An associate of mine, Nabila Mango, is an American citizen of Palestinian descent. Her problems began when she returned to San Francisco International Airport following a trip to Palestine. For more than an hour she was detained by federal agents who, without any reasonable cause, demanded details of people she had encountered and places she had gone in her three-week trip, the names and addresses of relatives in Jordan, and information about her U.S.-born adult daughter. They leafed through Arab-language books in her luggage, lost interest when they discovered the books were about music theory, and erased cell-phone messages from her daughter, who was waiting outside the airport.
Again, I am reminded of some of the stories my parents told me about Nazi Germany. Things are not as bad as they got there, but things were once much better there then they are here now. Links to articles in the news are below.