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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

#181

Post by stefantalpalaru »

monodeldiablo wrote: post #75
coldcode wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not come to the US for any reason. Also, request that your government treat all US visitors exactly the same as this. Until people start to see how awful treating people like trash is nothing will change, it will only get worse. My job depends (somewhat) on foreign tourists coming to the US, I would rather lose my job than read these embarrassing stories.

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…

> Americans who travel outside her borders are not the people making these decisions

About half of them voted for the people making these decisions and all of them pay taxes to a government that does terrible things all over the world.

It's perfectly legitimate for any country to treat US citizens exactly like US treats that country's citizens. Don't take it as punishment. Take it as equality.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#182

Post by peteretep »

jacquesm wrote: post #158
cr1895 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it most definitely is part of Europe, and it is currently still part of the European Union too.

The UK is a pain for Europeans to get into. It's trying very hard to be USA light when it comes to immigration.

With an EU passport, one uses the same queues as Brits to get into the country.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#185

Post by jacquesm »

peteretep wrote: post #182
jacquesm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK is a pain for Europeans to get into. It's trying very hard to be USA light when it comes to immigration.

With an EU passport, one uses the same queues as Brits to get into the country.

Yes, and it takes forever. At least it did the last time I came to the UK (Dec 2015). The line started well into the hallway, a hundred meters or so before the counter.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#186

Post by nraynaud »

blizkreeg wrote: post #183

How does this not enrage people more? What can the citizenry do about this blatant and unrestrained abuse of power?

Question your president and civil servants: "if you love the constitution so much, why don't you extend it to the border, and to immigrations matters in general?".

They are perfectly free to apply due process (or even common sense) at the border, it's just that they have not been forced to.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#187

Post by salvar »

infodroid wrote: post #157
afandian wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This isn't a competition. While I appreciate that you were only trying to be helpful, in reality proposing false theories doesn't add anything of value to a discussion, especially when the issue can be settled with a basic web search.

Do you think asking a question sarcastically was the best way for you to add value to the discussion?

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#188

Post by taneliv »

Beltiras wrote: post #142
stagbeetle wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what grounds? From the state of border control? From one measly article?

Yes from the state of border control and not just this one. CBP is doing industrial espionage with their phone data seizures. I'm avoiding US conferences because of it where I have options elsewhere. I imagine many are doing the same. I probably have to bite the bullet this fall and go to San Fransisco for a conference. I won't be carrying any electronic devices for that trip as a security precaution that CBP asks me…

I consulted for a large non-US technology company, which enforced a policy of sending people to the US with wiped out laptops, and imaged at the destination with their standard software. That was more than 10 years ago.

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#189

Post by getpost »

I still don't get it. Assuming it's true that there was a lack of clarity on whether he had the appropriate type of visa, why was he held 10 hours? Why was so much time spent on his case?

And why badger a 70 year old Australian children's book author who had visited the US 116 times previously? [1]

Not to ignore or minimize abuse by CBP officers, but from the CBP perspective, from the tax payers' perspective, what possible value derives from this behavior? Is this purely a result of a lack of leadership, bad management, and hiring unsuitable people for the task?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/25/australian-c...

Re: How a French scholar was treated at US airport

#190

Post by strictnein »

rhapsodic wrote: post #153
timeu wrote: post #104

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 o…

> 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). Incidents like this have probably happened hundreds of thousands of times throughout history, at customs checkpoints for many different countries. But now that Donald Trump is the president of the United States, a certain percentage of the ones…

Anecdotal incident: My friends and I were held for 2+ hours driving into Canada once, ~16 years ago. All 4 of us were questioned separately. Vehicle repeatedly searched very thoroughly. shrug

I've always chalked it up to it being a fairly boring and unrewarding job and they made a wrong judgement on who we might be or something.

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