Sunday Feb 24 16:00 hrs I am taken, with another five "prisoners" to a different cell. We are all handcuffed, and escorted by armed officers, we are made to stroll through the airport lounge. The terrified tourists make way, frightened by the grotesque scene. They take us all to a van, parked outside the terminal, and transfer us to the other cell. The humiliation is suffocating ....
Sunday Feb 24 17:00 hrs Apparently, they have forgotten to make me sign a few forms at the Secondary One, so I'm taken again for a couple of strolls ( going there and coming back ) in the Airport Lounge. Those strolls remember are with cuffs and 'escorts.'
Sunday Feb 24 18:00 hrs Due to my unceasing protests, they finally allow me to make a phone call. I contact a Lawyer in LA, in the hope he´d get me out of that hell, but the information I get from him is even more surprising, and disheartening: - "Ricardo, the INS grounds at the Airport are not legally considered American soil, so I cannot invoke any civil right to take you out of there..." he tells me. How about that ??? In other words, I realize I'm in a no-man's land, a lawless place, arrested by arbitrary Nazis in the guise of INS Officers, that, due to this legal technicality, have the power to do whatever they please with you and what is worse with your family. I start to dream of the moment of catching a plane back home to Brazil.....however, before that, I'd still have to go through the worst night of my life.....
Sunday Feb 24 17:00 hrs Apparently, they have forgotten to make me sign a few forms at the Secondary One, so I'm taken again for a couple of strolls ( going there and coming back ) in the Airport Lounge. Those strolls remember are with cuffs and 'escorts.'
Sunday Feb 24 18:00 hrs Due to my unceasing protests, they finally allow me to make a phone call. I contact a Lawyer in LA, in the hope he´d get me out of that hell, but the information I get from him is even more surprising, and disheartening: - "Ricardo, the INS grounds at the Airport are not legally considered American soil, so I cannot invoke any civil right to take you out of there..." he tells me. How about that ??? In other words, I realize I'm in a no-man's land, a lawless place, arrested by arbitrary Nazis in the guise of INS Officers, that, due to this legal technicality, have the power to do whatever they please with you and what is worse with your family. I start to dream of the moment of catching a plane back home to Brazil.....however, before that, I'd still have to go through the worst night of my life.....