King Khan is questioned at Newark airport: was he detainted?

The discussion here is about being stopped at secondary POE inspection and if it's considered as being detained, not about your personnel views of a famous Bollywood actor.
 
How about this:
The story was front-page news in India, where the ability to avoid being frisked at airports is seen as a status symbol. Politicians, sports celebrities and film stars often claim VIP status to avoid security checks
Click to expand...

Cheers.
 
This is why I love America. Whether you are a King or not, same treatment.

Though I like SRK, what happened was just a normal and routine process. He should have gracefully given a statement about profiling and should have obliged the procedure or he could be cashing in this incident to promote his new movie "My Name is Khan" which is a movie about profiling.

After all, he is not a diplomat and was not traveling on any diplomat passport. And CBP doesn't maintain a rich and famous people's list in their computers for faster processing.

SRK himself said he has been to secondary inspection many times before too. Not sure whats so fuss this time.

But given his many trips to US and a large presence of Desi population in the NY/NJ area, the refusal of CBP to recognize SRK is little suspicious and may be more of some kind of hatred than a regular and routine secondary inspection. There could be one or 2 officers out there at his secondary inspection who just don't like large Desi population out there in that area. Just my thoughts.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
This issue is of interest to me - since similar thing happened with me some 4 yrs back and now I am planning on what to say.
Its interesting CBP says its routine inspection and not detention.
Some people on the forum also agree.
It remains to be seen what the N400 IO will consider. In my case I was held for several hrs and even fingerprinted for NO reason. My name is not a Muslim name and I dont know what they were thinking - they just said India is in a list of countries of special interest.

However I do not agree with the guy who mentions that this is normal. Many of the Indians are treated very unfairly for absolutely no reason. We need to all rise and speak out against this racial profiling.
Come on, if they really want to verify identity, they have the fingerprints in their system - why not verify it? There is no point in filling a long form and asking you about your life story.
When they have suspicion, questioning is ok.

I will come to know how USCIS considers this incident - if they make a big deal about it, I will contact my senator and try to raise big awareness in due course of time.
 
milk said:
But given his many trips to US and a large presence of Desi population in the NY/NJ area, the refusal of CBP to recognize SRK is little suspicious and may be more of some kind of hatred than a regular and routine secondary inspection. There could be one or 2 officers out there at his secondary inspection who just don't like large Desi population out there in that area. Just my thoughts.
Click to expand...

Let's not introduce any conspiracy theories here. It is much more probable the officer did not recognize him than this. I, for one, did not know such a person existed in a first place before I read about him in this thread. Am I discriminating against Indians? No, I just don't recognize him, that's all.
 
Re

First of all why is Mr Khan expecting special treatment. He is just one another Khan entering the country. If he has experienced this before and did not like it, he had a choice not to come here. He wants the dollars for shaking this leg but not follow the procedures. Where are these people who are buring the flags, when ex president Mr Kalam was strip searched. He was in a special category.
 
Even in US, some senators did get harrassed by the TSA with secondary inspections. So, its not uncommon. To think that everyone would know who Shahrukh Khan is, is just insane. Many never heard his name.. I mean he is not Amitabh Bachcah or some one ( kidding).

In a way, he brought forward the other part,,, at the end having an Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi passport, doesnt matter who you are , you are always in a chance to be scrutinized further than a non subcontinental passport. Thats for fact. Having a Muslim name do go against you in few instances. And thats because of reasons we all know why irrespective of how we feel or disagree about it. After 9/11, even looks/country of origin mattered... I remember I was denied to board on planes 2 times due to my appearances ( used to have goatee at that time, thats about it).
 
CBP claims they questioned Khan so long since his last name came up on their list and his luggage was late to arrive from connecting plane.

How this leads some to burn US flag and ask India customs to do the same for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is beyond common sense. I guess some will always have tit for tat mentally.
 
Bobsmyth said:
CBP claims they questioned Khan so long since his last name came up on their list and his luggage was late to arrive from connecting plane.

How this leads some to burn US flag and ask India customs to do the same for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is beyond common sense. I guess some will always have tit for tat mentally.
Click to expand...
And lot of time on hand, no mortgage to pay, no future to look forward to, no job to hold you from 9 to 6 - just lots and lots of time on hand to go and burn flags.
 
First of all, he's no Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt.
Second, he's an idiot.
Third, it makes me laugh when people speak about honor and stuff like that while being questioned at the airport. You go to a country as a guest, you respect the laws of that country, as simple as that. You don't like it? Nobody is forcing you to go.
And lastly, he wants to do the same with Americans going to India? Ridicolous. They can do whatever they want, but it's just going to make US visits in India decrease. Same thing happened to Brazil when they enforced the visa for americans when Brazilians started to get fingerprinted.
 
srinikandi said:
First of all why is Mr Khan expecting special treatment. He is just one another Khan entering the country. If he has experienced this before and did not like it, he had a choice not to come here. He wants the dollars for shaking this leg but not follow the procedures. Where are these people who are buring the flags, when ex president Mr Kalam was strip searched. He was in a special category.
Click to expand...

I agree! I had heard from someone that SRK can sometimes be a little arrogant while dealing with airline, immigration, customs, hotel staff etc. He may be a celebrity and close to a Billionaire in India and get away with any of his actions in India but here in the US he better behave and should not expect a red carpet treatment until he reaches the show destination.

