India’s Shahrukh Khan may be a mega star in many other countries, but not in the US, at least not with US immigration officials. Last Saturday he was detained at Newark airport and grilled for over an hour with demands that he prove his identity because his name apparently came up on an alert list. He was released only when Indian consular officials were contacted and intervened. At the time, he said that he would never go back to the US; he was convinced he was singled out because of his Muslim name.
Although some Indian politicians and sections of the media have accused him of trying to extract maximum publicity from the incident for his new film (which ironically is about racial profiling of Muslims after 9/11), the incident has caused great offense in India, coming as it does just days after the former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam was frisked at Delhi airport by Continental Airlines officials before being allowed to board a flight to the US.
Khan is now downplaying the incident but what happened to him is outrageous. It is not an isolated incident. There are far too many reports of similar treatment meted out to other Muslim visitors to the US, Saudis included.
American immigration officials claim they are only doing their job and that, at worst, some of their numbers are perhaps a little overzealous. That cuts no ice. No one objects to someone doing his job. But this is about more than that. In any even, why not a little courtesy? It costs nothing.
The fact is that American immigration officials have earned themselves the reputation of being the rudest, most unpleasant, most arrogant and most aggressive in the world. People complain at the length of time it can take getting through Saudi airports but in comparison with what can happen at American ones, it is a completely painless experience; unlike their US counterparts, Saudi immigration officers at least treat visitors as human beings and do not threaten to throw them out of the country if they dare ask questions about their treatment. It is a wonder that anyone wants to go to the US at all given the humiliation that these little Hitlers sometimes inflict on arriving visitors. In fact, a lot of Saudis have decided precisely that and now avoid the US altogether — although it has to be said that it is not just Arabs and Muslims who are at the receiving end of this nastiness; US immigration officials seem to enjoy intimidating and threatening anyone, regardless of race, religion or color.
It was famously said by the 19-century British historian Lord Acton that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely; had he come across 21st-century US immigration officials, he might have added that putting a uniform on small-time officials who are not the brightest tends to corrupt absolutely as well.
This behavior is not acceptable — and it certainly does the US no good. The experience of former President Abdul Kalam and Shahrukh Khan is not going to do anything to improve US-Indian relations. The US government has to be concerned about it. Abusing foreign visitors is not going to win the US many friends.
