So, I read this article. The article will become relevant towards the end.
It actually brought back memories of what happened to me. It's insane that I forgot about it temporarily.
This past summer (2016), I traveled from the SFO airport to HKG to SGN. I spent two weeks in Vietnam doing a medical mission. After the medical mission, I met up with my family in Hong Kong. We stayed there for a few days, before flying to Japan. We spent 3 days in Japan, and another 2 days in Hong Kong. We all flew back to SFO together.
Backtracking a little, but flying into HKG was a little stressful. It's my first time flying by myself, and I had to navigate around a foreign airport to go to another foreign country that I've never been to. At least I remembered HKG (went in 2009) a little bit, so it wasn't too terrible. I don't need to go through customs or anything since I'm not staying in HK. Get to my terminal for my transfer to SGN. Met up with one of the members from the medical mission, and we find out that we've both been on the same flight.
We arrive at SGN, so I'm a little nervous because, again, foreign country and we had gotten an email earlier stating that if we do not get to the meeting point on time, our group will leave us. I obviously did not want to be stuck by myself at the airport, so I wanted to quickly rush through customs and meet everyone else. My newfound friend goes before me in customs. The dude is just looking at her and just starts to drill the hell out of her. Questions like, "why are you here? What are you here to do? What are you carrying? Who gave you authorization to be here?" Scary stuff like that. She told me about it after the fact, because I got lucky. The dude just looks at my visa and at my passport, sees everything is in order, stamps it, and I'm on my way. My poor friend also got screwed over while we were leaving baggage claim. Apparently she didn't arrange the gift boxes well enough. We were told to put x amount of things in one area, and put y amount of things in another area, and put z amount of things with x. Pretty much mix your things, so it looks like you're just bringing gifts over for family or something. My friend accidentally put too many pairs of reading glasses in one box, so while going through the x-ray, she was stopped. Luckily, another volunteer saw what happened and rushed over to negotiate. We ended up losing 10 pairs of reading glasses to the agent. It probably ended up being sold off somewhere on a black market.
I did the medical mission; I witnessed a lot of things. Like the poor child that came in through the ER that was missing his right arm. I really hope he's okay. Then there was the child covered in jellyfish stings when we went on our little "field trip". I learned a lot about the government, I learned a lot about how things were run, and how corrupt everything was still. There was the story about the monastery getting shut down because the monks gave away some of their orphaned children to foreigners. It wasn't all bad either. I am really impressed with the work I did. It was very minimal work, but I really learned a lot. I did vitals (checked HR, BP, RR, pulse, kid's temperature). I learned how to get hemoglobin and blood glucose levels. I mostly enjoyed working as crowd control. I enjoyed working in Pediatrics as well. I also enjoyed shadowing various doctors as well. I learned so much through shadowing them, like what it sounds like to have really bad asthma/smoker (like a sail flapping in the wind). I also volunteered with passing out reading glasses, and working visual acuity as well. Dental cleaning was a little boring in my opinion. I really enjoyed working with them all.
Fast forwarding towards the end of everything, I'm finally going to HKG to see my family I haven't seen in two weeks. I'm so excited to go to HK and to Japan. Customs gave me no trouble on my way out (I was worried, because there was an incident to one of the other campers that left early). Got to HK, met up with my family, then jetted off to Japan. No problems there, minus the fact that dad was sick so he was a little grumpy. I had a great time. I would most definitely go again. Then back to HK before heading home.
Now, keep in mind that I've been going in and out of multiple airports within the month I was gone. I went from SFO, to HKG, to SGN, to HKG (again), to NRT, back to HKG, and finally back home to SFO. That's a lot of airports in a month, and I was just so relieved to finally be home after a month of being abroad.
We finally land in SFO. I AM SO HAPPY TO BE HOME. I couldn't wait to eat a burger, or to eat Chipotle. I just wanted to sleep forever. I wanted to see my friends, I wanted to be able to drive my car, I wanted to do so much. I just had to get past customs, grab my bag, then freaking get home. So I'm standing in line behind my dad at customs. I'm practically itching to get back outside. My brother and mom are in a different line. Dad goes to get checked out by customs, everything was fine, then he walks on towards freedom, aka, baggage claim. I walk up to the agent, and he asks to see my papers and everything. Of course he can see my passport and stuff. He starts asking me questions in a slightly rude way.
"Where are you coming from?" "I just came back from a two week medical mission in Vietnam, went to Hong Kong, went to Japan, then back to Hong Kong." (I either said that, or I just said HK. Can't remember)
"Where did you stay?" In Hong Kong? Which time? I stayed at the xxxxxxxxxxx on the Kowloon side the first time then xxxxxxxxxx the next time"
"Why were you there?" "In Japan or HK or Vietnam? Uhh...medical mission in Vietnam, and for pleasure in Japan and HK?" (Also can't really remember what I said. Might've just said for pleasure)
"What were you doing?" "Uhh...exploring? Meeting up with family. There to travel/for pleasure?"
"What is your occupation?" "I'm a student"
While he's drilling me with questions, I watch as mom goes through on her side, then my brother goes through as well. I start to freak out like oh my God, am I going to be detained? What if something went wrong? What if they really keep me here for some unknown reason?
"If you're a student, who paid for your trip?" [I seriously thought these questions were getting a little invasive] "My parents did, and they're walking away right now, and don't want to lose them."
He finally gave me my stuff back, and I literally ran to catch up with them.
Going back to the original article, I can see how and why this would worry passengers. This happened to me before the election, and before everything else. I was so freaking worried when the TSA agent started asking me these questions. I really thought I did something wrong. The fact that there were ICE agents at the airport and checking domestic flights is pretty frightening. If you are anything like me, this brief little "brush with the law" was understandably terrifying. Can you imagine if you were an immigrant and people did this same thing to you? I was born and raised here in California. My parents are first generation and like, fourth generation here in America. If this frightens me, an actual citizen, can you imagine what immigrants feel? I'm talking about illegal immigrants, and legal immigrants who have a green card or a valid visa. When they start inspecting and judging based off of race/ethnicity/COLOR, you know there's a problem. I fear and I worry for everyone. If you are traveling, be safe.
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