I’m always nervous going through Immigration and Customs, particularly in the United States. As an Australian I don’t need a visa but there is nothing to stop an over-zealous border official deciding not to let me in. This is not simply paranoia on my part; I know people who have been deported from the US.

In 2004 I wrote an article for The Australian about a growing number of Australian journalists who had been deported from the US for not carrying the I-Visa, a special visa for journalists that no one had ever heard of until 2003 when the new secretary of homeland security decided to enforce it without warning. People who had travelled for innocent purposes (one guy was attending a video games conference and another woman was going to interview Olivia Newton John) were arrested at the border. They were strip searched, made to remove their boots, handcuffed and marched across the airport at gunpoint, thrown into a cell for several hours and then put on the next 13-hour flight back to Australia. They now have a permanent immigration record and will likely be pulled aside for further questioning every time they visit the US for the rest of their lives. I have since learned that this has also happened to British journalists, and no doubt citizens of other countries as well.

It’s not just journalists that have reported being treated badly by US border guards since the September 11 terrorist attacks. In August 2006 a 48-year-old British man was forced to remove medical thread to treat an anal infection and required treatment under general anaesthetic to replace it. There are numerous more tales of bad treatment at the border.

All this seems to have resulted in a decline in tourism. Visitors have been scared off, either from past experience or anecdotes from friends and tourism from Europe including Britain is down about 10 per cent. And that’s despite the weakness of the US dollar against the pound or Euro. So it’s not surprising that the authorities have decided it’s time to try to do something about it.

My experience this time could not be more different. Firstly, the immigration cards no longer ask for your occupation, which is a big relief. Since I am a private citizen on holiday I am not actually required to have the I-Visa but you can understand why I might be nervous specifying that my usual occupation is ‘journalist’, given the background I have just given. Naturally I would tell the truth but I certainly wouldn’t relax until I was safely out of the terminal building and in a cab downtown. The new immigration cards neatly sidestep this whole problem.

Secondly, the immigration officials were extremely polite and friendly. There were signs on the wall saying “we are the face of our nation” with a pledge to be courteous and friendly. And the friendly pills certainly seem to be working. The immigration official joked with us that he couldn’t let us in until January as that was next year and he couldn’t let us in for a whole year. He also asked us if you could say “g’day” in the evening. He did comment on the fact that I’d been to Africa a few times but it didn’t seem to be a problem. The customs official was cut from the same mould and said that we were fine to bring our chocolates in because they “only confiscate chocolate on Thursdays”. I do recall the immigration officials in Detroit, Michigan, a smaller airport  in the Mid West, were quite friendly, but I have also come across my share of dour border guards, especially in the large hubs like JFK in New York and LAX in Los Angeles. I was impressed to get such friendly treatment at JFK, one of the biggest airports in the world.

What’s been your experience with clearing US immigration by air, land or sea? How does this compare with other countries? Are you more or less likely to visit the US than before September 11? Why? What are your favourite places to go in the US?