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How a French scholar was treated at US airport

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Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#101

Post by CDRdude »

ethbro wrote: post #85
monodeldiablo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't encourage ill treatment of US citizens overseas. Americans who travel outside her borders are not the people making these decisions, tend to be much more worldly than the average citizen, and are the first to be horrified at these developments. If you want to make the US change, speak the language we speak: lawsuits. Sue, sue, sue. Call your embassy and demand that they pressure the White House to retrac…

This is, for better or worse, a populist decision. I'd be all in favor of other countries holding up any Americans coming through on a tourist visa. Maybe if enough of their friends gripe about the way they're being treated overseas, Trump country will think "Oh, it's really not a very nice way to treat people." (To say nothing of ineffective)

I think there is very little overlap between international travelers and Trump supporters.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#103

Post by schtitt »

infodroid wrote: post #89
afandian wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In English you can say "as X, Y", for example "as Google, Microsoft releases code, "as last time, I was late" or "as the author, I love the US". It doesn't mean that "Microsoft = Google", or "I am last time" or "I am the author". Google's dictionary (wherever it comes from) has > conjunction 2: used to indicate by comparison the way that something happens or is done I think you're thinking of > preposition 1: used to…

That's just wrong. In the original comment, "as" was used as a preposition and not as a conjunction. But it is grammatically incorrect to use the preposition "as" to draw a comparison instead of "like". See for example: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/as-o... .

You all bring up good points, and I agree that the usage was imprecise and/or wrong, though the original comment did, IMO, contain enough information that you should be able to deduce with a significant probability (in the Bayesian sense) whether or not I am, indeed, the great French historian Henry Rousso!

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#104

Post by timeu »

Something along these lines (although by far not that bad) happened to me when I traveled to NYC for vacation of New Years Eve 2016/2017(this was before Trump took office). At the border control I was asked to follow the officer and wait in a room. I was waiting with a couple of other people but most people there were only waiting because of small formalities with their passports and they could leave after a couple of minutes. I thought it will be the same for me. However in my case the officer who was also checking my passport at the border control asked me to follow him into a separate room where I had to do a 40 minutes interview telling him basically my entire life history (names of all my relatives, where they live, which countries I have visited, all my social media accounts). I did so and the officer was friendly and after the interview I asked him why such a thorough interview. He responded that this is above his pay grade. the computer spits out names randomly and this was a level 1 interview. If he had been more suspicious of my answers the interview would have taken much longer. This was probably due to my background and name. My mother is from Iran and my father from Turkey. One month later (Trump was already in office) I had to travel again to the US (this time to LA) and I had zero problems but probably because they already had all the information.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#105

Post by neves »

stereo wrote: post #87

This is nothing new, and the same thing happened to this American going to a conference in Europe in 2016: https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.1079ksb... HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453

The problem isn't really about influent academics traveling to Europe or USA. Their problems will be solved soon and generate some indignant news articles. To quote the article:

"This incident caused me some discomfort, difficult to deny. However, I can not help but think of all those who suffer these humiliations and legal violence without the protections I have been able to enjoy."

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#106

Post by yread »

stereo wrote: post #87

This is nothing new, and the same thing happened to this American going to a conference in Europe in 2016: https://medium.com/@rachelnabors/wtfuk-73009d5623b4#.1079ksb... HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876453

Scary story. But read this one from the comments:

>I’m not going to apologise. I’ve been fighting this brutal nonsense since I was an MP’s assistant in the late 1980s. At the time the system was that a Member of Parliament could intervene on any deportation and by contacting the Home Office get it stopped until any questionable aspects were resolved. One evening I was the last to leave the office when a call came through from Heathrow. Normally I left the immigration stops to the more experienced caseworkers, however there was nobody but me available.

