A genuinely scary moment when I departed Hamad International Airport in Doha, Qatar: immigration officials thought my passport was fake, detained me, and interrogated me.
Detained In Doha, Qatar – Was It My Horrible Passport Photo?
In my travels to 140 countries around the world, I’ve had passport trouble in Belarus, Cuba, Iran, and Kazakhstan. It’s not like this was a new experience. But it was my first experience in several years and I’m really not being overdramatic in underscoring how scared I was when detained while trying to leave Qatar.
I checked in for my flight to Copenhagen (with onward connections in Helsinki, London, and Chicago) at the Qatar Airways premium check-in and then proceeded to immigration. It was around 8:00pm, which is a quiet time between departure banks. As I approached the agent, there were no other passengers around.
The agent took my passport and scanned it. He then ordered me to remove my mask, which I did. For literally five minutes he kept holding up my passport, looking at my face, and shaking his head.
He picked up his phone and made a call. No one answered. He called again. No one answered. He called a third time and someone answered and an extended conversation in Arabic ensued. He kept picking up my passport and pointing to my picture.
After hanging up the phone, he looked at me and said, “Do you speak Arabic?”
I shook my head.
He went on to ask about why I was in Doha (holiday) and if I was military (no). Once again, he asked if I spoke Arabic (no). Then he asked me if the passport was real (umm, yes…).
I asked him what was wrong and he ignored me and made another phone call.
He then ordered me to a rear area and told me to take a seat.
And so I waited. And waited.
As the minutes ticked by, my anxiety was growing. I prayed. What was possibly going on?
30 minutes later, the guy reappeared with my passport, handed it to a female colleague, and walked away.
She signaled for me to come over, stamped the passport, and handed it to me.
I felt it was prudent to hold my tongue, but couldn’t help but to ask what was that all about?
She simply said, “Oh, it was nothing….”
Right.
What Really Happened?
I have to admit, I have a real horrible passport picture. When I got my passport renewed weeks before the pandemic began in-person at the Los Angeles passport facility, I brought along a decent passport photo I had taken in Germany. The trouble was it was sized for a European passport and it was rejected. I had to go upstairs where there was a ratchet setup with a Polaroid camera. I wasn’t dressed well and my hair was not neat…it’s a horrible picture to grace my passport for the next 10 years or until I fill it up with stamps.
The way he kept holding up the passport, looking at me, and shaking his head convinces me that he thought the passport wasn’t me or fake. Plus the question, of course.
I suppose it could be the guy was just a bored jerk who wanted to mess with me.
Maybe my strange itinerary showed up on his screen, which prompted skepticism (though no question from him on my upcoming flights).
I don’t really have any amusing stamps in my passport, though I do have an Algerian visa.
Will I Return To Qatar?
I have to be honest, I’m I no rush to return to Qatar (though I have transited through since this incident took place). When I get to my trip report, I’ll share about the nice week I enjoyed here, splitting my time at the Four Seasons and Park Hyatt. In many ways, it’s a wonderful place. But that whole incident really rattled me.
CONCLUSION
I had a bit trouble of leaving Qatar…it seems the agent thought my passport was fake or not mine and detained me because of it while he investigated. Or maybe he just wanted to mess with the dumb American.
No matter how seasoned of a traveler you are, it is always scary to be stopped at the immigration counter in a foreign country.
Have you ever had any incidents leaving Qatar?
DOH-HEL-LHR-ORD-CPH?
Yeah, lol, probably didn’t know how to ask “are you one of those crazy mileage runners from that wacky FlyerTalk board” in Arabic.
DOH-CPH-HEL-LHR-ORD-LAX
“As I appreciated the agent….”
I cannot believe you appreciated the agent after what he put you through. 😉
You are so overly dramatic. Firstly, connecting, eating in a lounge, or spending a night at an airport hotel doesn’t count as “visiting” a country (140, yeah right).
Secondly, getting asked a few questions by an immigrations office isn’t an “interrogation”.
Thirdly, having to sit somewhere for 30 minutes isn’t being “detained”. You could have sat for thirty minutes in a crowded boarding area with a dozen screaming kids nearby and been more unhappy.
Sweetheart, there’s a huge difference between sitting for 30 minutes in a lounge and sitting for 30 minutes in an immigration holding area. There’s a huge difference between asking where I am flying to and asking me multiple times if I speak Arabic or if my passport is real. 做得更好.
Well buttercup, I’m sorry that the meanie-head immigrations officer scared you with his tough questions and then put you in time out for a while, but if you’re looking for comfort from you little blog you should probably temper your expectations 寶貝.
@Chi Hsuan: Yikes. Not only did you get completely roasted — you came back for seconds and sounded even more idiotic. I don’t think you can sound any stupider but let’s not wait to find out
I could sound plenty stupider – I would just spend a day with you.
