Many visitors are complaining of increasing difficulties at immigration control. Mary Russell tells of the obstacles she faced

Flying from Heathrow to Newark, in New Jersey, last month the flight attendant announced that the video channel might be slow to work. "All 500 of you will probably be switching on at the same time," she explained. Which was how I knew that, as the first passenger off the plane, there were 499 people behind me.

It was a good feeling but one that evaporated when my passport was examined and its pages flicked back and forth, the immigration officer's poker face giving nothing away.

Another officer was called over and the passport handed to him. The next time I saw it, it had been slipped in to a large plastic envelope with an ominous black border that made it look chillingly like an outsize Mass card.

I have a certain fondness for my passport - and the two previous ones with their green covers. The stamps within them tell their own stories, as well as the complex relationships that some countries have with each other. Some stamps are small inked squares, denoting entry to France or Sweden. The ones for Botswana and Lesotho are slightly bigger, for Sudan bigger still.

Some are so neat and tidy that one page can accommodate six or seven of them; others are so flamboyant that they take up a whole page. The Republic of Georgia is such a one, with its gleaming purple and blue hologram depicting St George on his horse, off to slay the dragon. Israel has a passport all to itself.

But it was none of these that was causing the problem for the US Customs and Border Protection: it was the axis of evil ones.

I followed the man in to a room off the main hall, where I was invited to join the 60 or so people already there. Three were white. The rest, to judge by their clothes and the colour of their skin, were just off a plane from somewhere like Sri Lanka. They looked tired and anxious, and I thought of the friends and relatives probably waiting to meet them at arrivals. During the three hours I was there only one was called forward to be questioned. The three other white people were a man and two women.

"What are you in for?" I longed to ask the man sitting two seats away, but he sat staring straight ahead, with not a hint of conspiratorial communication. Somehow it seemed that whatever we had that had brought us to this isolation ward might be catching. Better that we kept ourselves to ourselves.

One by one the three other white people were dealt with, and I started to wonder how long I might be held there. After an hour my name was called out, and I approached the desk, one of those high ones that put you at a considerable disadvantage, as you have to crane your neck to get even a glimpse of your questioner.

"Ma'am," said the young black immigration officer, looking down at my passport, "you've been to Baghdad and Iraq?" I nodded apologetically. This was no time for a geography lesson, whatever the many jokes that have been made on that score.

"Ma'am, when did you go there?"

"One month after the Twin Towers were blown up. Before the invasion."

There was a pause.

"And who did you stay with?"

"With friends."

She was nonplussed. "You have friends in Baghdad?"

"Yes."

I could have elaborated and explained that I'd stayed with a diplomat friend in the Indian embassy and that, while there, I'd met an Iraqi doctor who had gone to secondary school in Dublin while his parents were doctors here. That I probably would have had many friends in Baghdad if I'd had more time there to make them.

She signalled me to return to my seat and shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. An hour later I was called up to be questioned by immigration officer number two: another black woman but older and therefore, I assumed, someone in higher authority.

"What business did you have in Iraq?" she asked.

"None. I was visiting friends."

By now I was in full educational mode. Only a very small proportion of Americans, I gather, have passports: they are not what you might call a well-travelled nation, and I knew that this was a chance for me to demonstrate that it is perfectly normal for people to travel from one country to another to visit friends.

"How did you get there?"

"I took a taxi from Damascus to Baghdad."

Another example of normality, but this woman too shook her head: they just didn't know what to do with me.

The minutes ticked away, and I thought about the 500 people on the flight from Heathrow. They'd all have gone through long ago, out in to the world of yellow taxis and dog-walkers.

I was starting to feel slightly abandoned. I checked I had the phone number of the New York friends I was staying with and wondered if I might be making trouble for them. "You have friends in Ireland?" the immigration people might ask them in disbelief.

By the time I was called forward for the third time I'd moved up the hierarchical command and was seen by a white male officer.

The questions were repeated, though this time he wanted to know why I'd been to the Republic of Georgia. Did it still carry the taint of its communist past, I wondered, 10 years on?

And why had I been to South Africa? To visit my sister seemed the simplest answer. And Syria, why had I gone there? To write about it. And Lebanon? "I haven't been to Lebanon. Not for a long time."

"You have a visa for it. You must have been."

"It's beside Syria. I had the visa just in case I wanted to go, but I didn't."

"And Algeria?"

Good heavens, had I been to Algeria recently and completely forgotten? Then I remembered. To return to Syria from Iraq I had to get a Syrian visa, but as the Syrians were, officially at least, not doing any business with Iraq I had to go to the Algerian embassy in Baghdad, behind which the Syrians were sheltering.

The officer shook his head. It was all too complicated. Wearily, he stamped my passport - and I was in.

The arrivals hall echoed with emptiness, and the downtown bus I needed had long since left. But across the Hudson River the lights of Manhattan danced in the glow of the spring sunset, and I moved in to benign mode.

Newark Liberty International Airport is busy at the best of times. Some 40 airlines use it regularly, and almost 2.7 million passengers fly in and out every month. (John F. Kennedy International Airport has a slightly higher figure.)

If the immigration officers had given me hassle they were, after all, only doing their jobs. And if their grasp of geography was a bit weak, then they were in good company. In any case, that wasn't my problem. Not that time, anyway.

The easy way

The simplest way to get in to the US without going through the lengthy visa-application process is to fill in the green 90-day waiver form.

But be warned: by doing so you are waiving your right to appeal or to a review should you be turned away on that occasion. The only exception is if you are seeking asylum.

You may be refused entry on various grounds including intention to work, an association with persecution activities in Nazi Germany, drug-dealing, if you

have previously been refused entry or if you have been found guilty of a crime involving moral turpitude.

Travellers to the US from Shannon and Dublin are processed by US Customs and Border Protection officers

before flying out, which

means no queuing on arrival, a special privilege afforded to Ireland.

This has the somewhat negative advantage in that it's better to be refused entry before departure rather than on arrival, when, according to Clare McHenry

of Aer Rianta, you'll be put

on the first plane back home again.

Fill in the waiver form carefully. If you make a mistake request a new form, as corrections are not acceptable.

If you are going to work or study or want to stay longer than 90 days, you must apply for a visa.

Oh, and have a good day.