SFWA recognizes that the political climate in the United States right now is both tense and uncertain. While we believe that travel to the Nebula Conference in Kansas City, Missouri should be unremarkable for the vast majority of people, here are a few tips for international visitors to ease their travel journey.
- Always have your passport ready to hand. In an airport, be ready to produce your airline ticket/boarding pass; at a road border agency, be ready to produce your driver’s license.
- Give clear, concise, and consistent answers to where you are going, when asked. Emphasize that you are traveling for fun. Have the name of the conference and the hotel memorized.
- Do not argue, get out of your car, or raise your voice. Border Patrol, TSA, and police alike are very sensitive to anything that may read as aggression. Remember, in a country where anyone could have a gun, law enforcement is trained to read many innocuous movements as potential precursors to deadly violence.
- Be prepared to have your belongings searched. This is a routine aspect of travel, including for US citizens. If there is a specific item that cannot be handled (for instance, sensitive film canisters), calmly notify the agent.
- Do not bring any non-prescription drugs, including alcohol, into the country. Marijuana is legal in some states, but not all, and is still illegal at the federal level.
- Do not travel with any weapons, including pocket knives and utility knives.
- If for some reason you are detained by law enforcement while in the US, you have a right to a lawyer for any criminal charge, even if you cannot afford one. If a court-appointed lawyer is not available due to the nature of your detention, ask for a list of free or low-cost alternatives.
- Do not say anything other than basic information (your name, for instance) before meeting with your lawyer.
Most of the time, these tips won’t be crucial. We provide these not with the intent to alarm, but rather to help make sure your travel experience is calm and problem-free.
Unfortunately, people who are not white and people with accents that do not read to law enforcement as “native” English may be targeted for extra surveillance. This is not fair, and SFWA does not endorse these practices. Nonetheless, pragmatic realism demands that we warn our members, who may fall into those categories, to practice extra caution when traveling to celebrate with us.