NYT
May 14, 2008

Italian’s Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors Face

By NINA BERNSTEIN

He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman
university. She was “a totally Virginia girl,” as she puts it, raised
across the road from George Washington’s home. Their romance, sparked
by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian,
Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was
welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his
girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at
Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border
Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after
hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome,
either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted
that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for
asylum.

Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of
her country on this visit — meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon —
eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural
Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up
without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and
their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.

Mr. Salerno’s case may be extreme, but it underscores the real but
little-known dangers that many travelers from Europe and other first-
world nations face when they arrive in the United States — problems
that can startle Americans as much as their foreign visitors.

“We have a lot of government people here and lobbyists and lawyers and
very educated, very savvy Washingtonians,” said Jim Cooper, Ms.
Cooper’s father, a businessman, describing the reaction in his
neighborhood, the Wessynton subdivision of Alexandria. “They were
pretty shocked that the government could do this sort of thing,
because it doesn’t happen that often, except to people you never hear
about, like Haitians and Guatemalans.”

Each year, thousands of would-be visitors from 27 so-called visa
waiver countries are turned away when they present their passports,
said Angelica De Cima, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border
Protection, who said she could not discuss any individual case. In the
last seven months, 3,300 people have been rejected and more than 8
million admitted, she said.

Though citizens of those nations do not need visas to enter the United
States for as long as 90 days, their admission is up to the discretion
of border agents. There are more than 60 grounds for finding someone
inadmissible, including a hunch that the person plans to work or
immigrate, or evidence of an overstay, however brief, on an earlier
visit.

While those turned away are generally sent home on the next flight,
“there are occasional circumstances which require further detention to
review their cases,” Ms. De Cima said. And because such “arriving
aliens” are not considered to be in the United States at all, even if
they are in custody, they have none of the legal rights that even
illegal immigrants can claim.

Government officials have acknowledged that intensified security since
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has sometimes led to the heavy-handed
treatment of foreigners caught in a bureaucratic tangle or paperwork
errors. But despite encouraging officers to resolve such cases
quickly, excesses continue to come to light.

One recent case involved an Icelandic woman who was refused entry at
Kennedy Airport because, a dozen years earlier, she had overstayed her
visa by three weeks. The woman, Erla Osk Arnardottir Lillendahl, was
deported Dec. 10 after what she described as 24 hours of interrogation
and humiliating treatment — locked in a cell and barred from making
phone calls. The Department of Homeland Security later issued a letter
of regret.

In questioning Mr. Salerno, customs agents seemed to suspect that he
intended to work here. Ms. Cooper, a copy editor for an educational
publication, said she was in the airport lobby when an agent called to
ask about Mr. Salerno’s income and why he visited so often.

The youngest son of a prosperous contractor in Calabria, Mr. Salerno
helps out in his brother’s law firm in Rome and is able to visit the
United States several times a year. Neighbors said he joined
volunteers in refurbishing the Wessynton recreation center in 2006,
then became one of its summer attractions, kicking a soccer ball with
the kids and playing tennis with the adults.

“He just is a very open, fun and helpful guy,” said Christopher M.
Porter, a resident of Wessynton.

Ms. Cooper said that at the airport, when she begged to know what was
happening to Mr. Salerno, an agent told her, “You know, he should try
spending a little more time in his own country.”

Another agent eventually told her to go home because Mr. Salerno was
being detained as an asylum-seeker.

“The border patrol officer said to my face that Domenico said he would
be killed if he went back to Italy,” she recalled, voicing incredulity
that, in his halting English, he could express such a thought. “Also,
who on earth would ever seek asylum from Italy?”

Twelve hours later, when Mr. Salerno was granted a five-minute phone
call, he called Ms. Cooper and denied saying anything of the kind.
Instead, he said, the asylum story seemed to be retaliation for his
insisting on speaking to his embassy.

After being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he was
taken to the Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, Va., where he ended up
in a barracks with 75 other men, including asylum-seekers who told him
they had been waiting a year.

Ten days after he landed in Washington, Mr. Salerno was still
incarcerated, despite efforts by Senator John W. Warner, Republican of
Virginia, and two former immigration prosecutors hired by the
Coopers.

“He’s just really scared,” Ms. Cooper said in an interview last
Thursday. “He asked me if Virginia has the death penalty.”

Luis Paoli, a lawyer hired by the Coopers, said there was no limit on
detention while waiting for an asylum interview. But even after
officials agreed the asylum issue had been a mistake, Mr. Salerno was
not released.

“Now an innocent European, who has never broken any laws, committed
any crimes, or overstayed his visa, is being held in a county jail,”
Ms. Cooper wrote in an e-mail message to The New York Times last
Wednesday, prompting a reporter’s inquiries.

Less than 24 hours later, immigration officials intervened and
arranged to deliver Mr. Salerno to Dulles, where last Friday he flew
to Rome. Ms. Cooper, who said she was now considering moving to Italy,
was by his side.

Mr. Salerno was still shaken. “In America,” he said, “there are so
many good people and beautiful people that don’t deserve to be showing
these terrible things to the world.”

Lance wrote:
>
>
> Each year, thousands of would-be visitors from 27 so-called visa
> waiver countries are turned away when they present their passports,
> said Angelica De Cima, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border
> Protection, who said she could not discuss any individual case. In the
> last seven months, 3,300 people have been rejected and more than 8
> million admitted, she said.
>
It isn't a great surprise - much the same sort of horrors happen in
Saudi Arabia.

I wonder what you can do about it. I'm in the unfortunate position of
needing to attend a meeting in San Francisco later on this year - I
did try to have the meeting somewhere else, but didn't manage it.