My Turn Now:
Customs Nightmare
By Shahid
Athar, MD
Indianapolis, US
Just because a person is a
good driver does not mean that he will never have
an auto accident in his life. Likewise, just because
an American Muslim who has been vocal in opposing
and denouncing terrorism and promoting peace and
interfaith understanding throughout his adult
life, has no guarantee he will be treated any
differently than any other American Muslim.
Just because I have never been profiled or given
any hard times at any US airport or border by
customs or immigration office, either before or
after 9/11, does not guarantee that it will never
happen to me ever. Since I do travel a lot, both
in the United States as well as outside, the only
incident I recall was in July 2001 when I was
returning from a medical conference in Iran.
I was at the London Heathrow Airport. They asked
me what I had been doing in Iran and I promptly
showed them the CME program from the conference
and the my medical lectures that I gave which
satisfied them. Similarly, two years before that
at the Casablanca Airport in Morocco, a lady looked
at me (at that time I had a full beard) and asked
me if I was Iranian. I smiled and told her to
look at my passport again which was a US passport
and the country of birth was India. I asked her,
“How could I be Iranian?” and she
told me that my beard was like that of an Iranian.
After the tragedy of 9/11, I have spoken and written
about the need for interfaith harmony and peace
and unequivocally denounced terrorism. Many of
my writings and speeches were published in a book
(Healing the Wounds of Sept.11, 2001, by Authorhouse)
in 2002. Many politicians, Senators, Congressmen
and other dignitaries including the director of
FBI and Homeland Security, who had received my
book, sent me letters of appreciation.
Several months ago, an FBI special agent in Indianapolis,
called me and wanted to meet me so I invited him
to my office and subsequently we had a very fruitful
conversation for more than an hour with subsequent
follow-up social meetings. He had read about my
writings on different websites, was impressed
and wanted my help in developing a community relationship
with the FBI so that the current apprehensions
and misconceptions about FBI operations in the
Muslim community could be dispelled. Therefore,
I invited him to our mosque as well as to several
community organizations. Not only he, his boss
and several other associates came and made presentations,
but they also had a booth at one of the conventions.
I made over 100 presentations in two years after
9/11 to different institutions, churches and organizations
about Islam, Muslims and interfaith understanding.
In appreciation of interfaith promotion activities,
The Indianapolis Medical Society gave me the Governor
Otis Bowen Community Service Award in 2003.
Unfortunately, things changed for Muslim physicians
after the July 1st 2007 alleged terrorism by a
certain physician at the Glasgow Airport. Then
there was a fear that terrorists trained as physicians
can slip into to the United States. On July 3,
I was contacted by Kirk Fernandez from ABC news
to give an interview about this situation. This
was published on ABC news.com by Russell Gorman
on July 4. In this report, I as the past president
of The Islamic Medical Association of North America
(IMANA) was quoted as saying “Muslim doctors
on the whole are dedicated to saving life, not
destroying it like those who are suspected in
the British plot. Physicians know about the sanctity
of human life and are programmed to save life,
not destroy it. This is true of all physicians
in general and Muslim physicians in particular.”
In spite of my very outspoken presence in the
media on many websites, I was conscious that someday
I would be stopped and profiled. This did happen
on July 22nd 2007. The IMANA 40th Annual Convention
had just ended in Niagara Falls, Canada. When
we were going from the Buffalo Airport to Canada
there was no problem. It went very smoothly and
was arranged by our travel company. The convention
went very well. I gave two presentations on the
recent developments in diabetes. The convention
was also addressed by Dr. Scott Santibafiez from
CDC about possible pan endemic flu and what religious
organizations should do to educate their community.
Before the convention on July 3rd, IMANA had made
a press release denouncing the UK terror plot
and condemning the act of terrorism and mentioned
that Muslim physicians try to promote and maintain
health and prevent diseases and condemn all acts
of terrorism as we uphold the sanctity of human
life. On July 13th, in the United States Senate,
Senator Durbin and Senator Hagel introduced a
resolution, praising American Muslim physicians
who condemned terrorist acts and recognized the
efforts of American Muslim physicians through
the Islamic Medical Association of North America
which publicly condemned in the strongest term,
the alleged attacks at Glasgow Airport in London.
The Senate resolution commended IMANA for swift
and clear public denunciation of the attack and
encouraged Muslim voices in the United States
and abroad to continue speaking against terrorism
and condemn bigotry and acts of violence against
any Americans including Arab Americans and Arab
Muslims. This resolution was presented to the
delegates of the convention at Niagara Falls by
the President of IMANA, Professor Hassan and a
copy was made available to all delegates for their
files.
On Sunday, July 22nd, it was time to leave the
convention and return to the USA. I took the 10am
bus instead of the scheduled 11:30am bus to avoid
delays at the border crossing as my flight was
at 3:30pm. There were nine other passengers in
that particular bus, including my wife and three
past Presidents of IMANA. At the border, the first
agent stopped the bus, took our passports and
after 10 minutes my name was called and they asked
me to get off the bus and proceed to the immigration
and customs office, door #2. After 15 minutes
they asked my wife to get out also and take our
luggage and they let the bus go without us to
the airport. For the next three hours, we remained
in the waiting area of the immigration and customs
office without knowing what was happening.
