It was supposed to be a dream come true, a 21st century fairytale. I was escaping the tyranny of my non-stop routine as a working mother and going to the land of the free for the first time. I've hardly travelled at all, and to be going to America was tremendously exciting, meeting some of my heroes and spending what I imagined would be two blissful weeks in the company of a boy I had met on MySpace. A boy I found so stunningly beautiful he made my heart flip and my stomach spin like no other.
At the passport counter, the guy joked with me, "Are you going to pick up cowboys?" I was actually. Obviously, speaking at Raw Spirit festival and getting my work known in the USA was important too. But that wasn't what was making my heart sing. It was the thought of meeting all the amazing raw fooders I had heard so much about, and connected with over the internet, some of the most conscious people on the planet, and spending a weekend with hundreds of people on the same wavelength as me.
He asked me to take a ticket and go to immigration, which I did confidently. The angels are with me, I am very protected, I felt sure it would all be fine. The woman dealing with me was immediately hostile and aggressive in her tone, and dare I say it, straight out of a US cop show – Cojbasic, her name badge read. I think she was a lizard too, her eyes kept rolling back in her head. They took my bags for searching, and while I was waiting I did some stretching – I had been sitting on a plane for eight hours. A woman barked at me, "Don't do your yoga in here, this is a place of business." I wasn't doing headstands or anything, just simple side stretches. "I'm just stretching." I replied. "Do you understand me?" She said menacingly. I did. These people were the real deal. Proper fascists. There was a guy from Roumania and a woman from Norway also being held. "The land of the free!" I said. They didn't look amused.
She took me in for questioning, if you can call it that. She said she didn't believe I had anywhere to stay, although I could have proved it if she had let me. She said the $200 dollars I had wasn't enough to live on, although I could have got some more out of the bank with my cash card if they had let me. There were plenty of ways I could have proved my credentials: one or two quick phone calls would have done it, but they weren't interested in proving my innocence. The supervisor kept saying that the burden of proof was on me, yet everytime I tried to open my mouth to defend myself they would shut me up. They kept threatening me with jail and they meant it. If I had spoken up for myself and been anything but compliant, if I had said how utterly wrong their behaviour towards me was, I am positive they would have had no qualms about locking me up.
They asked me the most outrageous questions: about my sex life, if I was a member of a cult, what my ex-husband thought about me going off to meet another man, if I had ever been under psychiatric supervision, if I abused my children. They would ask me these sort of questions over and over, rather than any real attempts to listen to the truth of my situation. If I suggested that maybe the question was irrelevant, or was unable to answer in simple yes and no terms, they barked "refusal to answer" at me, like it was a punishable offence. The supervisor asked me over and over again how else I made my income apart from writing. I explained that I am a well-established and well-respected writer who makes money from consultations, workshops and magazine articles as well as touring internationally, but they didn't want to acknowledge that. I kept testifying to the kindness of my ex-husband and my friends both in the UK and the US, but they wouldn't have any of it: why would a friend pay for your plane ticket, it didn't add up, they said. Why would your ex-husband still support you if you were the type to go gallivanting off after cowboys? Why would a boy in America have you to stay without knowing you or expecting anything in return?
My official name on my passport is Kate Polly Love Magic. I try to live my life through the power of love, and attest to the magic that this creates in the world. This incident has made me all the more appreciative of the people around me who value me for this, who celebrate my unconventional views and hold them up as something to aspire to. Indeed, I am so surrounded by acceptance nowadays, I had forgotten what it was like to be seen as hostile. I believe the immigration people didn't like my name, they didn't like my tattoos, they didn't like my sparkly trainers and gold nail varnish; they were threatened by the high and pure love vibration I was omitting as I stepped off the plane, excited at a new chapter of my life opening before me. It is not an energy they are familiar with. I believe the oppression and restrictions placed on people by the American authorities is at a level equal to that of Hitler's Germany. It was something I understood conceptually before, because of events like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, but until you experience these things personally you cannot realise the impact of their truth. I was coming to their country with nothing but love in my heart, coming to spread my message of hope and change and the brighter future I see blossoming around us. I was treated like a criminal and verbally abused. When Cojbasic tried to take my fingerprints my hands were sweaty. "Relax!" she scolded. "Relax or I'll break your fingers. If we can't take your fingerprints you'll go to jail." This was in the presence of another officer, who made no comment, and took this as perfectly acceptable. His ornate forearm tattoo read "God Bless America."
In my bag they found chocolate bars containing hemp seeds. I had not thought it was illegal to bring hemp into the USA. So now they had something to pin on me. He tested a bar and brought it to me claiming it tested positive for narcotics, which it clearly doesn't. I think he expected me to admit I was a dope dealer, he kept asking me the last time I smoked marijuana. They said they were going to fine me $5000 dollars. Then suddenly it was $500 dollars which I had to pay then and there. They frogmarched me to a cashpoint and made me withdraw the money, although when I had offered to do this earlier to prove I had funds to stay in the country, they said that was not something they would do. Then the only cash available was in pounds, so they let me go without paying anyway. I had to sign a form but I questioned which bars they had taken because not all of them contained hemp, only a few. He snatched it away from me, saying, "OK, refusal to sign." The whole thing was completely inconsistent and nonsensical.
I asked their names for my records and they refused to give them to me. They took my credit cards and didn't allow me any phone calls. They demanded passwords to my internet accounts, they opened my computer and went into my private documents. Is this allowed? And if it is, why? And what was the point, considering if they had checked me out at all, they would have discovered me to be bona fide. OK, yes I was stupid to take the chocolate in my case. But that was really the only thing I did wrong, and on the form they gave me it says, "In return for this promise, US Customs has permitted me entry into the US without further detention of any conveyance or baggage." Instead they put me straight back on a plane via Amsterdam, so I spent 28 hrs solid on planes and in airports. I was in a state of shock, right after it happened I went very cold, my teeth were chattering and couldn't stop shaking and kept bursting into tears randomly for the whole of the next day as soon as anyone showed me any human kindness. The officials treated me despicably and inhumanely and I hadn't even done anything. What would they be like to someone who had actually broken the laws? It's very scary. The written testament they gave me of the interview misses out any inappropriate questions and as such is a completely inaccurate record of the interview, a falsified document_
Coming home, I've been surprised at the amount of people who haven't been surprised. Who have actually had similar things happen to them or friends. It seems it's pretty standard to get turned away if you look "alternative". Apparently, I was stupid for telling them that I'd smoked marijuana twenty years ago, but when US presidents and members of the cabinet have all admitted it, I really thought it wasn't taboo any more. The point is, I was trying to do the right thing, I was trying to be completely honest with them, I didn't feel I had anything to hide. The way I live in the south of England in 2007, I don't feel alternative anymore, I feel accepted and understood. I'd forgotten how much people who choose to live their lives outside of the norm still unconsciously expect to be persecuted, harrassed, ridiculed, and to be forced to be deceitful. Looking back two days later, of course there were things I should have said that I didn't or things I didn't say that I should have done. But the point is, I shouldn't have been stripped of all my rights like that, and I shouldn't have been put in a position where I had to defend myself against such a fierce and unwarranted attack. The point is, according to the law, yes, they are in the right. But that's because they make up the laws. According to any sort of moral or ethical judgement they are so in the wrong it is a total outrage that they are allowed to get away with it. It's very very important people realise the levels of barbarity and injustice America has sunk to right now. It's important we continue to stand up for what we believe in, making conscious strides towards love and truth and peace, or the more and more this disgusting treatment will be happening to us, our friends and our families.