[Vision2020] Fwd: From News-Miner: After visa mix-up, guards lock up and strip-search UA graduate from Austria

[Love America]

*Hi All,
*
*I forwarded to you the story of Reini last week as he was detained and
"tortured" by our Immigration folks in Seattle. Below is a article that ran
in The Fairbanks News Miner about the incident.  I have cut and paste the
first story as the News Miner's web site is having difficulties.  Below that
is the link to the rest of the story and some on the federal response that
was run in Saturday's paper*.
*Chris*

"Those who know Reinhard Neuhauser, an outstanding young graduate of the
University of Alaska, are outraged because federal functionaries in Seattle
treated him like a criminal and forced him to return to Austria last week.

Former Fairbanks middle school teacher Donna Knutson said this leads her to
wonder: "What kind of a country are we becoming?"

After hearing about what happened to Neuhauser as he tried to make his way
back to Fairbanks last week, I have the same question.

It appears that the 26-year-old economist was punished because he followed
instructions of the U.S. consulate in Vienna and refused to lie.

Our congressional delegation should demand an independent investigation of
why Neuhauser, who has lived in Alaska for six years, was booted out of the
country.

I will relate Neuhauser's side of this horror story. It's not for lack of
trying that the government response is missing.

I called the State Department in Washington, D.C., Thursday and was told
that individual cases were confidential, so there was no way of finding out
what Neuhauser was told.

I called the public affairs officers in Seattle and San Francisco of the
three new agencies that replaced the Immigration and Naturalization Service
in 2003. They were polite, but they didn't know what was going on.

Neuhauser said he was told by the U.S. consulate in Austria on Jan. 15 that
he could return to the U.S. on a tourist visa and apply for a work visa once
he was back in Alaska. He said he told this to the Seattle immigration
officers, who claimed he was coming to the U.S. under false pretenses.

So just how big of a threat is Neuhauser to our national security?

Numerous Alaska families sent their kids to Austria with him last summer for
an alpine skiing camp that he ran in the mountains.

For the past couple of years, while taking classes for his master's degree
in economics, Neuhauser was a volunteer coach for the Moose Mountain Alpine
Ski Team. He and his brother were elite college skiers at UAA.

Knutson said her family had the Austrian as a guest two winters ago.

"He became like one of our sons. He studied hard, cooked Austrian food for
us. He was gone all day most weekends working with the kids at Moose
Mountain," she said.

Jim Dodson, president of the Fairbanks Economic Development Corp. (FEDC),
said Neuhauser is bright and honest and helped FEDC while he attended
graduate school.

When his visa expired, Dodson agreed to help him with the paperwork and hire
him to work full time as a FEDC economist.

If this guy doesn't sound like Osama bin Laden, that's because he's not.

On Monday, he wrote to his friends in Alaska about his ordeal.

On Jan. 14 the U.S. Consulate in Vienna approved his B1/B2 tourist visa to
return to the U.S. "I was told to enjoy my travel to the USA," he said.

He told the consulate officials that he was going to make his work visa
application while in Alaska and would not work for FEDC until it was
approved. The consulate said this plan was fine.

When he reached Seattle, however, an officer of the Customs and Border
Protection office accused him of lying about his reasons for returning to
the U.S. because he had a tourist visa, not a work visa.

"I sit there and think this cannot be for real," Neuhauser said. He said he
told the officer, "Why would I, after six years and entering the U.S. for 12
times, make false statements to risk everything I have built up during that
time?"

He was interrogated off and on for four hours, facing the same questions
over and over. He said they told him that if he withdrew his tourist visa
application, they would put him on a plane back to Europe.

About midnight he was taken in a police car to a detention facility about 20
minutes from the airport and forced to strip in front of an officer and put
on an inmate's clothes.

He said he was taken to different cells, all with the lights on, about every
half hour. The next morning he was handcuffed and taken back to the airport
by 10 a.m. for a 6 p.m. flight to Austria. He was told he had to buy a new
ticket, contrary to what he had been told the night before.

Preparing to get on the airplane, he said the immigration officer told him
that if he had just lied and said he was just coming to the U.S. as a
tourist, they would never have denied him entry into the U.S.

Neuhauser said the entire experience was humiliating and he's not sure how
to clear his name or if he'll return to Alaska.

I'll have more on this episode Saturday. It's a poor reflection on our
country.

*The Saturday article is found at this link:*

*After visa mix-up, guards lock up and strip-search UA graduate from Austria
*
http://newsminer.com/news/2008/feb/02/after-visa-mix--guards-lock-and-strip-search-ua-gr/
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