All Star Watson endures immigration nightmare
Watson, a 29-year-old joiner from Antrim was stopped at San Francisco Airport upon landing from Heathrow and told he had to go home as his visa was not in order.
“They said: ‘You have to go home’. They were for sending me home. I said: ‘I have just spent 10 hours flying here, my girlfriend is away on through, she doesn’t want to be on her own’. They thought I was coming out to try and work.”
Watson was kept incommunicado while authorities decided whether or not to let him in.
“They had me in a room. My girlfriend Mairead was phoning me and texting me, asking: ‘What is happening?’ I wasn’t allowed to use my phone. They were three hours waiting. They didn’t know whether I was away home or not.
“The best of it was, he didn’t even know how to use a computer. That’s why it took it so long. I have hurled all my life to get nominated and recognised for this. I am over the moon about getting this. I just want to go out and play this match, it is a show match for the Americans, and they love coming to see. I said: ‘It’s for youse as well as us.’
“They asked me did we get paid. I said: ‘No.’ I told them what sort of sport it is. “They said: ‘Well, we are going to give you a 10-day parole’.
“They weren’t aggressive. But just the way they speak to you, they are wild intimidating. They are very point-driven.
“The other officer was coming in and out after about three hours, he said: ‘Is this man not away along with the other ones?’ I think they just agreed to let me go out on a 10-day parole. If I stay longer than the 10-day parole they are coming to arrest me. They must think I’m going to kill somebody!
“I think they saw the crowd of us with the tracksuits and gave me a chance... we had 10 hours on the flight and I was tired. I just wanted to get off the plane and get to bed. It was such a relief.”
* Patrick ‘Bonnar’ Maher had a truncated All Star trip. The Lorrha clubman’s grandmother died while he was in transit and he had to return for the funeral almost as soon as he arrived in San Francisco.
