U.S. immigration officers to be stationed at Narita airport

"At present, U.S. immigration officers are routinely stationed at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, Warsaw airport in Poland and London's Heathrow airport in Britain in line with a program of the U.S. Homeland Security Department, they said.

Under the plan, four officers, each with expertise in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Spanish, are supposed to work at an office to be set up in Narita airport's Terminal 1, which handles U.S. airlines, according to the sources.

The four officers will respond to airlines' inquiries about the authenticity of passports carried by their passengers and whether they satisfy conditions to enter the United States, the sources said."

Big Brother?

A challenge to Japan's sovereignty?

Huh?

Do you guys even bother reading the article anymore or do you just launch your opinions after reading the headlines?

"If people don't start to stand up and speak out for their privacy, liberty and sovreign rights then there will be none to stand up for. Stop swallowing every pill for fear they hand out and start asking why, how and what is being done to protect individuals from goverments as well as terrorists."

Wha...?

Could you add more paranoia to the situation, please?

And why would I want to hear about some fat US immigration official? Why is it that a story about 4 people sent to Japan as a matter of convenience for airlines suddenly breaks into graphic descriptions of men's bodies? LOL

And lending support to North Korea's position about Japan?

Staggered lunches at the embassy?

911 conspiracy theories?

US officials stopping Japanese people from entering Japan?

It's like you people are just making up situations that have nothing to do with this story, then you criticize the situations. I'm guessing that for 99.99% of the people who travel to the US the result of this action will be absolutely nothing. That would include you.

But, whatever. Lock your doors and hide in the closet from the 500 lb immigration official who will sentence you to 50 years in the gulag (from Narita, no less!). The rest of us will just do what we normally do when we fly....dread being in that seat for 10 hours.

And good luck with that staggered lunch thing.

 

Currently, japan is simply occupied territory of the United States anyway. Since 1945, the US military occupation of japan has continued un-interrupted to this day.

The US should seriously think of upgrading japan's status, from a conquered territory, to a full scale commonwealth of the United States. Next step would be to incorporate the japanese islands to become the 51st state of the Union.

It makes sense, and japanese people would be the happiest indeed.

 

japan, when upgraded to US commonwealth status, would enjoy the same benefits as does another territory, Puerto Rico. Which means that japanese people could not vote for the president of the United States, but would enjoy the ability to vote for the governor of the japanese islands.

This could be envisioned rapidly, after all, japan is only semi independent at present, with the US leash wrapped ever so tightly around the japanese lap dog.

 

I'm a US citizen, but this is yet another reason to recommend to my university not to send our students to the USA for ESL. Canada and Australia make it easy for students to go there, spend money, and study English.

Last year the persons in charge of taking students to Canada did not follow my advice and let the travel agent route them through San Fransisco to get to Vancouver. Even though they were only transiting, the US authorities required that they be go through US immigration, be fingerprinted and retina-recorded. They waited in line much longer than they did in Canada and had to walk around a lot with a studeent who had become so ill on the flight that she needed a wheelchair.

Individual Americans (like myself, I hope) can be extremely hospitable and open. Our government has chosen not to be. And our ESL industry suffers. Canadian and Aussie ESL providers must be laughing all the way to the bank. They know that Japanese citizens are extremely unlikely to blowe up planes or run them into buildings. That is done by people from stable democracies like Saudi Arabia who are issued perfectly valid visas by American immigration officers.

 

I've heard a lot of people say they would like to go to the US but fear the situation there. And these overzealous immigration policies just make it worst. What a buch of hypocrits in goverment. So eager to support globalization and outsourcing countless jobs to other countries to save a few bucks. But then they want to keep everyone out or make it painful to come into the US. So much for their visions of global community.

JTtrol. It isn't paranoid to call a bad policy a bad policy. The US policy of turning the borders into images of war movie check points is short sighted and poorly managed. As I wrote before, be careful and check people, but do so in a non-intimidating way. How hard is that? The problem is there are too many jack boot wearing morons on power trips and bored underpaid peons taking their frustration out on everyone else. Why not make the job a decent one with good pay, good training, good support and strict rules about the treatment of the public. And keep them at home where they belong and everyone will be happier. Call it a process improvement project to get the corporate types onboard with the proposal. It is, afterall, just common sense. Something lacking in many US policies of late.

 

something they could use a computer for, checking passport serial numbers...

But what's this?



Since when are the airlines responsible for the immigration status of passengers, and how are they supposed to weed out suspicious passports? Isn't that what normal immigration procedures are for?

 

Every country should base an official in every other country. Just for fun.
I certainly don't envy passengers in LA when they reach the cardboard sign which says 4.5 hours wait and a lot further down the endless snake 2hrs wait.
Bob Hope once said Concorde gets you there faster so you have extra time available to wait for your suitcase. Perhaps he should have said immigration.
I like Narita it has a crew and diplomats channel but even coming in as a passenger it works very well.
It's going to be a neat posting for somebody.

 

I just got back from a trip to the Japan. I freaked when I saw the tremendous foreigners' line at immigration since it looked like the line for Space Mountain on National Childrens' Day. it went quite fast though. I'm not sure the officer even looked at my passport. It was literally a 2.5 second affair. While I'm thankful that the wait wasn't too long, I can't help but think how these people think they can pick up a forged passport in 2.5 seconds! I can see the effects of US immigration officials in other countries. In Amsterdam (Netherlands), the boarding process for US-bound planes has slowed down significantly. They now tell you that you should be at the airport 3 hours before the flight. I was actually standing in line when US immigration consultants were summoned for a counterfeit US passport. Being a foreigner, I can see how it is a slight inconvenience but I think it pays off.

 

about the guy who was looking for his lost car keys under the street lamp. He didn't lose them there but the light was better to see.

We only station the officers in the countries that are friendly to us and allow this kind of thing.

Can you imagine every country in the world stationing immigration officers in every other country's airport?

 

Wow so many opinions and so few actually know what they are talking about.

 

Please give the readers the benefit of your opinion. Thanks.

 

To hear all you people quaking in your boots. Read the article before you piss yourselves and go into fits. All these agents are going to do is tell the airlines whether or not the customer in question is going to be able to enter the US. If you are Japanese it won't matter a bit since Japanese can enter the US on the visa waiver program, letting them stay in the US for 90 days. This will only apply to people from non-visa waiver countries who don't have visas but are trying to go to the US, or people with questionable documents (forged, altered, not theirs).

It's 4 guys with no power to arrest or detain anyone. They simply look at documents and give their opinion. That's it.

 

But you miss the key point of contention. It is not the only role of the four men that is at issue. It is the validity of having their function reside here in Japan, on Japanese soil rather than in the US where it belongs.

Further it is also a question of necessity. Already there are global resources for evaluating the risk of certain passengers. Since 2000 this seems to be working just fine. Plus it was the failure of domestic systems that resulted in 911 and not those abroad. Further Japanese authorities are capable of, or could be made to be capable of carrying out the same functionality with provission of access to the same tools that the US staff would use. This makes more sense in terms of both sovereignty and in terms of necessity. And it more appropriate.

 

and the article states that the USDHS officers will check only American airlines, then I will simply fly a Japanese airline like JAL or hitch a ride on Air France or something. I am glad that at least the U.S. hasn't started fulling integrating the police system in Japan yet, with the Japanese nation simply being a satellite nation of the U.S.... I guess you could say the American bloc... Israel, Great Britain, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, Australia, and Japan.

 

why the hassle?