I am stunned to hear what happened to Vijay and his family at the Mumbai airport and wholeheartedly symapathize with them.
If in our own country, there is such a bias in favor of white skins, what good has independence really done for India.
Though some people here may say these officials were just following the rules, it cannot be a mechanical proposition, especially since little kids are involved. In every country there are leeways for certain situations.
I have travelled between India and the United States several times, and it is a shame when i see the sheer torture that Indian nationals have to go through to get through immigration - lines, bad attitude, and let's not forget bribes. The lines for foreign nationals are far shorter and have better officers on duty.In countries like France, preference is given to nationals instead of foreigners.
The sheer incomeptency of the airport officials in dealing with this situation is appalling. This treatment esp. in view of the fact that NRI's are doing so much for the country. My advice to Vijay is to get U.S. citizenship as soon as possible.
Btw, I am an Indian national and my kids are U.S. citizens.
What happened with Vijay family was indeed very sad. Everyone comments were intresting. Extreeme in two sides. In my view we are mixing two issues.
Missing travel docs --Rejected. Very simple. Well, that is law, their might be exceptions like giving some time to get duplicate copies etc.. But I do not think they even accept copies of original, we should not forget how US implements law. Law is law and there is no eyes to it. There are still few good people in India, I am not sure if these immigration people among those good once.
Second issue. Corruption. I am sure each one of us got our own stories on this topic. No doubt our country is corrupted, needs change. So we might think that , when we are so much corrupted why can't we allow these kids as they belongs to Indian nationals. What if those immigration officers are among those rare good once and did their job.
In this case it looks like law is implemented blindly, it should be like this, but we all used to corruption when some one does right thing it bothers like this. there will be some exceptions for any law and looks like Vijay was not given any exceptions. What happened was very sad and bad luck.
I don't see any issues here as I expect the immigration dept to do their job even if it is Indian as I expect same kind of behaviour from US/any other country immigration as well.
Why do you expect just because of Indian origin, you should be expected to allow to enter country without proper documentation?
Also I expect these officers will be handling this kind of issues on daily basis and will have certain policies to handles them. I don't think they can behave rudely as even I travel more and seen the courtesy of officers in Mumbai, Bangalore and other airports. may be it is on reaction basis. I feel the situation would have more exaggerated from the actual situation.
We heard one side of the story from these NRI's. They might have rudely begaved with the officials. so authorities might have showed what they can do. When the children was born in US, he is a foreigner. no more Indian!!!! So this happened to a foreigner. not to Indian. These NRI's obey each and every smallest law On US land. But took lightly when wanted to visit India? come on guys, how can u forget to take visa but not passport and tickets? what was in ur mind. Chalta hai, India hai?
It is downright disgusting that our immigration officials will put fellow Indians or any person of Indian origin through such crap. These officials should be reprimanded and taken to task.
I dont sympathise with Vijay and his family. It is his duty to take the travel documents even if he is going to his home country. USA also has similar laws. He should understand this and cant be careless when going out for long overseas journeys.
Those of you supporting immigration officials got it wrong. We are talking about small children of citizen of India. Since these kids are below 18 they have every right to be with their parents even if they dont have Indian Visa. Come on, you can't these kids are illegals...can you?
If you have dealt with these stupid immigration officials would will know how third class they are. Its also Amazing how smugglers, gangsters, cheaters, illegals are allowed inside country easily. Its all about so called connections and not some common sense.
Why blame India for all the ills. People like you who applied for green card should be ashamed of saying this. You need to serve India. Because of people like you who leave India for selfish reasons, India is suffering like this
Its really nothing wrong, the officials did what they are instructed to do. Please god sake don't blame the system.
It's you, an individual messed up the things and trying to blame my country. Ty this Mr.Shriwardhankar, while returning back from India don't take your green card & passport and check what happens.
Stop this idiotic stuff and stop blaming my Country. Atleast from hereafter be smart and try to take the important stuff you need before leaving to airport.
I don't know how come the people in US airport allowed this people to board a aircraft without even having a destination country vias, if i do the same thing in India, i would have been returned back in the ticket counter itself.