It appeared there were several agents working
on our case but they were not able to tell me
what was the reason for stopping us. One of the
agents asked me to fill out a customs declaration
form which I did. Another agent asked to see my
driver’s license. While I was taking it
out of my wallet, he wanted to examine all the
contents of my wallet which I thought was very
objectionable but I did not object because if
I had said no it would have meant that I was hiding
something. While he was looking through the contents
of my wallet, he found my membership card of the
Indianapolis Medical Society, my physician’s
license, my membership in ACLU and Amnesty International
and he also found the business cards of the three
FBI agents whom I had befriended and who had given
me their cards. He asked why I was carrying the
FBI agents’ cards and I told him that they
were my friends and I was helping them to improve
their relationship with the Muslim community in
Indiana at their request. I told him that I had
invited them to come to our mosque and our local
political Muslim convention which they did and
made a presentation on behalf of their agency.
I suggested to the Homeland Security agent that
they contact any of the FBI agents and ask them
about me.
In the meantime, I had informed on my cell phone
Dr.Khalid Qazi, the chair of the local host committee
of the IMANA convention, who had been in touch
with Homeland Security. After 3pm which was about
4 hours after the initial time, they wanted to
check my luggage which they did very quickly,
just like airport checking. This time I asked
what was going on and I was told they were waiting
for a phone call which had not come yet.
At 3:30pm, I was taken inside for an interview
with a special Homeland Security agent, Jim Crawford,
who was brought in from home. Apparently, it took
him close to four hours at home to read my writings
on the Internet. He was very professional and
cordial. He knew about my books on Islam, interfaith
and medical ethics and he knew that several Senators,
including Senator Lugar and Senator Biden, several
governors as well as President Bush and the director
of Homeland Security as well as the director of
the FBI had written nice letters to me about my
writings. He had spoken at length about me to
the special FBI agent whose card was found in
my wallet. He asked me a few questions about my
interfaith activities and I informed him that
I was the past President of Interfaith Alliance
and have been working with Islamic/Catholic dialogue
as well as made several presentations to synagogues
about Jewish/Muslim relationships.
He asked me to name five organizations that I
was a member of and knowing that I am a member
of many organizations. I named Islamic Medical
Association of North American, American College
of Physicians, American Association of Clinical
Endocrinologists, Interfaith Alliance of Indiana,
and a Muslim Organization. He told me that he
was aware that I had no control of websites that
use my writings for any particular purpose. I
also gave him a copy of IMANA’s resolution
about the UK terrorist plot as well as the United
States Senate resolution praising Muslim physicians
and the IMANA resolution.
After 15 minutes of a fairly cordial interview,
he expressed his regrets, thanked me, gave me
his card and let me go. Another agent later on
brought two bottles of water for my wife and me
and called a taxi for the airport.
We arrived at the airport at 4:15pm but by that
time the scheduled Northwest flight had left and
the next flight had no seats available. Finally,
we got two seats on the 7pm flight but the plane
broke down on the runway.
The airline put us in the Holiday Inn where we
spent the night and came to Indianapolis the next
morning. A half-day of my hospital rounds was
lost and caused inconvenience to my office, my
partner and patients. In spite of that, I sent
an email message of thanks both to the Homeland
Security agent and the FBI agent in appreciation
of their efforts to keep our borders safe and
protecting the lives of Americans with a copy
to Senator Lugar. I did get a response from the
FBI agent thanking me for the letter and asking
me how I was treated at the border security.
The purpose of my writing this report is to make
fellow American Muslims know that we are being
watched and monitored and we should be prepared.
We should not only continue to condemn terrorism
verbally but also in writing for the sake of record
and we must keep good relations with fellow non-Muslims
as well as government agencies because in this
fight against terrorism, we are all together.
During my speeches and Friday sermons, I tell
my audience that immigrant Muslims should bring
their hearts where their body is now. Home is
not where your grandparents are buried but where
your grandchildren play.
The United States is a great place to be and we
have been placed here not by other actions, but
by the Will of God. We must keep it safe and beautiful
and uphold religious harmony. All concerns of
society, whether pollution, potholes in the streets
or terrorism, are everyone’s concern and
we must do our best to take care of the problems.
Yes, we may be discriminated and profiled because
of our looks, our faith, our country of origin,
against the Bill of Rights in the 3rd amendment,
but this is a society in which immigrants have
been profiled for the last 300 years.
First it was the Jewish people, then Catholics
and African Americans and now it is our turn.
We must learn from the experiences of others and
how they survived. We are a part of the permanent
American landscape.
The sad part of this whole saga is the realization
that while the American media and columnists complain
that moderate American Muslims don’t speak
up against terrorism but they themselves treat
those who do with same degree of suspicion as
those who don’t. They believe all Muslims
are terrorists unless proven otherwise. Thus it
is up to us to prove “the otherwise”
and try to satisfy those who question our loyalty
to America.
(Dr. Shahid Athar is a practicing physician in
Indianapolis.)
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