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British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

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Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#51

Post by TorKlingberg »

The border control system is full of these gotchas and opportunities for arbitrary harsh punishments. Just off the top of my head, and a mix of US and UK:

* Be careful saying you are travelling for "business" or "work". The two words mean about the same in everyday use, but at a border check one is perfectly fine and one is a giant no-no.

* You apply for a 30-day visa and are granted a 90-day visa. If you decide to extend your trip to 90 days you can be banned for misrepresentation.

* The whole thing with "intention to immigrate" that is basically policing your internal mental state. It's perfectly fine to travel to America on a non-immigrant visa, decide you like it there and apply for a change of status or a new immigrant visa. Someone who planned to do that from the beginning is violating their visa, but of course it's impossible to prove unless they slip up.

* There are many situations where you are allowed to stay in a country, but if you go on any trip to an other country you will not be let back in. For example if you are waiting for an extension application. Not fun if a parent is suddenly sick in hospital and you want to see them before they die.

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#52

Post by raxxorrax »

Nextgrid wrote: post #12

Just wondering as to why people even bother with the US at all? What does the US give you that UK doesn’t, besides a fucked up government (even more so than the UK - see who’s in charge of the FCC or the tax filing situation), crazy & unreasonable immigration policies, etc? This won’t change as long as people accept it. But if tomorrow tourism & business travel slows down to a crawl because of this you can bet you’ll…

I do think many people are looking a bit envious towards the US right now. Not because of their primitive social systems or paranoid border checks, but their commitment to freedom. Is that enough? I really do think so.

I live in a state with very strong social security without too paranoid immigration laws, but I still would try to get a job in the US if I had no attachments or commitments.

I also do believe it is far easier to integrate in American society and be accepted than anywhere in Europe.

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#53

Post by hnarn »

avocado4 wrote: post #18
Nextgrid wrote: post #12

Just wondering as to why people even bother with the US at all? What does the US give you that UK doesn’t, besides a fucked up government (even more so than the UK - see who’s in charge of the FCC or the tax filing situation), crazy & unreasonable immigration policies, etc? This won’t change as long as people accept it. But if tomorrow tourism & business travel slows down to a crawl because of this you can bet you’ll…

Unmatched opportunities for science, entrepreneurship, education, and technology. Population that's more welcoming to immigrants than any other place in the world by far. Outdoors. Cleaner air and water. Cheap prices. Diversity. Optimistic, friendly, and humble people.

As someone who, like you, was born in Europe, I feel like half of those points are open for debate and the other half are nonsensical. Are you saying that the nation that is the home of the Flint water crisis and has a weaker Environmental Protection Agency than ever is something you move to in order to get "cleaner air and water"?

What do you mean when you say "diversity"? Have you been to the mid west? There are "un-diverse" and "diverse" areas of almost every country. People in the US are "optimistic"? "Friendly" and "humble"? The claim that Americans are "humble" when compared internationally is almost laughable (probably even by most americans), and I doubt that "friendliness" is really something you see drastic differences in around the globe. For the the last one there's no need to ask your gut because there are studies made regarding in what countries people feel the most optimistic about the future. As a matter of fact, most of them have pointed out China as the most optimistic country, which may make sense in a perspective of economical relative growth, but it doesn't on its own make me want to buy an apartment in Shanghai.

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#54

Post by Carpetsmoker »

Nextgrid wrote: post #12

Just wondering as to why people even bother with the US at all? What does the US give you that UK doesn’t, besides a fucked up government (even more so than the UK - see who’s in charge of the FCC or the tax filing situation), crazy & unreasonable immigration policies, etc? This won’t change as long as people accept it. But if tomorrow tourism & business travel slows down to a crawl because of this you can bet you’ll…

I lived in the UK for two years (as a European), and I couldn't leave fast enough. Adjectives that I would use to describe British culture: miserable, passive-aggressive to the point of dishonesty, complaining, petty, distrustful of everyone to the point of paranoia.