Lol I didn’t realize that being detained for 30 minutes or less means it doesn’t count as being detained. What a crazy thing to gatekeep.
Relax, he has to be a drama queen for clicks and likes. He was probably “detained” for six or seven minutes, but like anything internet related, it becomes 30.
@Matthew
Were you wearing that tshirt with that jacket? Perhaps you deserved to be detained further.
What is with internet tough guys like Chi Shuan and UA-TDS? At least Debit tried to be funny at one point. Who will be impressed by Chi Shuan’s toughness at the border? He would laugh off waterboarding, no doubt.
Eh, I was detained in Dubai FOR being able to speak Arabic..
When he asked me if I spoke Arabic, I thought about replying, “لا لماذا تسأل؟”
hah. i dont think he would have appreciated that
Your passport photo looks like you are some Russian agent. Your WSJ picture on the website looks like you are some savvy business person. Your real life iPhone photo looks like your just a normal American traveler. None of your pictures look alike.
Lol. Fair enough.
Does the US still issue passports that use analog photos?
I’m from Norway and our biometric passports use high-res digital images, taken by the issuing police department. Been like that for a long time.
Yes, still analog.
Looking at your passport photo I’m afraid I have to shake my head too
Horrible, isn’t it?
seems all a bit too dramatic to me. you were asked a few questions and made to wait for 30 minutes. Inconvenient, undoubtedly…Scary? C’mon, its not like you were hauled off to a Qatari jail nor was there really ever any danger of that happening…I used to always get extra screening back when I was a single (born in middle east with a US passport) male returning to the US, this seems fairly similar. Btw all that extra screening stopped once I got married and had kids, i’m apparently far less threatening to Uncle Sam now…
Never had that issue but I hold a black diplomatic passport for official travel and that had garnered attention from time to time in Europe and Africa.
Well now you need a new passport because you exposed it to the world free to fabricate with your data
I’m not worried about that…I’m worried about the horrible picture in it.
You should have just mentioned my name, he’d have waved you right through.
That was my mistake!
Leaving BKK a few years ago the immigration officer had a startled look on his face after swiping my passport.
He turned his screen towards me and asked, “is that you?”
The picture associated with my passport was an Asian female approximately 80 years old which is, essentially, the completely opposite demographic.
He and I started laughing at the same time and I explained to him that the immigration inspector who processed my on arrival was talking on her phone the entire time and barely looked at me.
He gave me a knowing look like he knew who she was and that this wasn’t the first time.
Back in 2006, I spent 3 hours in a cell at the old airport in Doha due to a visa mix-up.
I was traveling to Qatar as part of a government delegation for Bilateral Air Service Agreement negotiations, so a diplomatic visa had been arranged for me. Unfortunately, the person arranging the visa did not notice that my nationality was not the same as the Government that I was representing, so that was noted incorrectly. Of course, it was in Arabic which I don’t read, so nobody noticed.
I arrived at Doha airport immigration at around 4am (I was arriving from Mumbai on QR and the rest of the team had arrived via Dubai on EK the previous night) and obviously they spotted the problem. Due to the hour of day, they couldn’t reach anyone at the Honorary Consulate in Doha, and the liaison officer at the Embassy in Riyadh was on a plane to join us in Doha and incommunicado. Their own Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a junior protocol officer on duty, but he had no clue what to do and said we would have to wait till 8am when his department opened.
So I wound up being taken to the detention cells. Fortunately, they gave me a cell of my own rather than throw me in with the rest of the folks – the general population cell was extremely depressing and stank to high heaven. I was also allowed to keep my phone and that helped me get in touch with the Embassy guy as soon as his flight landed around 7am. The appropriate calls were made and I was eventually released around 8am after spending 3 hours in the hole.
Since then, I’ve always asked someone (and more recently used Google Translate) to translate any foreign language endorsements in my passport or other travel documents just in case! 🙂
Wow! You win the worst detention award. 😉
Thanks for sharing. And I should probably go translate that Algerian visa before I travel to ALG…
Haha. This was nowhere near my worst detention experience at an airport. That unfortunately comes at the hands of an “enhanced interrogation” by US officials in a third country a few months after 9/11, but that is another story for another day (and not on a public forum).
Yeah I had trouble. I was detained every time at passport control when coming back to the US. Who was with me in the detention area? Nothing but brown people. Detention always went for random periods that I could never guarantee making my domestic connection, and I know people who were detained for 6 hours (including journalists who had stories to tell about that) just because of how racist the TSA is
I know it’s a little scary, but there was no need to write the article in this tone like your lide was about to end. The agent did his job and confirmed the authenticity of your identity and passport. I would be worried if he didn’t given how terrible that picture is.
