Job Discussion Forums

[pangalacticgargle]

Just wondering if other people have also had problems with airport security after having worked in the KSA. In my case about six years ago I taught at a university in the KSA for a year and still get weird questions and accusations from airport staff in a number of countries up until recently. I'm not particularly middle eastern looking or religious and nothing like this happened before working in Saudi. Anyone else have this?

[scot47]

If you are still using the same passport it will have lots of exotic stamps. Mine often arouses the curiosity of immigration at various borders. I do not get paranoid about it.

[veiledsentiments]

It is not just you... and it is not just Saudi experience. I have heard from many teachers from the Gulf who get harassed regularly from US airport personnel... as do their families. A middle-aged, blue-eyed blond wife of a friend of mine was strip searched annually for a few years.

Getting a new passport doesn't help because everything is in their computers. Get used to it... the US, in particular, is now a police state. I had "issues" driving across the Mexican border some years ago.

VS

[AnneSansTete]

[davt]

have a friend who worked at Homeland Security. Basically he told me anyone coming into the US from Saudi Arabia is automatically red flagged. A file is created on you and sent to a specialized center where they have collected information on muslim americans. you are now identified as a potential threat to national security.
You are basically placed in a long list of people that are scheduled to be investigated.

This does not happen if you visit mexico, europe or any other non muslim country. It only happens if you visit Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman.

They know who you are before you leave and before you get off the plane. I am sure the TSA police approached you, took you aside and asked what you were doing in Saudi Arabia.
Welcome to America post 9/11. you made life alot harder for yourself. And putting on your resume that you worked in Saudi Arabia will get your resume tossed out. You may be a non religious, cool person, but it's just how things are.

[jaffa]

Wow

Never happened to me. I crossed (I'm a UK citizen) into the States from Canada 3 years ago and had a very affable cop chat to me. Didn't mention Saudi though. He seemed more concerned that I was travelling Greyhound!

Nothing has happened when I've flown back to Europe either, although I remember a beardo-weirdo English guy (former London bus driver - number 9 in Hammersmith) telling me that each and every time he flies into Heathrow, Special Branch gives him a good grilling. Hehe, that's what we (I mean other people) pay taxes for!

[nickelgoat]

I started working in KSA in late 2009. I have come back into the USA five times since then and this has never happened to me. The only time immigration personnel seemed a bit touchy was when I came back into Dulles from a trip to Romania just before that. He wanted to now if I planned on leaving the country again to teach and I said yes. That was that, but he was somewhat surly. Might have had something to do with being near DC and the center of USA government, I don't know.

[spiral78]

The US border guys are just utterly unpredictable, and seem to be uneducated sometimes, honestly. I'm (a US citizen) married to a European citizen Air Traffic Controller who carries Canadian ATC licenses. Spouse has been through extra screening every time we enter the US, and was once detained for an hour for questioning. For god's sake, a controller has high-level security clearances (we have undergone absolute masses of paperwork to establish this) and they waste time on us????

[scot47]

They do not hire a smart@asss to read in security. Being dumb is a job requirement.

[johnslat]

Dear scot47,

"Being dumb is a job requirement."

Thanks for the heads-up. I hadn't know that but will now will apply forthwith.


Regards,
John