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Creepy US immigration welcome (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.world
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US citizen here. I recently returned from my first international travel in a few years, and I was unpleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get back into the country.

In the returning citizens line, everyone was directed by an officer to one of three tablets each on a stand about 3-4 feet high. You stuck your face in the right spot for the camera and the tablet turned green. And that was it, free to go. No conversation with a human about where you went, no human verifying your passport, no need for the passport at all. Just a face scan (presumably matching a database of digitized passport photos) and you’re done.

Makes me wonder what the bar is for various local law enforcement or different federal agencies to get access to the database and hook in with surveillance cameras.

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[–] [S] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

I fully believe racial profiling is real and as a white male I look like the maga demographic and benefit from the institutionalized racism. Although in the particular immigration experience I posted about I was also traveling with someone US-naturalized South Asian-born with heavy accent and someone with dark skin and stereotypical “black hair” and all of us sailed through. So did everyone else in the line with us.

It was a stark contrast to the fascist paramilitary abduction videos we’ve been seeing from all across the country (see !gestapo_usa@lemmy.dbzer0.com). I’m not sure what to think of it.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    That mentality (and I've been guilty of it myself) is part of the problem. The belief or perspective that if it isn't happening to me, near me or in places where I can see ... then it doesn't affect me.

    If others are reporting it, showing it, displaying it, talking about it in another part of the country, then it should ring alarm bells for all of us. Just because it isn't happening to us, it does not mean that there is no problem.

    The worry is that once we all normalize this kind of behaviour and control by government and public institutions, eventually over time, the more we allow it all ... it will eventually affect us directly as well.

    It all harkens back to the poem written by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller in Post WWII Germany ... 'First They Came'

    If we sit idly by and watch them bully immigrants, then eventually they'll move on to another minority, then another, then another and eventually it will become the group of people you are seen as being part of.

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