No good can come of being in the back room at JFK airport

Is there much that is more ominous than being told you need to go to the ‘back room’ at a US airport? Well that’s what happened to me as I returned to New York, writes Holly Baxter

I was vaguely aware someone at the luggage rack had probably made off with my suitcase by now and was trying on my wedding veil (Getty)

If there’s one thing you don’t want to hear from US immigration, it’s “we need to take you to the back room”. The back room is never a place you want to go. It is not a place where people with green cards or US citizenship go; it is not a place where they serve drinks and congratulate you on making it through the eight-hour flight without yelling at that kid who kicked the back of your seat like a metronome with every passing minute. No good can come of being in the back room. So when the seemingly pleasant man looking at my visa at JFK airport a couple of days ago said that to me, my heart sank.

I can’t tell you why I was carted off to the room for people with naughty visas at midnight because they won’t tell you why you’re there either. You sit down next to an assortment of frazzled ne’er-do-wells who peer at you over their masks, behind a large sign telling you that you are ABSOLUTELY NOT ALLOWED TO USE YOUR CELLPHONE AT ANY POINT. You stare at your feet and try to remember what you did before scrolling idly through your phone was a thing. Eventually, you realise you have a book and start to read it.

Were my compatriots drug mules, refugees, cases of mistaken identity, randomly selected unfortunates? Nobody knows, of course, but everybody wants to. A middle-aged man in an N95 mask who had been on my flight locked eyes with me, gave me a look that said “I bet you got us into this by smuggling illicit dairy products in your suitcase”, and then turned away. A woman in a pink tracksuit beside me clicked her nails against her handbag and sighed. A British couple my age were told they shouldn’t have travelled in the first place and were turned back, while the man indignantly shouted that they’d lived in New York for five years and had had to travel to London for a family emergency. No dice while Biden keeps the border closed to almost everyone, of course.