Slashdot Mirror
UK Home Secretary Bans US Martial Arts Expert
Big Hairy Ian writes "An American expert in violent self-defense has been excluded from entering the UK by the Home Office. From the article: 'Tim Larkin tried to board a plane from his home in Las Vegas on Tuesday, but was given a UK Border Agency letter saying "his presence here was not conducive to the public good." Mr Larkin, who was due to host seminars, told the BBC the move was a "gross over-reaction." The Home Office said he was subject to an exclusion order. A spokeswoman said: "The home secretary will seek to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the UK is not conducive to the public good." Mr Larkin — who trained as a US Navy Seal — runs a company teaching combat to military and law enforcement clients in the United States.'"
The UK has a different connotation for anti-social than does the US, and in UK law, the term has very specific meanings.
No kidding. This is a guy who was going to go to the UK to teach people how to KILL PEOPLE. (Really, read the article.)
The US, on the other hand, blocks people from entering the US for planning on having a good time as tourists in the US.
Bit of a difference between the two, yes?
This is the same woman who, upon learning that border control was overloaded and relaxing passport checks for low risk cases at peak time, decided to solve the problem by firing the guy in charge and forcing checks to never be relaxed. Result: planes stacking up in the sky because the queues at border control were too long. Prime Minister summons her and gives her a right ass-kicking and now risk-based enforcement is back on the table.
It will be tempting for Slashdot posters to over-generalize from this case to try and make sweeping statements about the entire UK or British people (just as it's tempting to do the same about Americans when the US Govt does something retarded). But the core problem in this case really boils down to one woman and her arbitrary and inconsistent management of the borders.
In the late '80s, I was threatened with being turned away from Canada, and having the RCMP and FBI take turns performing full body cavity searches because, while applying for my 4th work visa in a span of 6 months (at that time, I was required to apply each time I traveled up there for the type of work I did), I was asked if there was anyone who would like me to not enter Canada and I responded "just a frat brother back in the USA who knows I am going to take his ex-GF to dinner when I hop over to the GTA."
Lessons learned:
A) don't crack jokes with Canadian immigration officials.
B) Clear customs and immigration in Toronto (which I mostly did for the next 15 years) and then drive to Ottawa, because Ottawa officials have much bigger sticks up their butts (and the Korean food not far from the Toronto airport is really good).
C) After calming the situation down, when asked by said immigration official if, because I work at Motorola, I could get her 1950's vintage Motorola console TV repaired at a discount, do not respond with "Are you asking me for a bribe?" nor the 3 or 4 other responses that went across my mind.
Looking back, I am still kind of surprised I made it to work the next day.