True Story Tuesday

Mike and I haven't flown anywhere together except to the Caymans to see his mom. Our first visit to see her was also the only time we have been out of the country.  The first time we went down, no problems, but on the way back, we had to change planes in Miami.  That, my friends, is a totally different world.  So anyway, going through immigration, we got called in to secondary screening, meaning we were carted off to a room full of non-caucasian folks.  I'm not going to make any assumptions about who they were, where they were from, etc. because I really don't know.  I'm not going to say they weren't "American" because I don't know.  What I do know is being hauled off to that room caused us to miss our flight home. Once you are in that room, you can't leave until they let you out.  You have no rights, American or not, in that room.  Sarah was 3 at the time and she had to potty, they reluctantly took me and her back to a locker room with a prison toilet in it, stainless still with a sink on the back.  I should have let her pee all over the floor.  Mike explained that he was a cop for crying out loud and showed them his badge to no avail. The won't tell you why they've pulled into that room, they won't tell you anything except that you are free to leave. 

We went about three months later and flew back through Atlanta, same thing happened, they still wouldn't tell us anything except that Mike could file a complaint with Homeland Security a/k/a the government.  Yeah Right!!!  So Mike filed a complaint and after nearly a year, he a got a letter full of gibberish.  About a week before our last trip, a girl in his office ran across an article about a guy with the same exact first, middle and last name, born the same year was a skinhead who was on the terror watch list, so now we knew why he was being pulled into secondary screening every time we came back into OUR OWN COUNTRY!!!!

The skinhead guy was arrested last April (a month after our trip) and he was at the hospital with his wife who was having labor induced so her child could be born on Hitler's birthday (nice, huh?) and he was in jail until September when he hung himself in his cell.  For once the government did the right thing and updated their records and we got through immigration without a hitch this time!!! We were soooooooo relieved!!!! 

Go ahead and head on over to Once Upon a Miracle to read other true stories!!