This situation makes me furious at my own country's government and the way they have set up a border "protection" system that keeps out productive, law-abiding, good people who have been trying to follow the rules for reasons as arbitrary as "the person at the desk was having a bad day and decided he didn't like your looks, and there's nothing you can do about it." It's yet another step down a very slippery slope leading from rule-of-law to rule-of-man, and I don't like it one bit.
I'd write to my congressman, but I don't know what good it would do.