Life*
Got to get your facts straight. Details matter. TSA is security to board your flight in the US. On arrival, you meet two other different organizations, first is immigration and after you collect your luggage, it is customs. I am brown skin and never had an issue, the same as my traveling partner who has darker skin. Who again is racist?
I had something very similar happen to me when entering mainland China from Hong Kong. I had a US passport that was only a few weeks old with a really bad picture ( it was really yellow). Pair this with a China visa that was only a few days old and it didn’t help. In this case none of the boarder agents seem to speak English. Went through the same first guy looking back and forth fro the passport to me a dozen times shaking his head. He called a supervisor who does the same and then escorted me to to a holding area. I went through two more until the last guy must have decided that it wasn’t worth going any further because he takes the passport and walks me back to the original agent and must have told him it was OK because he then processed the passport and I was on my way. It was scary as hell, but I stayed calm.
I’ve traveled to many other countries with the passport including back to China (Shanghai this time) and never had another problem.
At the border between jordan and Israel the officer really thought I was Arabic. He asked me 3 times. Then suddenly barked at me in Arabic (I guess to see if I had any comprehension lollll). After like ten minutes another officer came over and looked at my passport for 20 seconds and said with a big smile “you’re good to go!”
All very strange
Was a bit alarmed two weeks ago when my boy set off the security alarm at changi by being too close to the exit gates at custom while we were being processed. That place always freaks me out.
I have to admit I enjoy reading your stuff. What you experienced in Qatar, we have to go through this every time we enter the USA with my kids. Every single time and it’s 10 times worse, I only wish and hope it lasts 30 minutes but its always a lot more than that.
That’s not being detained. Stop being dramatic
Good news is, although the picture does look horrible, it looks like you lost weight during the pandemic.
Yes, I did! Actually all in the last four months.
I got a 10 yr passport when I was 16 and still looked like a kid and by the time I was getting close to 26 some immigration officers would be unhappy with my passport photo…whenever I saw the immigration officer looking at my picture and my face repeatedly I would just pull out my US driver’s license and global entry card and offer it to them while apologizing that my picture was a little old; that always seemed to do the trick.
After jan/6 the world can’t be too careful about white Republican men, who have shown themselves to be dangerous terrorists.
Sorry, you got caught up in this but it just means the system is working. Can you imagine how many white Republican terrorists have been stopped from boarding flights? Now let’s go after the den of these terrorist supporters. I hear they call themselves RNC.
I sense debit has a new name. 😉
I’ll make sure he does not do this again by not allowing him to use my credit card. He’s already made me look like an idiot many times on this forum.
Don’t you mean your debit card?
Son, how many times have you made me and your mother look like an ass on this website? I will take away your allowance and credit card spending privileges if you keep drinking ranting about asinine politics on a travel website.
You have to get a new photo for your passport. I couldn’t tell it’s the same person
You look like a young Russian or German intelligence officer from 1969 (in the passport photo).
sorry this happened to you. my precious passport with 2 24-page extensions right before they stopped doing it forever has my picture off center and looks like an amateur made it. I’m always worried something might happen and glad I know now my anxiety was real thanks to you Matt . I think I visited 70+ countries on this current passport so far no issues even in qatar but fingers crossed for the future
I am not going to engage in finger-wagging re hyperbole around what getting ‘detained’ means, but there are scores of reasons why one may want to avoid visiting/supporting Qatar (treatment of migrant workers, discrimination against LGBT+ people, shady business dealings in other parts of the world, rule of law deficit….), and I am convinced that I am not alone in thinking that getting inconvenienced by an officious civil servant is very low on that list.
What do you expect flying into and out of these 3rd world sh&tholes? No legit reason for most Americans to ever go there.
Lucky your not on some watchlist now, or maybe you are.
They know any Americans that go there are usually looking to be radicalized.
Also a good rule of thumb is to never trust anyone who wears whatever they call the things on their head, most want to see America destroyed.
Qatar is 3rd world??
Wow, what a stupid fool you are.
You must not be well travelled nor well read to write such stupid nonsense.
Most qatari citizens are 50 times richer than you.
Per Wiki Qatar is 24th in the world with a Median of 83,000 per person and a Mean of 146,000. I think I’m doing much better than that.
Ok clown, it’s a sh#thole filled with people who hate the American way.
You really do look much different in your passport photo: your hair seems much darker (perhaps you’ve changed your hair color since taking the passport photo?) and your face seems fuller/ less angular in shape.
Have not changed my hair color and my face, if anything, is less fuller than before. But I get that it all depends upon the angle of the camera and to some extent, the lighting.
