The Declining Power of the American Passport
U.S. citizens are finally confronting the randomness that travel and immigration are built on.
In late 2012, after a brief trip into Aleppo to cover the Syrian civil war, I walked up to a Turkish border checkpoint. I expected to be waved through to Kilis, a town a short distance away, where I had been staying. Colleagues of mine who had covered the rebels for longer had told me the crossing was a quiet one, and I shouldn’t expect any trouble.
Before volunteering for the assignment, I had looked up Turkish visa policies. I am an Indian citizen, so I had checked—and double-checked—with various Turkish diplomatic missions that I was allowed into the country without a prior visa.
