Edinburgh Airport announces £500million investment plan

If only they demolished both Glasgow and Edinburgh airports and built a brand new one in the Falkirk area serving both.

I'm sure it could've easily become as big as Dublin or Manchester destination wise and effectively been a hub. And I'm sure it would've been a good candidate for US pre-clearance.

najaB said:

Factually false. There have been multiple instances of people arriving at US airports and ending up in detention centres.

Here is one (not even the one I was thinking of):

Fabian Schmidt chose America long ago. A year after getting trapped in ICE’s net, he still does.

Fabian Schmidt, a German green card holder who moved to the United States as a teenager in 2007 and now lives in Nashua, was detained by immigration officials at Boston Logan Airport last year.

www.nhpr.org

Admittedly not the other side of the country, but held for two months in a different state.

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One case then, and nothing to do with being inadmissible for entry. Detained by ICE, not CBP, and the offence was some old court case still on file, not an immigration matter.

I'm not defending it because it obviously stinks, but I'm separating it from the idea that if you are inadmissible to the USA you should use preclearance to reduce the risk. What do you think would happen to this guy if he used preclearance in Toronto? They'd admit him as they are bound to do so and he'd have been arrested when he got off the plane, because that's what they're like.

If you're scared of ICE don't go to the United States at all. I wouldn't blame anyone for making this choice. The idea that preclearance reduces the risk to black or brown people is a bit strange and certainly not a factor in whether Edinburgh Airport should get preclearance.

The change in travel policies towards US travel is because companies increasingly don't want to send people there and do business with a state increasingly retreating into isolationism and protectionism. It's not related to what happens at the border.

I find the US border a pretty unpleasant place, and on paper I'm about as privileged as a person can be. On 3 occasions I've been detained for hours, had my phone seached through thoroughly, asked the same question 5 different ways in a manner clearly designed to try to catch me out, and generally been made to feel unwelcome. Admittedly this is 3 in probably 200+ entries, but there have been further minor instances, and I've travelled to other places as frequently and never been made to feel like that. I've never had my phone searched anywhere else, not even the UK.

So I can completely understand why someone might make decisions about which port they enter the US through. In my case I have chosen to stop entering through quiet ports where they a lot of time on their hands, as those have correlated with bad experiences, in my case I don't think preclearence would help as it would just cause me to risk missing my flight. But I can fully imagine why someone with different concerns around questionably-lawful detention might prefer preclearence ports.

AlterEgo said:

I'm not defending it because it obviously stinks, but I'm separating it from the idea that if you are inadmissible to the USA you should use preclearance to reduce the risk.

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When have I ever said that? If you're inadmissible then it doesn't matter where you get rejected.

najaB said:

When have I ever said that? If you're inadmissible then it doesn't matter where you get rejected.

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It's implied here:

najaB said:

It used to primarily be about the time savings on the US side, but in the current political environment I'm not alone in preferring to use a pre-clearance airport.

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And here:

najaB said:

if you're rejected at a pre-clearance airport then you're just in Dublin (other airports are available) as opposed to finding yourself on a flight to Honduras.

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The concern here is surely that if you are ruled inadmissible the consequences would be less by using pre clearance. If you read those posts it does matter where you get rejected.

AlterEgo said:

The concern here is surely that if you are ruled inadmissible the consequences would be less by using pre clearance. If you read those posts it does matter where you get rejected.

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It fels like there's conflation here between being rejected for immigration reasons in an ordinary way, and being subject to potential extrajudicial proceedings. For the former the only difference is the slight inconvenience of waiting around and having taken a couple of pointless flights, so it doesn't matter much. For the latter the concern is low chance but high risk, and one that preclearence helps alleviate.

Cdd89 said:

It fels like there's conflation here between being rejected for immigration reasons in an ordinary way, and being subject to potential extrajudicial proceedings. For the former the only difference is the slight inconvenience of waiting around and having taken a couple of pointless flights, so it doesn't matter much. For the latter the concern is low chance but high risk, and one that preclearence helps alleviate.

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Sorry, what "extrajudicial" proceedings would those be? Just so we are clear, extrajudicial means outside the court or justice system.

AlterEgo said:

Sorry, what "extrajudicial" proceedings would those be? Just so we are clear, extrajudicial means outside the court or justice system.

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I wasn't proposing to get into a semantic debate over what extrajudicial means; the US would obviously argue they have never done anything outside due process! I was using it to refer to anything from extremely prolonged detention (beyond what's reasonable to reject someone), to forced transfers to offshore detention facilities like Guantanamo Bay with limited oversight. I do not see these as eventualities worth preparing for, but clearly some people do.

You are correct to say that preclearence cannot eliminate these risks, and you are arguably correct to advise someone with these concerns to avoid the US altogether. But if someone has to travel to the US, and is concerned that they will face detention purely because of discrimination, it's reasonable for them to look at what they can do to reduce the risk. Among other steps they can take, using preclearence would clearly reduce (but not eliminate) the risk, in part because the traveller can leave before their flight if they are notionally admitted but get a sense that something is up.

Peter0124 said:

If only they demolished both Glasgow and Edinburgh airports and built a brand new one in the Falkirk area serving both.

I'm sure it could've easily become as big as Dublin or Manchester destination wise and effectively been a hub. And I'm sure it would've been a good candidate for US pre-clearance.

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Falkirk is objectively not a big place and its infrastructure is already a little strained with the local traffic. The amount of work that would need to go into replacing both of the main Scottish airports with one mega-port in Falkirk would be astronomical. Also... do we really want tourists' first impressions of Scotland to be Falkirk?

InvernessTMD said:

Falkirk is objectively not a big place and its infrastructure is already a little strained with the local traffic. The amount of work that would need to go into replacing both of the main Scottish airports with one mega-port in Falkirk would be astronomical. Also... do we really want tourists' first impressions of Scotland to be Falkirk?

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Brilliant comment