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Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

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Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#271

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

whatever_dude wrote: post #227
rebolek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that DHS denies entry to random people just to hit some internal quotas.

This. Without reading the article, my first assumption is that a Visa was denied on random grounds, eg coming from a country where visas are already hard to get. I can't believe anyone on the US Visa offices actually doing their research on the person.

It's hard for Swedes to get a visa to visit the US? When did that happen?

>I can't believe anyone on the US Visa offices actually doing their research on the person.

Suspect Palantir, or some other contractor having some shitty software to score applicants based on social media + web searches + magic sauce.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#272

Post by tptacek »

splawn wrote: post #249
humanrebar wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I understand that people from the countryside can be seen as kinder towards people they like but my impression is that hatred and prejudice is much more prevalent there... That's not my experience at all. I dealt with more overt racism in NYC than any tiny red state town, and I've spent plenty of time in both. There are racist people everywhere, but even in rural areas, they tend to be ignorant and antisocial so th…

The GOP continues to be impregnated with racism thanks to the southern strategy.[0] If you don't think out in the open racist culture is alive, well and considered normal in the rural south, you are fooling yourself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

The Republican party contains more overt racists than the Democratic party, but the formulation in your comment is tendentious and hugely oversimplifies the situation.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#273

Post by Capt-RogerOver »

baby wrote: post #250
rockdoe wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are regular tourism/business visitor visa's I'm sure. But those are more of a hassle compare to ESTA. Nobody from an ESTA country will do those if they're not immediately denied.

> There are regular tourism/business visitor visa's I'm sure. Nope.

Where are you getting the information? There absolutely are other visas. The ESTA is just an easier way to do it, and as such, can sometimes be more limited. You can also get normal visa and get other vetting procedures and likely other outcomes.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#274

Post by germanier »

ubernostrum wrote: post #262
germanier wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually if things are replaced for another there is a reason. If you arguments are not your thing, I can only appeal to authority, namely the people that created the system in the first place: The Conference agrees on the need for significant security enhancements to the entire Visa Waiver Program as set forth in the Senate bill and to the implementation of the electronic travel authorization system prior to permitti…

You are interpreting my statement as "there are literally no other questions on the ESTA form other than citizenship and that's the only thing it looks at". That is not what I said, and you need to stop assuming that's what I said. ESTA exists to check eligibility for the visa waiver program. The primary criterion of the visa waiver program is... your citizenship. Everything else is secondary. All that stuff in your…

I never claimed that citizenship is not the main criteria for the VWP. But just because it is does not mean that everything that feeds into the VWP has "citizenship" as a main purpose. If that were then nobody would have gone through the trouble of creating ESTA. The checks that were in place before were sufficient for that purpose. There were no complaints about that. You can't just look at things in a vacuum as if there was no world before today. Just because something on the surface has one main task does not mean it was mainly created to perform that task.

The reason ESTA exists is, as you correctly note, that the US wants to do certain checks on everybody, including VWP travellers. Before the introduction of ESTA they could not easily do that. Now they can. The reason they ask for citizenship on the same form is then done for efficiency (to check all the main eligibility criteria as well).

The fact that ESTA collects data and later allowed to easily add additional criteria for the VWP and to collect a fee, was certainly not unwelcome by the creators (but this is not why it was designed).

Why have I even started to reply in the first place? Your original comment states

- "The online ESTA form is required to determine if you're in a population that's generally eligible for visa-free entry (so that the airline and other systems know whether to require a visa for you)." (it is not required to do that as history before its introduction shows – there are alternatives to do that just as effectively)

- "It simply says 'Yes, you appear to be a citizen of a country which, in general, has visa-free entry to the US'" (no, it states much more as evidenced by the fact that countless of citizens of VWP nations get denied their ESTA application)

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#275

Post by zaccus »

humanrebar wrote: post #260
splawn wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GOP continues to be impregnated with racism thanks to the southern strategy.[0] If you don't think out in the open racist culture is alive, well and considered normal in the rural south, you are fooling yourself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

I think there are overt racists, but they are in a minority and certainly not exclusive to any political party. Though this is a hard conversation to have meaningfully since different people mean different things by racism. The context here is a Northern European visiting the U.S. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say they'll have a hard time in the rural south. I'd say (accented) rural Southerners would have…

I have a southern accent, have visited NYC, currently live in Chicago. People in both cities are just as friendly as people anywhere else. What you're saying simply isn't true.

