Girlfriend grilled at airport immigration

[Merrytooth 5,748]

OP, I'm not trying to sound judgmental but it seems very fishy that she asks you to spend for her ticket, passport etc. Her rationale that she withdrew all her money from the bank into her purse makes zero sense. Nobody would take such huge risks with their hard earned money. When she visited you in Bahrain, did she have you spend on her for everything? I could be wrong but this could be a case of the U.S. citizen scamming an innocent foreigner into spending on her. I would suggest be very alert and pay attention if she's giving you more excuses in the future to spend on her.

Agreed.

These days people are using credit card, debit card, or even Apple Pay / Android Pay.

Plus, she could have asked her mother for money to pay for new passport expenses (if she could call OP from her mother's phone).

[firebird00 66]

I say this story is made up by her to end her relation with you, sorry but that is my opinion.

[Wisconsinbly 31]

Here's one more thing worth mentioning. 1 week before leaving, she was drugged at some party, and later mugged. She woke up with her purse missing with all her belongings in it, including her passport, phone, and all the money she withdrew from her bank account. She had to communicate with me through her mom's phone, and after some research we found out about some fast passport service. I sent her money so she could handle the expenses ,and she was able to get her passport 2 hours before her flight. She missed her flight and had to pay extra to join another one.

It's so unlikely to me that an American would take her passport to a party, especially since she's young and must have just gotten the passport for the upcoming trip. An ID, yes. But passport? You only need it for travelling abroad, so why take it to a party of all places? Idk, seems very odd to me.

[yuna628 9,528]

She is barely 20, you say, and how old are you?

Does she work? Go to school? Live with her parents? Did her parents approve of this relationship and her going to your country?

Do you know the reason why you were denied a visit visa?

OP: The fact is, here is what the immigration officials saw. A young girl barely into adulthood, goes to meet a man in she hasn't known for very long from a middle-eastern country. She takes a large sum of cash, with a passport she has newly acquired. She hasn't purchased her own ticket. Yeah... the truth is I think the US would be very nervous about any young woman doing this, as many of our young girls have ended up in very bad circumstances for love or yes, for having some sympathies with shady individuals. If her story was true, and I'm not going to say that it was, as several things you've relayed don't make a lot of sense for her to say, I would assume they gave her a very good scare intentionally.

Is she lying to you? It is entirely plausible. There are many red flags.

[Caykay1 71]

??? She could have gone into the bank...

also understand this guy is speaking from the middle east. So of he says she's well off,it could be he's converting the currency as it has happened to me before when I told my friend I only had $1000 in my bank account, in her head, I was really well off because she's in Ghana and that money seems alot. If the US even says I'm make $8 an hour,I stay home with my mom and pays zero bills except maybe phone and gas or bus pass, to a foreigner she's very well off. Edited September 24, 2016 by Caykay1

[Boiler 43,428]

Sounds like you are looking for a longer term relationship and I see nothing that would stop her moving to be with you.

Some may think this was classic CABA behaviour.

[MsCompE 50]

Seems odd....

Agree. Considering consumer habits in US, most use debit/credit cards on transactions. A small portion of the population does use cash on typical day to day transactions.

Withdrawing all funds sounds ridiculous to me note that the highest bill in circulation is 100-USD Bill and the highest bill I've seen dispensed in ATMS is 20-USD Bill.

[Adil & Jeanne 296]

My flight from Morocco was booked by cheapoair to fly to qatar then to Chicago (woman traveling alone also) as was my husbands when he flew over

i missed first plane and had to fly to Dubai and then onto qatar and Chicago

Neither of us where grilled severally but you have to look at what just happened and understand how scared people are and what immigration is concerned with

Just be glad the people at the airport have concerns and don't take offense

Accusing someone is a good way to get them to either defend themselves and express loyalty

i would have cried if they did this to me and they would have known i was an American woman and offended by the CO

[Ash.1101 1,755]

Story doesn't seem legit, Some people do have bad luck, but the kind of string of bad luck you're talking about shouldn't happen to anyone because no one would be so silly as to have all forms of ID and ... most of their bank account in their wallet, then go out to a party, get drugged and mugged, all a week before she goes to see you.

I think the only US citizen that I know that has carried a passport on him while in the US was my dad, but it was because he had a Saudi drivers license and then later an Australian Drivers license and had been out of the US so long that he didn't have any US state ID cards, so he'd use his passport in place. He worked over seas for years, but other than a case like that, there's NO reason why any USC should have their passport on their person just for a party.


Yes, she may have needed to pull out X amount of money at a time. When my husband (then fiance) would visit me, he would make multiple trips to the bank due to limits on how much he could take out per day, BUT HE NEVER CARRIED IT ON HIM. He'd take the envelope, put it in his desk at home and not touch it until he came into the US. Even when we were together and shopping on that money, we'd never carry all of that cash on us.

Some people are serial scammers. While you think that she wasted 6 months, she looks at all the gain she may have gotten. Going to visit you could have just been another vacation, you could have been just another guy. There could have been more than you across six months, it's pretty easy to talk to multiple people at the same time online.


Now, do I think that she's scamming you. Eh, I dunno. It all does seem a bit made up, maybe she feels she got too in over her head and is trying to find a way to back out.

While the whole thing of "the first time we met she let me do certain things" can be a romantic notion, there's the chance that you may not have been the only guy to do those things. I absolutely understand that passions can run high when you have chemistry and you're meeting for the first time, but most things of any sexual nature aren't limited too "well I've only done this with you because I super love you and trust you, even if we've only physically seen each other for a few days annnnd now I don't want to see you anymore". Love and trust doesn't just exist, it's built over time, and it should become stronger as you deal with each other in person. It shouldn't hit a peak trust on day two of seeing each other lol.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Ash.1101

[Meg&Andrew 297]

I have been going to Bahrain to visit my fiancé since I couldn't go to Saudi. I have never faced scrutiny like that. They've asked me the purpose of my visits, and things of that sort. But that's about it. I was young, 26, had a brand new passport, and visited for 3 weeks. No issues at all.

