Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A deportation at the UK border

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 329 posts

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#21

Post by kybernetikos »

fhood wrote: post #10

As much as I enjoy feeling superior to the British (spelling color with a 'u' is nothing short of pretentious) I would love to know if people from the UK suffer the same sort of troubles entering the US. As a US citizen I have found traveling to Canada and Australia to be a relatively pain free experience, but then Australians and Canadians are, in general, a whole lot nicer than Brits or Americans.

I actively avoid the US these days because the last time I went, we spent ages in a queue being shouted at by irate border control folk and then were required to have our fingerprints taken. This was just for a vacation.

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#22

Post by Singletoned »

I can't imagine a circumstance where I would be entering a country like the UK or US, and when asked what my visit was for, I would say anything except for "I'm on holiday". Being out of the ordinary is very dangerous.

That said people shouldn't be subjected to such unnecessary unpleastantness.

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#23

Post by shrewduser »

fhood wrote: post #10

As much as I enjoy feeling superior to the British (spelling color with a 'u' is nothing short of pretentious) I would love to know if people from the UK suffer the same sort of troubles entering the US. As a US citizen I have found traveling to Canada and Australia to be a relatively pain free experience, but then Australians and Canadians are, in general, a whole lot nicer than Brits or Americans.

that feeling of superiority to anyone is severely misplaced.

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#24

Post by NTripleOne »

fhood wrote: post #10

As much as I enjoy feeling superior to the British (spelling color with a 'u' is nothing short of pretentious) I would love to know if people from the UK suffer the same sort of troubles entering the US. As a US citizen I have found traveling to Canada and Australia to be a relatively pain free experience, but then Australians and Canadians are, in general, a whole lot nicer than Brits or Americans.

And spelling colour without a 'u' is nothing short of wrong. ;)

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#25

Post by imron »

Unrelated to the issues raised by the article - I love that the callout text was not simply repeated quotes from the body.

I wish more sites/people would follow this author's lead.

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#27

Post by heartbreak »

Singletoned wrote: post #22

I can't imagine a circumstance where I would be entering a country like the UK or US, and when asked what my visit was for, I would say anything except for "I'm on holiday". Being out of the ordinary is very dangerous. That said people shouldn't be subjected to such unnecessary unpleastantness.

Because getting caught lying to these authorities would make for a much better outcome.

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#28

Post by throwawaysocks »

CaptSpify wrote: post #5

I do often think that we should get rid of special treatment for "important" people going through these types of systems. If politicians, executives, etc had to go through the same thing, I think a lot of the inefficiencies would get fixed. As they stand now, there's no reason to make them efficient, because anyone who has the power to do so bypasses the system entirely. Imagine how fast things would change if the pr…

> Imagine how fast things would change if the president had to go through the TSA.

I don't think they would change at all.

30 minutes or an hour of time is inconsequential compared to the political (and non-political...) calculations that are made by someone in an office like that. People tend to be far more conservative when given actual decision-making power, and care much more about the big picture calculations than about their personal annoyances.

More-over, lots of congress people do fly commercial and yet support the TSA (either politically or actually).

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#29

Post by gvurrdon »

fhood wrote: post #10

As much as I enjoy feeling superior to the British (spelling color with a 'u' is nothing short of pretentious) I would love to know if people from the UK suffer the same sort of troubles entering the US. As a US citizen I have found traveling to Canada and Australia to be a relatively pain free experience, but then Australians and Canadians are, in general, a whole lot nicer than Brits or Americans.

I've not had any serious problems entering the US, but it is always a mildly unpleasant experience with long queues, fingerprinting, and questioning by a humourless guard. The return trip is usually a little less unpleasant, with much the same queues but no fingerprinting and little questioning.

Once, when travelling from the UK to Canada, I was accosted for extra questioning because I had declared on the customs form that I was in possession of weapons. When they determined that this was a bag of swords they weren't worried and let me through, telling me that their main concern was Americans who had forgotten that they weren't allowed to bring their firearms into Canada.

Re: A deportation at the UK border

#30

Post by Johnny555 »

Singletoned wrote: post #22

I can't imagine a circumstance where I would be entering a country like the UK or US, and when asked what my visit was for, I would say anything except for "I'm on holiday". Being out of the ordinary is very dangerous. That said people shouldn't be subjected to such unnecessary unpleastantness.

Though you're kind of screwed when the guy behind you in line says "Hey Singletoned, I can't wait to see your talk tomorrow!", and immigration puts you through the same thing.. (or worse since you were clearly trying to deceive them.)
Post reply on HN