When I came through JFK yesterday at 4:30pm, we were warned as we approached Immigration that the Immigration computers had been down nation-wide (!) for 1.5 hours. (I can’t find any mention of this in Google News, by the way.) The line for foreigners snarled on out of the room. It looked like some of them were going to spend the night sleeping on chairs at JFK. We US citizens, on the other hand, made it through our line in five minutes.

There’s a case for a country treating its citizens better than it treats non-citizens. But there’s also a case for treating visitors better than citizens. It’s called “hospitality” and it used to be the mark of civilization. (Cf. all of The Odyssey and how Abraham and Sarah welcomed three weary travelers (Gen. 18:1-5).) [Tags: immigration hospitality odyssey abraham]

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