To me this appears like he was getting late for his show and may probably have spoken a little rudely which caused further delays (this is my speculation) but of course he should have better known and understood the laws of this country.
 
sarrebal said:
First of all, he's no Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt.
Second, he's an idiot.
Third, it makes me laugh when people speak about honor and stuff like that while being questioned at the airport. You go to a country as a guest, you respect the laws of that country, as simple as that. You don't like it? Nobody is forcing you to go.
And lastly, he wants to do the same with Americans going to India? Ridicolous. They can do whatever they want, but it's just going to make US visits in India decrease. Same thing happened to Brazil when they enforced the visa for americans when Brazilians started to get fingerprinted.
Click to expand...

Sarrebal:

I agree with most other parts in your post but to be fair to SRK he is probably equal if not bigger than Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt when it comes to fan following. Its just that a lot of the non-Indians on this forum or in the US may not have heard of him but just wanted to clarify his stature in common masses and the sheer numbers who would do "anything" for him.
 
richmondva said:
Sarrebal:

I agree with most other parts in your post but to be fair to SRK he is probably equal if not bigger than Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt when it comes to fan following. Its just that a lot of the non-Indians on this forum or in the US may not have heard of him but just wanted to clarify his stature in common masses and the sheer numbers who would do "anything" for him.
Click to expand...

The only difference is that most of the world know who Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are and nobody out of India knows who this guy is.
Having said that, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt should have no right to any special treatment at immigration in any other country.
Had I been a fan of this guy, I would have lost a lot of respect after what he said.
 
...

We have to remember that he is an actor after all. He did this drama to promote his upcoming movie which is based on racial profiling. This little incident might be a good marketing tool for him. But he can be little arrogant sometimes which isn’t uncommon among actors/actresses from that part of the world. The bigger jerk Salman Khan is a good example!!!

You come here to collect the coins but you don’t want to follow the laws? I am with authorities on that one.
 
I find it extremely disturbing that SRK is being attacked here when he has not said anything about the whole incident except that he underwent routine and standard, though unfortunate procedures.

The topic of profiling was raised by the Indian businessmen who had invited him to the India Independance Day parade in NYC. There was nothing out of SRK or his entourage that encouraged people back to burn US flags. As a matter of fact it was some Indian politicians who suggested the idea of making Americans go through the same strict checks in India, not SRK.

As far as comparison with Brangelina is concerned, he is much bigger than both of them combined as he has over a billion fans just in the Subcontinent. You don't hear either of Brangelina owning a sports team (like Kolkata Knight Riders) that offers hundreds of millions of dollars just to hire a famous sports stars for a six week gig!




Stoned!
 
On racial profiling: I don't find it such a big deal.
Let's face it. India has a huge muslim population and terrorism-related problems itself.
If they were looking for Italian mafia would I be offended if they investigated me? No. It's inconvenient of course, but it's done for everybody's good.
Who do you think they're going to look when preventing islamic terrorism? The swedish supermodel or the muslim guy (or muslim-looking guy for that sake)?
It's true that it could be anybody blowing him(her)self in the plane, but so far just young muslim men did it. When a swedish supermodel will do it, then we'll start pulling them for secondary inspection. And of course at that point I'll be joining TSA, CBP and everybody involved in that LOL :)
 
sarrebal said:
The only difference is that most of the world know who Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are and nobody out of India knows who this guy is.
Having said that, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt should have no right to any special treatment at immigration in any other country.
Had I been a fan of this guy, I would have lost a lot of respect after what he said.
Click to expand...

Apologize to contradict you here Bob but in terms of sheer numbers of people who know/are fans probably AJ and BP may not come very close to SRK considering the population/density etc. India, Pak, Bangladesh, Indonasia, Middle East, Russia, a number of African countries, NRI throughout the world in every corner.

A number of people here may not even be aware that Bollywood (Indian Cinema) produces 2 to 3 times more movies a year than Hollywood. I am not a SRK fan but did want the people to understand his popularity level before they make a judgement. In theory if it was possible to have a worldwide poll to determine if someone had heard of SRK versus AJ/BP where each person was given one vote, I would be surprised if AJ/BP would even get half or a third of the votes as SRK. No doubt SRK has an edge because of Asia'a population before someone points that out but that is besides the point.

Sorry! deviating from the what the forum is meant to be and not trying to fuel fire here. Of course I continue to still believe that what he did was stupid if he thought the exclusive laws and extra priviledges he enjoys in India/some parts of the world were applicable for him in the US as well.
 
Guys,

I fail to see what this hoopla is all about. CBP detained some guy, who happen to be Indian, big star in Bollywood. The immigration related inquiry in this case is was he detained or not, and who defines detained for immigration purposes? USCIS and CBP are not the same agency, but each is dependent on each other to fulfill its responsibilities with diligence of a federal agency.

The back and forth on Mr. Bollywood charater is uncalled for, if he behaved badly, who among us was there at the airport to give first eye witness account of the encounter? :confused:If you were there, please give us all the details. Moreover, Indians nationals who are burning the American flag should know better. The comparison between Jolie and Pitt is beyond the pale. I am certain each person who travels back and forth to the US is at one time subjected to an unpleasant experience at the hands of a CBP officer, nasty attitude, bad breath and butt, arrogant and mean spirited in their conduct. :rolleyes: So, let us call this even-steven. The Indian Govt should focus on fixing India, stop focusing on overblown stories of people who are subjected to a routine harassment by CBP. Have you tried going to Saudi Arabia as a Jew? :confused: Lastly, try finding the definition of detained for immigration purposes. :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top