Back and the Teeth of the Border Agents.

After long and arduous flights (the Manila-Nagoya leg was spent in business class) the Empress and I are safely back in Appleton.

Anyway the Empress and I were pulled aside by the border agents for a little extra scrutiny (she had her current green card and her previous and expired card with her that was the trouble), but it was only big enough of a deal to make us sit and wait for about 30-40 minutes at least enough time to cause us to miss our onward leg back here to Appleton (it really didn't seem to me it should have taken that long to decide to hold the expired card and stamp her through).

We were not the only ones waiting. A fellow who looked like he was Indian was having a hard time of it. I heard the Border agent he was working with ask the Indian fellow "What finally made you decide to be honest with me", the agent had him spell his wife's name twice and noted the spellings were not identical. I thought pointing out transliterating non-Latin alphabets is not a simple matter and how I had seen often when teaching in the UAE, but decided the agent knew that and would not want to be bothered hearing it from me (not to mention my state at their mercy). I don't exactly know what was going on but am glad I wasn't involved. Another fellow had his bags pulled in and an agent gloved up and went through the man's bags in great detail. It appeared by the time we were leaving the man whose bags were being thouroughly inspected was repacking and was not in any sort of trouble.

I am confident our border agents are doing their jobs but the problem is there just isn't enough of them.