June 23, 2005,
Inequality
in International Immigration
It just
dawned on me that there is a practice in international immigration
that no one has ever commented on, and that is inequality of treatment
accorded to citizens as opposed to non-citizens at points of entry or
departure from certain countries. Canada treats all entrants and
extrants to its borders equally, i.e. there are no separate lines for
"Canadian Residents" and "Non-Canadian residents" of foreigners. I am
aware of the legitimate purpose and longstanding rationale that
foreigners have no legal right to enter and remain in a country of
which they are not citizens. But this is different from the practice
of outright discrimination and unequal treatment for no reason at all
other than that someone is a foreigner.
This is
what I mean. In Mid-June 2005, I left Canada for USA, Brazil, South
Africa and Zambia. For the first time, I noticed that there are two
lines for people traveling to the US: one for "US Residents" and one
for "Non-US residents" or "Aliens". The one for US residents was
short. The one for Non-USA residents was long, winding and hardly
moving at all. But that was a piece of cake compared to what I found
in Brazil. We all arrived at the same time, in fact we were all
commingled with Brazilian citizens when we traveled and arrived in Sao
Paul. But then at intervals, the Brazilian customs and immigration
officers would come to the line-there was only line for everybody, and
would call out only Brazilian Citizens to be processed first. We
foreigners would be left behind. Brazilians who arrived by later
planes would also be removed from the line even if they were at the
back of the line and processed first. I recalled that there was no
such practice in my homeland Canada. The calling and fast tracking of
Brazilian citizens continued for about an hour and there we were
foreigners in the sweltering heat left standing there. This was
atrocious. I started to inquire into the reasons for this unequal
treatment. I was told that that is how they do things in Brazil. I
challenged the officer because I had been to Brazil in 2000 and there
was no such unequal treatment between Brazilians and foreigners. I
asked to see the manager. The manager came and explained that he was
sorry but unfortunately, that is how things were done around there. My
protest was now joined by my neighbors and we started making quite a
bit of noise.
