America that when dealing with the inhumane forces of government and the excessively self-important people who seem to fill many of those jobs that black people somehow seem able to hold on to their common sense and common decency. I particularly remember an immigration officer in Newark whom my wife and I had to go to back in the late 1980s.
And, Friday night. The young black guy assigned to give me the extra screening seemed almost apologetic. He probably thought I was going to have a pop at him (although given his size and youth there was no fear of that). I looked at him and said, "I don't mind the extra screening. In fact, I think it's more than fine. It's necessary. But, if they could have just told me what was wrong with my damn passport I'd be able to understand".
So he took my passport, saw the problem and showed me. On the right hand side the words "United States Department of State" have been somewhat scraped away. He asked me if I'd washed the passport, but I hadn't. I couldn't figure out how it had happened, but then a possibility occurred to me. I asked him if Aer Lingus's passport scanners might have rubbed the words away. He looked at it and nodded and said that could be it. It's the only possibility I can think of.