People in rural areas seem to think of "city people" as brash, always in a hurry, always on their cell phones, etc. whereas they themselves are courteous, friendly, would give you the shirt off their back, etc. I grew up in a small town in the south and heard this sort of thing a lot, but it's bullshit. It's just one parochial stereotype among many.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#276

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

croon wrote: post #102
humanrebar wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call new and capricious changes to immigration policy as right wing or reactionary. It's populist and probably xenophobic but it doesn't really fit on the American ideological spectrum like that. Trump isn't representative of the bulk of the GOP, in other words. When he's gone, you won't see this sort of thing re-emerge. As weird as it sounds to some, Trump won mostly because he was not Clinton, not becaus…

> Trump won mostly because he was not Clinton, not because there's some ideology being advocated here (modulo Supreme Court justices). 1) That doesn't explain him beating out ~12 other seasoned GOPers in the primaries. 2) His platform. 3) Clinton was portrayed as toxic by attacks, not because she was. "But her emails" was something GOPers and DNCers had done for decades before and Trump staff continues to do today. I…

Trump capitalized on a rare opportunity, a huge number of bland establishment candidates who divided support from the moderates. Trump embraced and galvanized the RWNJ faction who were (often rightly) disenfranchised by the moderates, meanwhile the moderates could never sort out which milquetoast candidate to back. That won him the nomination.

Then Clinton, a terrible candidate who may have been the only person who could have lost to Trump made a bunch of errors allowing Trump's campaign to flip those rust-belt states. The DNC owns some of the blame here for their long term strategy in those states (or lack of). The RNC also are reaping the fruits of having spent years whipping up the loonies in their party.

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#277

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

iamtew wrote: post #61
Taniwha wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but when you apply for an ESTA you get told you've been 'approved' - you use this as a basis for booking a flight and travelling, if they're going to take it back without telling you (they have your email address) that really sucks, kind of passive aggressive

They don't seem to do the check when you apply. Years ago I fat-fingered my passport number, the ESTA went through fine, but I was refused at the airport due to my typo. I had to make a new one on the spot, was no problem, but it seems that they will just approve the ESTA when applying for it, and then later refuse you if they want.

So the lesson is apply for ESTA as late as possible?

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#278

Post by [deleted] »

baby wrote: post #250
rockdoe wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are regular tourism/business visitor visa's I'm sure. But those are more of a hassle compare to ESTA. Nobody from an ESTA country will do those if they're not immediately denied.

> There are regular tourism/business visitor visa's I'm sure. Nope.

[deleted]

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#279

Post by [deleted] »

vadym909 wrote: post #205

Sorry for your troubles. In many blue states that didn't vote Trump, our votes are worth 25% of the votes of some red states. Not our fault- what was implemented to make it fair to small states is now a menace to the large states. Demagogues that cater to the GOP agenda manipulate the red-state populace like 3rd world dictators. Our only hope is for the next Dem Presidential candidate to be sensible but also capable…

[deleted]

Re: Author of cURL denied entry to the USA

#280

Post by dredmorbius »

jbmorgado wrote: post #199
dredmorbius wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, roughly 63 million votes, of a population of 325 million, were cast for #45. That is 19% of the total population. Reliable sources inform me that this may in fact be significantly less than half of all Americans. The notion of the nutcase fringe in politics has been around for a while -- there's about 20% of the vote you've got to be very aware of. Where other voters are insuff…

Are you actually putting newborn children in the mix to pretend that only 19% of Americans wanted Trump there?

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