NYT
May 14, 2008

Italian’s Detention Illustrates Dangers Foreign Visitors Face

By NINA BERNSTEIN

He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman
university. She was “a totally Virginia girl,” as she puts it, raised
across the road from George Washington’s home. Their romance, sparked
by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian,
Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was
welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his
girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at
Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border
Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after
hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome,
either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted
that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for
asylum.

Lance wrote:

It isn't a great surprise - much the same sort of horrors happen in
Saudi Arabia.

I wonder what you can do about it. I'm in the unfortunate position of
needing to attend a meeting in San Francisco later on this year - I
did try to have the meeting somewhere else, but didn't manage it.