Australian children's author Mem Fox detained by US border control: 'I sobbed like a baby'

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Australian children's author Mem Fox detained by US border control: 'I sobbed like a baby'

Author of Possum Magic was aggressively questioned for two hours
over her visa status and later recieved an apology for her treatment
by border guards

Bonnie Malkin
Saturday 25 February 2017 02.38 GMT

The Australian children’s book author Mem Fox has suggested she might never return to the US after she was detained and insulted by border control agents at Los Angeles airport.

Fox, who is famous worldwide for her best-selling books including Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes and Possum Magic, was en route to a conference in Milwaukee earlier this month when she was stopped.

She told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation she was questioned by border agents for two hours in front of a room full of people – an experience that left her feeling like she had been physically assaulted.

“I have never in my life been spoken to with such insolence, treated with such disdain, with so many insults and with so much gratuitous impoliteness,” Fox said.

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After lodging a complaint over her treatment with the Australian embassy in Washington and the US embassy in Canberra, Fox received an emailed apology from US officials.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/australian-childrens-author-mem-fox-detained-by-us-border-control-i-sobbed-like-a-baby

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. Hopefully the entire world will boycott us, then

and only then will the oligarchs in America and russia pay attention.

And that Statue of Liberty MUST be covered with something, it NO longer applies.

[Hekate]

2. I am ashamed for my country

[LisaL]

3. Pretty soon very few people would even want to come here.

[Tanuki]

8. Not just because of hassles upon entry, but fear of being shot.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/everyones-nervous-some-students-in-india-rethink-us-study-plans-after-kansas-shooting/2017/02/25/767041f4-c584-4c45-8913-838c7d6d7166_story.html?utm_term=.79d34b2b0625

"Anupam Singh, a master’s student, once dreamed of coming to the United States for his PhD studies. But Wednesday’s seemingly racially charged shooting of two Indian men in Kansas reaffirmed his growing belief that United States isn’t a hospitable place for foreign students.

“I would be scared to study in the U.S.,” he said Saturday outside tea stall on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. “Did you read the newspapers yesterday? Two Indians were shot.”
...........

The possible hate crime has prompted anger in India and concern that the Trump-era United States is no longer a safe place for its thriving community of visiting Indian students, scholars and tech workers. The father of Alok Madasani, the Indian injured in the attack, appealed Friday from the Indian city of Hyderabad to “all parents in India” not to send their children to the United States under “present circumstances.”

On a sunny day at one of India’s most prestigious science and technology campuses, the effects of Wednesday’s violence were keenly felt.
Graduate students said they were changing their postgraduate plans from the United States to universities in Canada or Australia. Others were fielding telephone calls from anxious parents."
.......

[njhoneybadger]

4. When Wall Street and corporations are hit financially it will change

[Tikki]

5. This woman is going back to Australia and telling this awful event.

Actions like what happened to her will influence others.

Already one of my favorite AU bands is not doing a US Tour of their new album.

That decision was made recently.

They have all of Europe and the other Continents to tour instead.

Tikki

[LisaL]

6. She also said that right now she can't imagine going back to US.

[Tanuki]

7. Classic twitter response : Just coz....

https://mobile.twitter.com/humanitypleaze/status/835413182931873793

Just coz a 70yrold Australian Lady wrote a book '10 little Fingers' like @realDonaldTrump 's, you cant rough her up at the airport #resist

..................

[neeksgeek]

9. Dolt and his goons remind me of Inspector Clouseau

But less funny.