Could US Officials Please Treat a Nobel Peace Laureate with Respect?

Published on Sunday, August 23, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
Could US Officials Please Treat a Nobel Peace Laureate with Respect?
by Ann Wright

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."

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/23-1

I protest such actions by my government!!!!!! I also wonder why such an obviously special woman will ever elect to enter this country again.