Aboodi Shabi

A few weeks ago I was due to be teaching in Newfield’s coaching programme in Colorado and to take part in our first ever global summit. It was my first trip to Colorado in five years and I was very much looking forward to it.

But it was not to be. I arrived at Denver airport and got no further than immigration. What followed was a very strange and surreal two days, heightened by jetlag and very little sleep, and culminating in my returning home after being deported.

After a long flight I landed in Denver at what was already 2am London time and entered immigration, only to begin a lengthy interview process; my papers were deemed not to be in order. I was told that I would be put on the next ‘plane home. I was shocked and disappointed by this, as you might expect, but it was to get worse.

There was a long wait while they processed my paper-work, nearly four hours of waiting in fact – more questions, more waiting. All the while I kept blaming myself for being stupid enough to have got into this situation (something my friends were only too quick to tell me when I told them what had happened!) – maybe I had answered the questions wrongly, maybe I should have done something different, etc, etc.

For a long time, I was just waiting and wasn’t allowed to use my mobile ‘phone, although I did manage to text my colleague, Dan, who had come to the airport to collect me. The sense of being incommunicado in the no-man’s-land of immigration added to the sense of disorientation and surreality, which were stronger than any sense of upset.

Despite all this I was able to remain relatively calm and in good humour – even trying some banter with the immigration officials (only to be told I had “way too much energy” for them – must have been the time disorientation kicking in!), and reflecting on how my practices of meditation and exercise had built up my resilience to cope with adversity. I often struggle to remain calm at airports because I regularly get singled out for “random” checks at immigration and security – I put this down to my appearance and ethnic origins – so it felt like a real achievement to remain calm even in such an adverse situation.

I knew from the beginning that “the next ‘plane home” would mean an overnight stay, and I was looking forward to being in a hotel, and to getting re-connected with the world via e-mail but slowly it was dawning on me that this wasn’t going to happen. The immigration officials already had my main suitcase, and now they were asking for my cabin bag, and then my ‘phone, and now the contents of my pockets. When I asked about tooth-paste, etc, I was told that these would be provided in the “facility”.

This didn’t sound good, but it was to get more difficult and my sense of calm was to desert me. At around midnight local time (and 7am by my body clock), they were finally ready to take me to the facility. It was only when they produced a set of handcuffs that I finally lost it. I started crying and swearing at the same time – the final indignation, I think. They responded calmly, telling me that they had to handcuff me for their own safety while I was in transit from the airport to the detention centre. Eventually I gave up fighting and told them that I hated what they were doing but that I could understand it, and held my arms up for them to put the cuffs on.

I was then surprised by their gentleness – they kept asking if the cuffs were too tight, and loosened them for me. They also thanked me for calming down so quickly, and one of the young men told me that this was the worst part of his job – having to put hand-cuffs on people he believed to be decent human beings who had simply made a mistake with their paper-work. They put me in the van and gave me a bottle of water for the journey. They also, and I was very grateful for this, allowed me to take a sleeping tablet with me – another kindness. I managed three hours sleep in my dormitory at the detention centre before being woken for breakfast at 5 am.

The atmosphere in the centre surprised me, too. There were around thirty guys, mostly Guatemalans and Mexicans, all of whom had been there for weeks waiting for their appeals against deportation to be processed. They couldn’t believe that an Englishman was there – “You must have done something really bad to be here – did you harm someone? Were you driving drunk?”. They were friendly enough, but my Spanish was as weak as their English so we couldn’t communicate much. However, they were gentle and caring to each other, and towards me, and again I was surprised.

I was picked up again around lunchtime by the same crew who had brought me there, and, man, was I pleased to see them. I didn’t even demur when they put the handcuffs back on. Again, they took care that the cuffs weren’t too tight, and even apologised after driving a bit too fast over a bump. I spent the next few hours in the airport waiting for the evening flight home.

Again, I was surprised by their care. They allowed me a few favours, some time with my ‘phone, access to my toiletries, even offering to go into the airport to buy me some food, which, after the gruel in the detention centre, tasted delicious. While they waited for the international flight to come in they were chatting and joking with each other, and with me, and they allowed their stern masks to drop, talking about their hopes for their children and about their lives. This was even more surreal – the same stone-faced men who had greeted me the previous evening were now open and relaxed and friendly.

Just before the London flight came in, one of them looked at me, smiled, and said “OK, time to put our stern faces back on”, and they all did just that.

Finally, at about 7pm local time, I was escorted to the ‘plane by the guy I’d had most contact with. He shook my hand and wished me good luck, and I thanked him for his care. I was greeted on the ‘plane by the same flight crew who had flown me out, which only added to the strangeness of the whole experience. One more sleeping tablet, and I was back in London less than 48 hours after I had left, having spent about twenty hours in the air, and twenty-four hours at Denver Airport and in a detention centre.

Obviously, the experience had some impact on me, and still does in terms of the implications for future travel to the US (big hassles).

What I was most left with, however, was appreciation for the care and kindness of the US immigration team. This certainly wasn’t the reaction I expected to have, but my experiences left me with an experience of having seen the humans behind the stern official mask, and made me realise again the importance and power of emotions. Some of the treatment I received was unpleasant; being handcuffed, being held incommunicado and being held in a detention centre, but the care of the officials meant that it was never unbearable, and left me with an appreciation of them and the difficult job they had to do.

Many jobs include a certain amount of having to do unpleasant things to other people, whether that be denying them entry to a country, making them redundant or evicting them from their homes, to give just a few examples, but I do wonder what difference would be made if those jobs were done with the same amount of care and understanding as that I was shown in Denver last month.