While this survey, published a few days ago, might not have made headline news in America - although it should, in my humble opinion - it did make the headlines around the world. For more details, search the web or try a site like http://www.exploringtheglobe.com/?p=616

I have to admit that when I only scanned this headline in my seat neighbor's daily on a bus one morning a few days ago, I bristled. "No!! What are they talking about!" I thought. "People are so utterly friendly everyhwere in America, are they out of their minds??"

Then I bought my own daily which also carried the story and read the details. The headlines only referred to the way travelers are treated when entering the United States, mostly by plane. And all of a sudden, the headline made sense. Oh yes!!! It's a nightmare!

Let me walk you through the procedure if you don't know what I am talking about. Please pretend that you've spent quite a lot of money to fly to another country, in this case, the US. Where you are definitely going to spend more money, and quite a lot of it. Imagine that you've been confined to a plane and/or an airport for anything from 10 to 20 hours and imagine that it's about 1 am or 5 am as far as your body knows and that's exactly how you feel, and imagine that you've been sleepless for anything from 20 to 48 hours, depending on where you started.

Once you've arrived in America, you drag yourself groggily to the "Immigration" area. Passengers are then separated, American citizens and Green Card holders have one line, aliens like you have another one. So far, so good. Standard procedure most places.

While there might be seven or nine immigration officers waiting for US citizens, though, only 4 immigration desks might be available for us "aliens", although we by far outnumber the Americans. Americans as a result get through the lines within maybe 30 minutes, we have to wait for anything up to 3 hours. Sure, we might miss our connections as a result - but who cares?

If you travel to the States frequently, you brace yourself mentally for the interview with the immigration officers. You rehearse what you'll say since you know that they can do what they want. You are in a lawless zone. If the person you are going to talk to had a bad day and is in a lousy mood, he'll take it out on you. You know that. You've been there.

Like everyone else in that line, you wonder - when you've been waiting for an hour and are wondering whether you'll be able to reach your next flight - why on earth you actually travel to this country which so obviously doesn't want your kind. Okay, it's your private life which made you come here, so it's your decision. All of your friends refuse to travel to America nowadays anyway. But still. The longer the wait lasts, the more you wonder whether it's worth the trouble.

You've been to every continent on earth and have never been treated this way except on those rare occasions when you ventured into the demised East Bloc. It was like walking on egg-shells as well when you crossed their borders. Which is why you only went there very rarely although two East Bloc countries were only an hour's drive away from where you live. They were nasty bastards at the borders and you refused to have anything to do with them. But you didn't have a boyfriend behind the Iron Curtain, that's the difference. Now you sort of do.

You giggle at the thought that this outfit here, which treats you like something subhuman, calls itself the "land of the free and the home of the brave" in its anthem. But it's like trying to get into the old USSR! But you mustn't mention the comparison, no way, no jokes, you mustn't be brave at all in the home of the brave, just be nice and compliant!

You finally make it to an "immigrations" officer. By now, your connecting plane might have left but you are supposed not to show your anxiety because that makes you look suspicious. You would have preferred the officer to the left of the one you've been assigned to, she looks nicer. You can tell by now.

That guy you are assigned to looks like a redneck. You've seen enough rednecks in America to know what he's going to be like. Insinuating that all you really want is to immigrate illegally and stay there forever, since as far as he knows, he lives in the Greatest Country On the Face Of the Earth and everybody wants to live there because they are a lot poorer - when you actually earn in three or five days what he probably makes in a month. So it's quite an absurd assumption. But you mustn't correct him when he makes these hints because it would hurt his pride and you are at his mercy. He might send you back on the next plane, remember. He's got the power to do so. On the plane, after all, you had to sign a waiver to the effect that you wouldn't be allowed to challenge any decision by US immigration authorities in a court, and if you hadn't signed the waiver, you wouldn't have been able to get into the country in the first place.

Don't they call that a double bind? And why is this legal?

You take a deep breath. All you want to do is be with your partner, so just shut up. Flatline your brain.

"What's the purpose of your visit to the United States?"

"Visiting my boyfriend".

"Is he American?"

"Yes."

"Now aren't you just lucky to have an American boyfriend!"

You take another deep breath. You know exactly what he is implying. You've been through all that before. As a matter of fact, though, it's the other way round. Oh, to hell with it. For once you are not going to let them get away with that one. Like in "Poor deprived alien is happy to have cornered an unsuspecting pure American kid in order to be able to settle in the Promised Land eventually". Or so his thinking goes, it's quite visible, you've heard it spelled out so many times before. The officer's last name on his tag tells you exactly the European country HIS ancestors hail from.

"Actually, HE thinks that he is very lucky that he's got a European girlfriend, though!" You retort, expletive mentally deleted. Apart from that, it's the truth.

Redneck stares at you. You stare back. You are out of line, his face tells you. Insubordintation. "SMILE!", some voice inside you screams, "SMILE, you moron!! You're at his mercy!!" You do and feel like a prostitute.

Redneck finally stamps your passport and you can go on to deal with the customs people.

If anyone thinks "What's the big deal?": This was the shortest version of all the possible scenarios you'd experience when just going to the US as a tourist, and 9/11 didn't make a difference, it's always been horrible. I've had interviews lasting 15 minutes or even 20 with officers, male and female, who would have cut splendid figures in certain camps in certain European dictatorships 70 years ago. I've had to deal with officers who were so much out of line that they ought to have been reported to any authority under the sun. So no wonder that people around the world experience entering the US as a most unpleasant experience. In most other countries, you show your passport and march on.

Or has any of you ever had to go through anything like that in any country you went to? Has anybody ever treated you that way when you entered a European country?

And, just in case you think that this is quite legitimate, considering illegal immigration: These procedures are not going to prevent half a Mexican from entering the US illegally. But America presents itself at its absolute worst to everybody from around the world who just wants to visit the country for a little while. PR-wise, it's a disaster.

Brigitte Schön an Austrian conference interpreter and occasional writer. She lives in Vienna, Austria. She can be reached at: b.schoen@chello.at

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