Stop harassing tourists who are visiting our country:

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.

Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit — meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon — eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.

Mr. Salerno’s case may be extreme, but it underscores the real but little-known dangers that many travelers from Europe and other first-world nations face when they arrive in the United States — problems that can startle Americans as much as their foreign visitors. [...]

Each year, thousands of would-be visitors from 27 so-called visa waiver countries are turned away when they present their passports, said Angelica De Cima, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, who said she could not discuss any individual case. In the last seven months, 3,300 people have been rejected and more than 8 million admitted, she said.

I’ve already covered this issue here. At a time when the U.S. economy is weak and gas prices are at record highs, the last thing Route 66 needs is its own government harassing foreign tourists. Anecdotal evidence suggests that foreigners consist of up to 40 percent of Route 66 tourism, so this is no small thing.

It was obvious that security needed to be tightened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Customs and other airport-security departments have gone overboard trying to show how tough they are. When you have travelers harassed in airports for carrying bottles of hair gel or fingernail clippers or reusable Zippo lighters, that is no longer security — that is a ridiculous dog-and-pony show by bureaucrats.

It’s time to end it, and it’s time for more commonsense security procedures.

The Navajo Nation is wanting to build its first casino near Gallup, N.M. But it has run into a snag that may mean construction delays and defaulting on its loan agreement, reports the Gallup Independent.

There are two issues that could cause the Enterprise to miss the proposed opening date. “One is the easement. The site is located on a frontage road, however, the frontage road is considered and designated as Route 66,” Etcitty said.

Because Route 66 is historical in nature, it requires special clearances. Etcitty said they have to go to Santa Fe for those clearances.

The other issue is drainage, in which the tribe needs a permit before it can proceed.

The proposed Church Rock casino is slated to be 60,000 square feet, with restaurants and entertainment venues.

The tribe has to finish the casino by Oct. 15, or it is in default of a $35 million loan. If the tribe is  committed meeting the deadline, there’s going to be a lot of construction workers getting overtime pay.

The Santa Monica Pier, which for many travelers serves as the symbolic end of Route 66, is marking the 100th anniversary of when construction on it began.

The Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram published an interesting history about the pier, including these nuggets:

• It was originally built to help carry raw sewage out into the ocean.
• The pier was a beneficiary in the 1980s of the efforts of a historical preservation group, which kept it from being torn down.
• The new Ferris wheel being built on the pier will have more features, but use 25 percent less electricity.
• Santa Monica Pier now sees more than 4 million visitors a year.

The Pier Restoration Group is looking for fond memories from people who have visited there. You can can e-mail them to yourstories@santamonicapier.org