> So I listened to a tearful South African chap explaining that he had flown to the UK to be at the wedding of his sole surviving relative, his sister, the following day. All his papers were in order, but the immigration people had made one attempt to contact his sister and on not having the phone answered (on the afternoon before her wedding) had told him he was to be deported to South Africa. I got out the instructions on handling such cases and having taken the chap’s number and all the relevant details, and instructed him to tell the immigration people that Stuart Holland MP’s office were in the process of getting the Home Office to put a stop on his deportation. I then called the Home Office and got them to agree to do their part of the business.

> Next I rang Heathrow to talk to the South African chap. I was told it was too late he was already on a plane to Luxemburg. I called the Home Office again and asked them to forward a further stop to Luxemburg.

> Again they agreed to do do. By now the senior caseworker had got home so I was able to get her to take over.

> I was distressed to learn from her that whilst the authorities in Luxemburg had received instructions from the UK Home Office to stop the deportation, they had ignored it and placed him on a flight back to South Africa anyway. Apparently the Home Office had also agreed to apologise “for the inconvenience” and if he wanted to come to the UK on the next available flight they would “ensure” that he would be able to enter the country. Since he had by this time already missed the wedding, and for the next couple of weeks his sister would be abroad on honeymoon, he naturally turned down this “kind offer”. I cried.

> It has not improved since then. It is now far worse.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#107

Post by refurb »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #14
geggam wrote: post #5

How is it the same people working for one president less than 60 days later act so different ? or are they ?

Probably it's been like that always at the US border, it's just now it's popular to showcase such stories as an example of "look what Trump did to our country". I heard of horror stories at the US border way before Trump took office.

That's pretty much it. I can remember stories from a decade ago about Canadians traveling to the US. They get the "business or pleasure" question. They say "pleasure" and then the border patrol does a quick search, finds "business" papers, then proceeds to ban the person for 5 years from entering the US.

Nothing has really changed with regards to how people are treated.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#108

Post by erelde »

devmunchies wrote: post #95
wazoox wrote: post #70

I just decided not to go to the US this year. I should have this April but really, I don't feel like it anymore.

These are practices that have been going on for a few years. Everybody is thinking this is a new Trump-era thing, which is not true. It is large scale confirmation bias. Making life decisions (not visiting the US) based off a knee-jerk reaction from reading a huffpo article is not helping. I understand that for foreigners to see trump sworn into office and then all of these stories pop up would make them think americ…

I was hesitating to visit the US landmarks for years now under Obama's administration -and even before that under Bush's- but under Trump's, his attitude and words only indicates that it would get worse...

I don't want to subject myself to questionning and genuflecting just to travel somewhere, live and work where I please, I am too much used to crossing borders as if they didn't exist. (I am French and travelled accross Europe, never went to the US)

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#109

Post by afandian »

infodroid wrote: post #89
afandian wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In English you can say "as X, Y", for example "as Google, Microsoft releases code, "as last time, I was late" or "as the author, I love the US". It doesn't mean that "Microsoft = Google", or "I am last time" or "I am the author". Google's dictionary (wherever it comes from) has > conjunction 2: used to indicate by comparison the way that something happens or is done I think you're thinking of > preposition 1: used to…

That's just wrong. In the original comment, "as" was used as a preposition and not as a conjunction. But it is grammatically incorrect to use the preposition "as" to draw a comparison instead of "like". See for example: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/as-o... .

Ah well. You win. Congratulations? I'm not here to argue over grammar. It seems like you have sufficient grip on the language to have understood the comment you quibbled with.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#110

Post by [deleted] »

metasean wrote: post #40
DerpyBaby123 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? Lawyers and the immigration officials concluded otherwise. Your spreading of FUD here is not needed.

No need to be a Derp about it, curiousgal was asking a logical question. Yes, the answer was in the article, but it was toward the end. Since many of these days skim articles or read HN comments first or some combination _and_ getting paid to do something for others is a common, if not defining aspect of "work" [0], her question is logical. As for FUD spreading, before she even asked the question, she started by stat…

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