In 1994 I was arrested in Canada for possession of 1 gram of marijuana. In 1997, I attempted to cross the border from Vancouver to Washington and got pulled over and questioned. I admitted to the border officer of having a criminal record and was bared out of the US.
I later applied for a waiver recently to enable me to travel and visit my brother and his family in the US. The “Form I-194” cost me over 500$ Ca and took over 8 months to process, granting me only 1 year of temporary admission to the US.
However, because I’ve connected flights through NYC in the past few years while traveling abroad, my name came up in their search. Apparently I was not supposed to connect international flights at the airport and this has jeopardized my temporary admission. The last crossing into the US “with my waiver” resulted in a 3 hour ordeal of questioning and more entries into my profile in their database. I also will not be able to get a new waiver after this one expires they said. Nothing can be done and I sure the hell won’t spend one more cent to fight this. It stresses me out and no one deserves to be treated like criminals or yelled at for wanting to go visit your family or taking a vacation.
So I’ve decide to put my money in less stressful travels. Besides, traveling and vacationing should be relaxing and calm; a happy time for everyone. Instead, my family and I will travel to more friendly and hospitable regions on the globe. There are many different beautiful places to visit such as South America, Eastern Europe, countries in Africa and Asia. And each day there are more and more direct flights offered by Canadian airline companies so people don’t have to deal with fascist intimidation tactics.
The administration in the US has become a dangerously ideological. Day by day we see more and more civil liberties being axed down as the falsely elected criminals pass more laws and restrictions. They hire Blackwater contractors to go shoot poor people in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. They install laws to allow eavesdropping on our phone conversations without need for a warrant. They continue to direct the people’s tax dollar into genocide and raping children at gunpoint in the Middle East. Attacks on political activists in the US have gone up drastically.
Feww..my goodness! These are all too many more reasons for me to take my next vacation in Cuba.