[Rc123rc 528]

Apologies OP but your girlfriend's story does not pass the common sense sniff test. It means her story stinks. My suggestion to you is not spend any more money for her expenses and see what happens.

[Ben&Zian 4,397]

Something just seems off about the whole "withdrew all her money and was carrying it with her a week before the trip".... I know when I traveled I didn't take out cash until atleast 1-2 days before leaving and didn't carry it with me haha.

And being "grilled" is maybe a small exaggeration of the actual case? I have been boarding a plane in the US to goto Denmark, then Angola Africa, and return about 3-4 weeks later for work rotation and as I was boarding I was stopped by a customs officer and asked where I was going, how much money I had, why I was going... ect.

So this all seems fairly standard really.

[Dan and Radinka 11]

Basically there is this girl who is an american citizen , we met 6 months ago online. After my tourist visa was denied to see her, she said that she'll come and see me. So i book her a ticket and we're planned to meet in bahrain (I work in saudi arabia). When she returned to the states, she was stopped by immigration and grilled for 3 hours, everything was searched thoroughly , her stuff and phone etc,she was asked questions about why she went there and what she did there, and she had to give them my info and she said that now they know everything about me, and i told her that they ALREADY know everything about me since i applied to the tourist visa and provided my information. They accused her that we both had something to do with ISIS,then they told her that i will try to marry her in order to get to the states and do some shady stuff there. She did defend me and told them that I'm a well educated guy (graduated from the top 2nd university in the middle east which happens to be an american institution) and working a good job and earning well. So they told her " well the guy that bombed new york recently had a bachelor's degree"!!. Then she said that they had her name in the law enforcement files so she became so stressed out because she thinks that this will ruin her career and future.

When she first arrived she texted me saying that we can't communicate anymore in any way and we can't see each other anymore, and if she explains why she will get arrested and stuff ,but i guess she said that because of the heat of the moment.She was afraid that the FBI is probably monitoring us and that she had to cut all ties. Later when she calmed down she allowed me to call her and she explained everything as i stated above and that she is so afraid and she doesn't know what to do and she feels that her life is ruined. She said she will never ever step in the middle east again and will certainly never go to lebanon in order to meet my family (as planned before).

This might not happen all the time but I understand why it could given how the US is like when it comes to terrorism (all the ISIS stuff).

The beginning of the story sounds possible but then you have the next parts that makes your girlfriend very fishy. If she is under surveillance, she shouldn't worry about keeping in touch with you, because then they'd know what the nature of your relationship is. Cutting ties all of the sudden will just be more suspicious. Next lines makes it sound like she's blaming it all on you.

Here's one more thing worth mentioning. 1 week before leaving, she was drugged at some party, and later mugged. She woke up with her purse missing with all her belongings in it, including her passport, phone, and all the money she withdrew from her bank account. She had to communicate with me through her mom's phone, and after some research we found out about some fast passport service. I sent her money so she could handle the expenses ,and she was able to get her passport 2 hours before her flight. She missed her flight and had to pay extra to join another one.

When my friends and family heard about that the first thing they said is that she scammed me. I couldn't think of that, she's is financially well off (well she was), and she had a very good job waiting for her when she had to return. Why she would waste 6 months of her time talking to me and then travel half the globe away for something less than a 1500 $ in cash and gifts? We really loved each other, we got really intimate when we met, and she told me that the things she did with me she would never do with any guy because she trusted me that much.

Here's the thing about her incident in the party: Just what kind of people does she hang out with? If she was really drugged in a party, I highly doubt being mugged would be the only thing that could have happened to her. I'm going to leave alone the fact that she withdrew all her money for a single trip (people can get overly excited, I guess), but dude, unless that "fast way" of getting a passport was illegal, there's no way she could get it in less than 2 weeks. The only way/reason a person can get a passport (legally) sooner than that is in a Life and Death Emergency.

Listen to your family and friends. I know you feel something special for this girl, but you need to calm down and tap into some logic here. As another poster said, if she gained a lot with in that 6 months with you, then that wouldn't have been waste for her. She got a free travel to another country (you paid for everything to make the trip happen). As for the intimacy, if you were that special to her that she'd only allow you to do those things with her, then how could she just say that she wants to end your communication with her JUST LIKE THAT.

Edited September 24, 2016 by Dan and Radinka

[iwannaplay54 985]

Here's one more thing worth mentioning. 1 week before leaving, she was drugged at some party, and later mugged. She woke up with her purse missing with all her belongings in it, including her passport, phone, and all the money she withdrew from her bank account. She had to communicate with me through her mom's phone, and after some research we found out about some fast passport service. I sent her money so she could handle the expenses ,and she was able to get her passport 2 hours before her flight. She missed her flight and had to pay extra to join another one.

When my friends and family heard about that the first thing they said is that she scammed me. I couldn't think of that, she's is financially well off (well she was), and she had a very good job waiting for her when she had to return. Why she would waste 6 months of her time talking to me and then travel half the globe away for something less than a 1500 $ in cash and gifts? We really loved each other, we got really intimate when we met, and she told me that the things she did with me she would never do with any guy because she trusted me that much.

I believe your friends and family are right. I've never even read about anyone getting hassled over a trip to Bahrain, much less known anyone who was questioned or treated like that.

[TBoneTX 43,045]

Eight off-topic or judgmental posts have been removed.

The OP has received plenty of input on his non-immigration situation, so this thread is closed and is not to be restarted.