They didn’t think your passport was forged, they thought you were using someone else’s passport. It’s your own fault, the photo is not even close to looking like you. I’ve been in and out of Doha over 15 times over 10 years without issue. Saudi, Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain and Oman…all the ‘scary’ places we are told to be wary of, without an issue. But my passport photo is of me. Very clearly.
My biggest inconvenience was the long queues getting into Jeddah off a packed A380 from Dubai, finding out that the long wait was due to prayer time and almost all the immigration officers were on break. Ok, it was Ramadan. And that’s all this was an inconvenience,….sorry long article about nothing.
Oh once I did have to wait for my luggage for over an hour in Paris, no seats available..and the croissants were stale! Mon Dieu!…now there’s an interesting story…. I should start a blog…;)
The picture may not be great and I have lost weight, but it’s still me…I’ve traveled on that passport to two dozen other countries without issue.
I was detained for 10 minutes, in a separate room, in STL on an LGW-STL flight in 1992. The reason? I resembled a diamond smuggler who was wanted by Interpol. Took 10-15 minutes to clear up. It was (kinda) scary for a moment or two. Plus, good photos of me are like crystal clear photos of Bigfoot. Very rare.
Immigration officer should have to recognize you.
They are trained for that amd there are other indicators as hairstyle.
I’ve been to Qatar 20+ times now and truly enjoy my visits and transits. But my very first time there—I think I must’ve just been transiting and I passed through security to get between the disembarkment hallway to the transit area—right as I passed through the scanner, a security officer picked up something from the ground. He held it to me (it was some kind of pill) and asked me what it was and why I had it. He claimed I had dropped it. It was intimidating; not only was this my first time in Qatar, but my very first time ever in a Middle Eastern country…and being questioned about something that was a pill of some kind…eek. But I calmly stated each time he asked a new question, “That is not mine. I don’t know what it is or where it came from.” I had to assert that a number of times before he accepted my answer.
Could’ve been him honestly thinking I dropped it, or he picks up that same pill with various passengers to see if they’ll rattle. But either way, it shook me for a few minutes and then I decided not to let it bother me. I’ve looked forward to every time I’ve had in Doha, since.
Except for the phone, the photo of Matthew holding a passport looks like a hostage photo. Maybe the Qataris thought Matthew was a Russian and a spy?
Years ago, when you didn’t have to have a straight face for passport photo, I was exiting some country, cannot remember, and the passport agent said, “With a smile like that, you will get in to any country”.. Those were the days..
Only to be upstaged years later on the Slovenia / Croatia border, when the hunky border guard could not find a page to stamp, all full. He replied, “You need a new passport!”
I went through Check Point Charlie. Scary. They took your passport away for awhile and you had to walk through several rooms before they gave it back to you. It was my first time traveling outside the US. Had to go thru passport control West Berlin, US demilitarized zone then East German passport control. Once in East Berlin we walked a mile through bombed out buildings before we got to an area they let westerners look around.
Your passport photo looks like a Matthew Broderick War Games movie prop passport photo.
Next time use your German passport.
perhaps the agent is angry L&LF reader
Matt, for security sake, please edit the photo by wiping out any identification data.
I already did?
I didn’t zoom to check. I’m glad you were careful. Did you hear about the story that the TSA posted a photo of them holding the universal baggage keys and someone used the high resolution photo to cut copies of the keys allowing them to open any lock? In the old days, we wouldn’t worry about stuff like this but we’re living in Bladerunner times…
People think of Qatar as a modern liberalized nation similar to UAE, but behind all the shiny buildings and decent airline it is in reality much more like Kuwait – a backward and repressive monarchy with better PR than it deserves. I wouldn’t want to live there, and better not to visit unless you have to.
Get a life. Countless non-US people are treated much worse at the CBP. Stop whining.
False equivalency.
Two wrongs don’t make it right.
Can’t you get a new passport with a new picture? If you truly believe the passport is to blame, you may be better off “losing” it if that’s what it takes to get yourself a new one.
Matthew!
The real reason you got stopped…you look like the original Terminator in that pic…if you google for a pic of the terminator after his eye surgery (the very rubbery synthetic mock up), you look just like that guy. Probably made the agent think you were searching for Sarah Connor or John Connor.
https://themovieplanet.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/schwarzeneggers-face-wont-appear-in-new-terminator-movie-voice-still-a-possibility/
Lol I have a similar story except my passport was “fake” and they let me through. It’s a long story but basically my 10 year passport was placed on the lost or stolen interpol list. When I was departing ZRH they pulled me aside and said my passport is on this list, and that I shouldn’t continue to PVG. But if I signed some waiver they would let me go through. Landed in PVG, scanned my passport and an immediate peep went off. They walked me over to the holding area and took my passport away, waited 40-60 minutes. The immigration officer walked over and said something to the affect that your passport has some issue but we checked your data and this is you so. They stamped me in and I walked out . Crazy