Go to www.oglobo.globo.com for news in Portuguese about this. Even if you can't read Portuguese, click on the link to the right of his photo which says "Animação e passos constrangidos" for photos of the entertainment passengers now get at the Rio de Janeiro airport while waiting to be fingerprinted.
Stupidity at its finest. Really, you'd need to have an incredibly fertile imagination just to imagine this stuff. After passing a laughable regulation designed to annoy the US, Brazil then desperately searches for a way to entertain the people its inconveniencing with the immature gesture. Wow. They're pissing off customers and spending lots of money to do it. While I'd say that politics shouldn't be left up to the children, I'm reminded of who my President is.......... On a slightly more serious note, I hope they do something about the delays. I've been doing a fair amount of work with Brazil, and if I have to go there anytime soon for business, I'd rather not spend countless hours waiting to be fingerprinted.
I guess as long as you call it "profiling" then discrimination is ok. Or more likely, as long as Americans are doing it, not having it done to them, then it's ok. (and before you say, "but the US isn't singling out any particular country", that's true, but only visitors who need visas are getting photographed/printed, and not all countries' nationals require visas, so there is still a high level of "discrimination" over who is going to be photographed and fingerprinted coming into the US)
Short memory.... 15 of 19 hijackers were here illegally, having entered through airports as port of entries... You don't think that the U.S. might have a legitimate reason to control it's ports of entries after 9-11. How many American's have blown up building's in Brazil? How many Brazilian dead lay at the hands of American's? How many American's live illegally in Brazil? How many Brazilian's attempt to illegally cross the U.S. borders? This is Peronist politics, playing to the masses. Blaming America and American's for problems of their own creation, without dealing with it in a responsible way...Good politics, bad policy. And as you say, the U.S. policy is applied equally and to everyone, and it is being done quickly and not as an inconvenience. Brazil's policy is harrassment, plain and simple. In Brazil, it taking them 10 hours to work people through the process. The pilot has to pay a 13,000 fine. He has not been found guilty of anything, yet, and has not been charged, but is paying a 13,000 fine. In otherwords, pay a bribe, and we will drop the whole thing? And that is just reason 237 why Brazil is a 3d rate banana republic. How incredibly stupid is this? No doubt, there will be people here on these boards who will find a way to blame the U.S. for Brazil's idocy.
Here's a link to the Migration Policy Institute's study referred to in the Miami Herald's article http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Americas_Challenge.html
Mike...Laughable.. took you five minutes.. FACT: 15 of the 19 were here illegally.... Citing a extreme liberal think tank as your source, whose agenda is very well known does not change that. "Probably" admitted? Hello!?!?!?!?! For the record....that is THEIR opinion. I'll stick with the concept that we have not been hit since 9-11. Until we are hit again, I am sticking with the present policies. Guy's like you will be first to vehemetly complain that NOT enough was done to protect us once we get hit again.
Fact - you're wrong, as of one month after 9/11. On October 11th, 2001 INS releases legal status of alleged hijackers Even NewsMax said you're wrong on October 12th, 2001 INS Ignorant of Six Hijackers Got any proof that 15 of 19 were illegal? I'll complain that the Coni Rice ignore warnings the first time around and that there's a chance that if the Bush adminstration had paid attention to the experts in the outgoing Clinton adminstration, 9/11 could've been averted. I'm not saying it was 100% avoidable, but I do think that Bush didn't pay as much attention to the dangers of Al Qaeda as Clinton did.
Got any proof to back this assertion up. I say you're wrong on the ground that the CIA graduated its largest class of career trainees for the clandestine service to date in August of 2001, with over 2/3 of the 300+ CT's receiving their language training in Arabic.
Man, reciprocity is nothing new in terms of entering Brazil. I would be interested as to why it is 'whatever' to inconvience americans but ok to do the same to Brazilians (without warm welcome and dancing ladies). Either way, I'll heap this onto my list of reasons that Brazil is my favorite country on earth.