There are obviously many great British people and not everyone is like that, but the overall way people treat each other? Yeah nah, not for me.

I'm not saying US doesn't have its problems, but they're of a very different nature.

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#55

Post by chrischen »

I'm almost 100% certain at some point someone said that this would only ever be used to stop Bin Laden style terrorists, and now people are browsing through intimate text conversations to ban people on trivial technicalities from allied countries.

The problem is not that this person received a harsh punishment, but that we will continue sliding down this slippery slope. Next thing you know, this won't be limited to our borders. We'll have minority style report pre-crime punishments. This guy was essentially punished before he even committed his crime (overstaying in the US).

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#56

Post by kristianp »

Reminds me of this news story about a 70-year old children's author detained at a US airport [1]. I'm led to believe that US customs/immigration is the rudest in the developed world. Nowhere else talks to visitors to their country in this fashion.

[1]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-25/mem-fox-detained-at-l...

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#57

Post by zaarn »

foldingmoney wrote: post #48
zaarn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno if you have been to Europe but we have plenty of all that outdoors, clean air and water. From my location, it's less than 3 hours to the alps if you need even cleaner air and water with triple the outdoors. And lots of diversity there too, almost any place has somewhere around 2000 to 1500 years of history on the books, you can walk from your current location to another place with wildly different customs and…

Interestingly, 'villages of people with wildly different customs and traditions going back 1500-2000 years' is basically the opposite of what's meant by 'diversity' today, which is a high population of newly arrived immigrants. The former exists precisely because people historically didn't mingle much.

The diversity of the US is largely imported, througout it's history starting from the first colonists, the US didn't have that much time to create it's own, cultural diversity to the extend that europe has yet.

I don't think most people would qualify diversity as "lots of newly arrived immigrants", even those who champion diversity, they'll likely get closer to "people from lots of different life experiences".

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#58

Post by goodcanadian »

The article is somewhat misleading. The image of the texts provided by the man himself show an intention to "never be away from you again" in addition to "moving to be with you." We only have the man's word on what happened; we have none of the evidence that the border officials used. Did he have a return ticket? Did he have a home or a job to go back to? A lifetime ban seems a bit extreme, but I am completely unsurprised that he wasn't admitted.

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#59

Post by pablooliva »

avocado4 wrote: post #18
Nextgrid wrote: post #12

Just wondering as to why people even bother with the US at all? What does the US give you that UK doesn’t, besides a fucked up government (even more so than the UK - see who’s in charge of the FCC or the tax filing situation), crazy & unreasonable immigration policies, etc? This won’t change as long as people accept it. But if tomorrow tourism & business travel slows down to a crawl because of this you can bet you’ll…

Unmatched opportunities for science, entrepreneurship, education, and technology. Population that's more welcoming to immigrants than any other place in the world by far. Outdoors. Cleaner air and water. Cheap prices. Diversity. Optimistic, friendly, and humble people.

To me, keeping immigrant kids in cages is not the least bit welcoming.

Re: British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

#60

Post by bloak »

atemerev wrote: post #43
silverdemon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article suggests that its not "more welcoming to immigrants than any other place in the world by far" if a single private IM can get a guy banned for life. Still a great place to visit, but I'll take a burner phone next time. Maybe a Huawei device :)

They are not wrong. I am Russian living in Europe, occasionally visiting the US. Here in Switzerland, and to a lesser extent in the rest of the western Europe, I will always feel like an immigrant. It is cultural, there is always a divide of those who lived here before and those two came after. Perhaps only my children or their children will be able to fully integrate here. In the US it is different. There are a lot…

It's probably not possible to have both these things together in the long term:

* A strong distinctive local culture.

* Treating immigrants just like locals.

Immigrants aren't going to learn the local dialect of Schwyzerdütsch unless you give them some kind of incentive, are they?

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