Specifically, the original story says “…monitor all travellers of Pakistani origin, including US citizens.” In that context, origin to me would imply “people travelling from Pakistan,” regardless of their ethnicity, including US citizens. Certainly something inspectors could tell from a person’s travel documentation, without having to examine their earlobes.

Now, the question is, did the original memo go on to talk about people of Pakistani “descent” or did the CNN reporter assume that “origin” meant “descent?” Without reading the memo ourselves, we can’t seperate bigotry from poor reporting.

Earlobes. That’s why I gre my hair long to hide the marks.

reverse brain drain

From anecdotal evidence, most Pakistanis leaving the US end up in Canada rather than Pakistan.

A Pakistani: The Pakistani government does strange and contradictory things all the time. The memo, however, was definitely written from an air-conditioned room.

Moiz: That’s why I am sort of conflicted about this.

I saw a pretty good BBC program the other day about Pakistani immigrants in the US post September 11th. They talked to a lot of people who were deported for minor visa violations. It was pretty sad – a lot of parents torn between bringing their American kids with them or not (the kids usually prefered the US and stability but obviously wanted to be with their parents). One interesting detail they got from talking to some young Pakistanis (in Pak) was that they thought a silver lining might be a reverse brain drain – that if educated and motivated Pakistanis were forced to go back they would improve the situation there.

CNN article was added to memigo. Thanks!
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