You have got to understand that guy's like Mike and his ilk are soooooo swept up in hatred of Bush, that they will beleive anything to justify that hatred, to include the concept that 9/11 was Bush's/America's fault. Mike, for the record...9 plus 3 equals 12. As for the other 7, three were found to have "LIED" on their visa's applications, making them eligible for deportation. Hence the widely reported "15". Let me guess, if these policies had been proposed by "Gore", you would be all in favor of them.... Mike, you are part of the blame America first crowd. Truly pathetic, but we can all thank God that you belong to that sad small minority!
I just talked to my old man a few hours ago. He went through the checkpoint in Sao Paulo yesterday and and said it was no big deal - about 30 minutes. They had a similar arrangement with music and dancers. He also said the man at the gate also apologized for the wait and the fingerprinting. As has been said - I seriously have no problem with reciprocity.
You could read this article http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333835,00.html Or you could send an e-mail to Wesley Clark http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec03/clark_10-30.html I hope you're right about the CIA trainees being proficient in Arabic. I think we've had a severe problem with enough human intel on the ground everywhere since the end of the Cold War.
Show's how little you know about Brazil and likely latin america as a whole. Ask a soy farmer if Brazil is a "third rate blah blah blah".
Ease off. My point is not that it is WRONG for Brazil to do this, but STUPID. Brazil are accomplishing absolutely nothing of significance other than annoying the US. At the same time, they recognize that antagonizing US nationals who come to Brazil to spend their money is foolish, thus the entertainment. So they're paying large sums of money to thumb their nose at someone. Its immature. I'm glad if the waits are shorter. If I go, hopefully they will be. What we should really do, is have Brazil fingerpring all Europeans. The only people I'm aware of who illegally went to Brazil in droves were Germans........easy to hide, you know P.S. You're right - Brazil is a 1st rate banana republic.
Bush's fault? Well, maybe a little bit, but I don't think anyone could've prevented 9/11. It's too bad that Condi didn't pay enough attention to Sandy though. America's fault? No way. Where's a link showing that 15 were illegal. You said it was a FACT. Prove it. At least NINE were legal. Completely 100% legal. The INS says it. Your math makes no sense at all. What policies? Fingerprinting and photographing all people coming into the country unless they're from most of Europe, Australia, Brunei (huh?) and Singapore (double huh???)? I would no matter who it was. If they're going to do it, do it for every single foreign visitor, no matter where they live nor they're flying in from. I guess I shouldn't be suprised by this. It's a pretty typical response. Rather than reading the content of what I wrote, you take the typical "America, love it or leave it, all liberals hate America" approach. You finally figured me out. You're absolutely right. I really hate America and I'm really glad it happened. We were due, and the attacks were all our fault.
You mean those Brazilian Soy Farmers who do not pay and therefore illegally use soy beans gentically produced here in the U.S. which U.S. farmers have to pay handsomely for because the "product" was invented by an American Corporation. By the way, that is Reason no 129 why Brazil is a banana republic. Brazil has a corupt government, fails to take care of its own people, allows the rape of the Amazon, rampant criminality....shall I continue? Latin America countries is screwed generally because the government's are often clueless, and corruption is rampant. That is NOT an American initiated problem. That is "their" problem, which "they" fail to correct. Latin American's ought to start taking responsibility for it's own problems and stop blaming the U.S.
Mike... If you OVERSTAY your 3 month visa...then you are here ILLEGALLY! What is there NOT to understand? 15 of the 19 where here illegally. Only 4 should have been in the country when those planes were flown into the trade center and pentagon. IT-IS-THAT-SIMPLE!!!!!!!!
Is now a bad time to bring up the Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, Panama, Colombia, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Chile, Grenada, and Venezuala? Remember the Maine!!! (and the Alamo too)
OK, 8 hours was an exageration, it was the longest possible wait on the first or second day in Rio. As pointed out earlier, it's more like 30 mins. Most American tourists have repsonded with "Well, if we're doing this to them, it seems ok for them to do it to us". All the illegals I know in Brazil are americans who enjoy the country (read: women) so much that they don't want to leave. So they take all their money, live like a king in Brazil and rent a place for 3 months then go somewhere else (as a tourist of course they would not be allowed to rent for more than 3 months).