Less than a month ago, in late July, 2009, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire was travelling from Dublin, Ireland to Albuquerque, New Mexico to meet
Peace Laureate Jody Williams to participate in peace events there. As she arrived at Dulles airport near Washington, DC, from Ireland on July 30, 2009, she passed through the regular immigration line, but then was detained in a
special processing area over two hours causing her to miss her connecting flight to Albuquerque.
This is the second time Maguire has been detained by US Immigration in the past three months. On May 14, 2009, she was detained at the Houston, Texas, International
Airport as she was returning from a 3 day conference in Guatemala,
hosted by four of Nobel Peace Women Laureates. During the detention
in Houston, Immigration officers questioned her about her visit in
April, 2007, to the Palestinian village of Bil'in where she was injured
by a rubber-coated bullet shot by Israeli military forces during a
protest at the fence built by the Israelis in the village.
In
Houston, Maguire asked the Immigration officials what she could do to
prevent future detention and was told to get a 10 year visa to the
United States.
She immediately applied and obtained a 10 year visa in early July from US Consul in Belfast, Ireland. She
presented that visa to the Dulles Airport Immigration official.
Maguire had had an indefinite visa to the U.S. in a previous passport
and had never had any problems travelling to or through the United
States.
Three
months later, when she told the U.S. Immigration Officer at Dulles
airport that she was a Nobel Peace Laureate and showed him the
documents concerning the Peace Laureate meeting she was attending in
New Mexico, the Immigration Officer sarcastically said that detention
"is going to happen every time you enter the United States," and "you
should get used to it."
Maguire
has been publicly outspoken and critical about Israeli treatment of
Palestinians and has a long history of non-violent acts of civil
disobedience against war and against nuclear weapons.
Not
only was Maguire hit in 2007 by an Israeli military rubber-coated
bullet and tear-gassed while participating in a protest against the
construction of the Israeli fence dividing the Palestinian village of
Bil'in, on June 30, 2009, the boat that Maguire and nineteen others
were on in international waters off Gaza was boarded by Israeli
military and all the passengers and crew were put in an Israeli prison
for 7 days. Maguire was deported from Israel on July 7, as was fellow passenger, former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
Earlier,
in 2004, as a part of her work against nuclear weapons, she travelled
to Israel to meet Mordechai Vanunu as he left prison at the end of his
18 year sentence imposed for his revealing Israel's nuclear program.
Because
of her detention by U.S. Immigration on July 30, 2009, Maguire had to
stay overnight in Washington, DC, at her own expense, as United
Airlines said they were not responsible for her missing her flight. The
next day, she ended up on a flight to New Mexico with 3 stops before
getting to Albuquerque at 4pm, missing all the day's events.
Maguire said that the harassment by U.S. Immigration began in 2009, after the change in U.S. Presidential administrations.
I
wonder if the Secretary of State might wish to have discussions with
the Secretary of Director of Immigration and Citizenship about how to
treat Nobel Peace Laureates, unless, because of her outspoken criticism
of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, the treatment Maguire got
on July 30, 2009 was exactly what the Obama administration wants her to
have.