Comment by jackgavigan
10 years ago
Unfortunately, like other countries, the UK's Border Force[1] clearly has an above-average share of incompetents and bullies. If you give such people any power whatsoever, they will abuse it. Sadly, that's what happened here.
The real problem is that there is no accountability in these organisations. Even if a complaint by Rachel triggered an investigation, the culture in organisations like this is to protect their own. The worst that is likely to happen is that those responsible would be given "words of advice", which is more like a pat on the back than a slap on the wrist.
1: Incidentally, the Border Force is part of the Home Office, which is led by Theresa May, who is behind the push for 1984-style mass surveillance of the UK population.
> which is led by Theresa May, who is behind the push for 1984-style mass surveillance of the UK population
And who is also advocating that the UK leaves the European Convention on Human Rights. All these things are connected.
Theresa May is my local MP. I keep trying to vote her out, but the idiots around me keep voting her in!
So when we sleep walk into a mass surveillance state I can honestly look at the people who live around me and say 'this is your damn fault'.
They'll feel proud about it.
I'm not justifying what goes on there, but I happen to know someone who works in the immigration detention centre at one of the major UK airports. This article is right: you do not want to end up there. He is a guard at the centre, and must deal with the business of (sometimes forcefully) removing people from the UK who have been denied entry. He has dealt with people from almost every country in the world in this regard. Listening to his stories, there are huge differences, in general, between the people of different countries. Dealing with Russian people is different from dealing with Nepali people, or Japanese people. He thinks about how to approach people based on their nationality, because that's the patterns he deals with. You cannot expect people to maintain racial or cultural blindness in such a situation.
This is of course exacerbated by circumstance. In that harsh situation, like in any prison (effectively what it is), people mob together into their tribes, and in this particular situation, those tribes are based on nationality.
"You cannot expect people to maintain racial or cultural blindness in such a situation."
If not in this situation then when? We must place expectations on people in positions of power over others to treat all people fairly regardless of race. People should be judged by their actions. Those in positions of power who violate the trust we put in them should be punished.
I'm not trying to justify it, just explaining the reality. Human nature is a powerful thing, and there's only so much anyone can bend it to their will, especially when they're on a relatively low wage in a highly stressful job. I don't know what the solution is. Of course I agree that in an ideal world everyone is treated fairly, but if we want to make that a reality I think we'd need to radically review how these systems and processes work. These biases are universal, it's not just the UK, nobody has come up with a viable solution yet.
exactly. If you're representing law enforcement treating everybody the same and fairly is like 80% of what your job ought to be about.
To argue like the police or guards are somehow allowed to throw a tantrum is just incredible. If they can't do their job in stressful situations they're not qualified, period.
I was once called a "drifter" by a UK border guard.
Pro tip: Enter the UK from Ireland. There is no document check. No annoying border guard questions! No body at all. Just walk on through.
With Ryanair this will set you back a whole 30-50 bucks. Plus you can choose your London airport.
When arriving in Ireland, tell them your purpose is to drink a real Guinness! And maybe learn how to dance the jig.
If you do that be aware that e.g. US citizens only get maximum of 90 days instead of six months. Sometimes bites passengers transiting through Ireland.
I didn't realize that... but it's also important to note that Ireland is not part of the Schengen zone. After your 90 in Ireland/UK, you can move on to to Europe.
I'm never sure if Theresa May is evil or incompetent. It may be she is just incapable of controlling her department, although perhaps I'm being too charitable.
She's just the banality of evil. Her electorate clamours for ethnic purging and she modelled her political career on the "Iron Lady" image, so she wants to be seen as tough. If one of the most important cabinet posts were the Secretary for Milk, she'd insist that cows be milked 24/7, because that's what being "strong" means in that context.
Political elites the world over are the weakest in a century, so they react acting tough. They never actually have to deal with the fallout.
I strongly suspect it's the latter - every MP who becomes home secretary basically turns into a fascist, almost overnight. I guess they show them a bunch of secret reports on events that "almost" happened to scare them into going along with whatever the Home Office civil service have always been wanting to do.
I read somewhere recently that there are now so many requests for authorisation to do various things in connection with probably very nasty people that the Home Secretary can spend 5-6 hours on a typical day just reading them and granting the authorisations that require their personal approval.
Assuming that's reasonably accurate, it is hard to imagine how spending half your day every day just reading about people who are probably the worst of the worst in many cases could not have a profound effect on how you view the world.
Whether anyone so deeply immersed in such a biased view should be expected to serve in such a position for more than a short period of time, and whether they should be responsible for making judgements about much of anything else during that period, are entirely different questions.
I recall having read that the Home Office has a uniquely corrupting effect on its ministers. Also, it's not like the border was a gentle stroll through pleasant parkland prior to 2010. In fact, it was pretty much the same.
In general, it's not really practical to vilify individuals over policies and the actions of the bureaucracy -- that's different from not holding them responsible for things they're responsible for, but it's too easy to forget that Snooper's Charter was voted out of committee 444 to 69 a few days ago. They're all rotten.
> I'm never sure if Theresa May is evil or incompetent.
Why not both?
I wonddr if the whole "visa free travel" thing is the real problem. Better to make it easy for everyone to apply online before they actually board a flight. Ask sufficiently nuanced questions so that people know exactly what kind of visa they actually need.
That would require software and software is hard. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/us-visa-system-100-computer-experts...
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2490412/database-admini...
Here's the UK version.
https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa
1) What's your nationality as shown on your passport?
2) What are you coming to the UK to do?
Here it's pretty clear that she's coming for "work, academic visit, or business".
3) How long are you planning to work in the UK for?
Answering USA, Work, less than 6 months takes you to this page: https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/y/usa/work/six_months_or_le...
That was ast updated on 9th June, so let's look at archive.org - they have 2 snapshots, one of which is from May 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150509170713/https://www.gov.u...
At the top, in bigger font and bolded font are the words "You may need to apply for a visa".
It links to the standard visitor visa: https://web.archive.org/web/20150518091959/https://www.gov.u...
That page says:
and the permitted paid engagement visa: https://web.archive.org/web/20150518091959/https://www.gov.u...
No matter how it's described I can't imagine why people feel it's okay to travel to a different country to take part in a business meeting (even if that's unpaid) without either getting a visa or getting good quality legal advice.
My anger here is reserved for the conference organisers who didn't say "We don't know, let us ask a lawyer".
I'm pleased to see that web site has been improved. We went through this with some invited guest workers not so long ago, and at the time, the type of visa they needed was described in a very counter-intuitive place on the government web site. Much more time and money was spent trying to figure out what they needed than should have been necessary. It didn't give us much faith in the relevant authorities that even a relatively simple case where everyone was actively trying to do the right thing caused so much hassle, so it's nice to see that at least that particular issue has now been fixed and the part of the site you linked to would now give someone in the same position the right answer in a few seconds.
How was power abused? It sounds like she broke the rules, even if the rules were poorly explained in the first place.
Unfortunately, like other countries, the UK's Border Force[1] clearly has an above-average share of incompetents and bullies.
We need to get those people a job in the Department of Motor Vehicles where they belong.