Six French journalists detained on arrival at Los Angeles, sent back to France
I might be persuaded to agree that whoever dealt with these folks may be guilty of being bad hosts, but is it any wonder that, post- 9.11, the US no longer has a swinging gate on the front door? Perhaps it is time that this country became a tougher place to get into. Whether this is the way we want to go about it is an open question, but perhaps it will send a message that needs to be sent.
The six journalists arrived at Los Angeles airport in two groups a day apart. The first group consisted of Alexandre Alfonsi of Télé 7 Jours, Stéphanie Pic of Télé Poche and Michel Perrot of TV Hebdo, who arrived at 2 p.m. on 10 May without press visas. Pic and Perrot passed through immigration without any problem, but Alfonsi was denied access to US territory on the grounds that he lacked the required visa.
Pic and Perrot tried in vain to find out from airport officials what had happened to their colleague. All three journalists were then detained and held for a total of 26 hours, which included a night in the cells of a US immigration detention centre.
They were subjected to interrogation sessions and six body searches. They were handcuffed while being moved from one place to another, and they were fingerprinted. One official told Alfonsi he would not be able to return to the United States again. They were put on a flight for France at around 4 p.m. the next day and were not able to recover their passports until the aeroplane made a stopover in Amsterdam.
The other group, which suffered an almost identical fate, consisted of Thierry Falcoz, editor in chief of Game One cable television, and two of his cameramen, Laurent Patureau and Alex Gorsky. They arrived at Los Angeles international airport at around 3 p.m. on 11 May. Falcoz and Gorsky passed through immigration without a problem but Patureau was stopped by an official who said he needed a press visa.
When Patureau's two colleagues protested, all three were detained. After being held for nine hours in an airport waiting room they were taken to a US immigration detention centre where they were held overnight in a cell. They were subjected to repeated body searches and interrogation. They were handcuffed when taken from one place to another, and they were fingerprinted. Finally, they were put on a flight back to France at around 6 p.m. the next day.
Anyone who has travelled overseas, particularly into Israel, knows that getting into a country is not always just a matter of walking off the plane and through the airport. I'm not going to sit here and pretend to believe that our Customs Service needs to become something resembling an El Al security check, but that isn't necessarily a bad example to follow. The United States is still a welcoming place, but perhaps we need to be a bit less welcoming and a bit more cautious than we have previously.
