[Frantzie]

Good. We have lots of Canadian snowbirds plsu quite a few Europeans.

[buccaneer81]

A "Canadian" citizen from Mississauga and a British subject from Luton increasingly looks more and more like this:

[Vigilanteman]

Most countries with sane immigration policies have similar reciprocal arrangements. It isn't a matter of racism, it is a matter of which countries tend to send the most immigration law violators.

Partly, it is a matter of economics. Japanese tourists come here mainly to spend money and stay in four and five star hotels. They leave as scheduled.

Mexican tourists come here more to earn money. They stay with relatives and don't leave when their time is up.

So the immigration process is different based on two totally different patterns.

Years ago, when I was reentering Japan on a Thai air flight, I had the option of going through the immigration line for Japanese (since I had a residence permit) or the line for Foreigners (since I am an American).

I quickly scanned the crowd and concluded it was about 90% Japanese, so I naturally chose the shorter line.

Well, it turned out Japan's immigration protocol for Thais was entirely different from their protocol for arriving Americans. They were asking the Thais to show a return ticket, funds in cash or traveler's checks to support their stay in Japan and much more than I normally got asked as an arriving American.

I quickly moved over to one of the longer but faster moving Japanese lines and was finished before the foreigner line was barely halfway through.

Were the Japanese immigration officials racist or just practicing common sense based on their past experience? From what I could see, the answer was clearly the later.