Korean Immigration Is Still Pretty Mellow . . .

Because they don’t detain 5-year-olds for being national security risks or strip-search military honor guards that were escorting a body home for burial.  Both at Sea-Tac Airport.

15 Comments

  1. Posted January 11, 2008 at 12:09 am | Permalink

    At the risk of sounding both classist and nativist, my experience with the TSA is that it seems to employ largely uneducated and largely foreign-born staff in our airports, especially on the West Coast.

  2. tmc1233 your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 1:51 am | Permalink

    I will continue with your thoughts, Western Confucian by not only agreeing with you but will also wonder “aloud” why since 9/11 all of the security at Boston’s Logan Airport (where the 2 planes that hit the WTC came from) have gradually all become people named Muhammed and Abdullah, and can’t speak English?

  3. Posted January 11, 2008 at 5:31 am | Permalink

    Since it happened at SEA-TAC it doesn’t surprise me. I was stationed at Ft. Lewis before, which is a beautiful post by the way, but the Seattle area is filled with anti-military types and I wouldn’t be surprised if these TSA idiots were some of them.

  4. Netizen Kim your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 5:42 am | Permalink

    but will also wonder “aloud” why since 9/11 all of the security at Boston’s Logan Airport (where the 2 planes that hit the WTC came from) have gradually all become people named Muhammed and Abdullah, and can’t speak English?

    Yeah. That would be like having Canuck/American ex-Engrish teaching types on the anti-drug smuggling squads at Incheon International airport. Ironic, isn’t it?

  5. SomeguyinKorea your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 11:58 am | Permalink

    Yeah, what point were they trying to make by humiliating the soldiers in that manner? The fact that the soldiers were able to resist telling them to fuck off serves to show that honor guards are reserved to some of the most dignified soldiers…which makes the insult somewhat worse.

    #4,

    I suspect most of the drugs come in through the ports, actually. Apparently, North Korean ships were routinely allowed to dock without an inspection, or so claimed a politician a year or two ago.

  6. R. Elgin your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 12:58 pm | Permalink

    Things have really gotten out of hand regarding the issue of security in America. I still want to know why, on my last trip to the states, American Immigration wants to know where I am going and why I am in the U.S. (uhhh, . . . I was *born* there maybe) but when I get back to Seoul, no questions are asked!!?

    It seems the Korean Government trusts me more than my own government does and I am beginning to really question my own government’s ability to act in a rational manner.

  7. Breaktrack your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 1:46 pm | Permalink

    Yeah Nutizen Kim, it would be like having a Korean chair a board of ethics or think objectively. Now that would be ironic.

    Nutizen Kim doesn’t seem to understand that Koreans are responsible for most of the drugs that come into the country. But Korea has no mafia right?!

  8. Posted January 11, 2008 at 2:00 pm | Permalink

    It seems the Korean Government trusts me more than my own government does and I am beginning to really question my own government’s ability to act in a rational manner.

    My American passport gives me little perks in just about every airport in every nation on earth, except the US. Its not just the Korean government that trusts us more than our own, its practically every country in the world.

  9. dogbertt your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 2:41 pm | Permalink

    Cut bluejives a break — it was a funny observation.

  10. Posted January 11, 2008 at 2:54 pm | Permalink

    American TSA employees who deal with the public could use a benchmarking mission to Japanese airports to learn manners. I salute the staff at Narita airport!

  11. babarian. your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 3:39 pm | Permalink

    So why do incidents such as those happen?

    IMHO, because American resources have been stretched a bit too thinly.

  12. SomeguyinKorea your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 5:18 pm | Permalink

    I once flew into Europe, showed my passport to the Immigration agent, cover closed, back side up. He frowned, I flipped it over. He saw the Canadian coat-of-arms on the cover and waved me in. :)

  13. R. Elgin your flag
    Posted January 11, 2008 at 9:09 pm | Permalink

    I couldn’t make this nonsense up.

    Here is a four-year-old who is on this “no-fly” list. As per this article, the director of “Terrorist Screening Center” says:

    it’s a regrettable inconvenience for those with these names to have to go through heavy screening at the airport, but it’s the price people have to pay to protect national security.

    Perhaps prospective parents should check this “no-fly” list before naming their babies . . .

  14. SomeguyinKorea your flag
    Posted January 12, 2008 at 12:21 pm | Permalink

    “Perhaps prospective parents should check this “no-fly” list before naming their babies . . .”

    LOL. Yeah, but what do you do when terrorists catch on and start calling their kids with common ‘American’ names like ‘John Smith’, ‘James Smith’, and ‘Robert Johnson’?

  15. SomeguyinKorea your flag
    Posted January 12, 2008 at 12:22 pm | Permalink

    …or better yet, when they start using such common names as an alias?

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