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Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

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Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#51

Post by ErrantX »

xiaoma wrote: post #44
eoghan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly would you like to know? I've traveled to about 10 European countries. I've never been photographed, had my fingerprints taken, been interrogated about my intentions. But every time I visit the US, all of these things happen. I should note that I'm a European Union (EU) citizen which gives me the right to travel freely between countries in the EU. But my American friends have only ever been hassled when t…

It doesn't really mean much to me to hear that an EU citizen can travel through the EU with minimal hassle. Plenty of Americans have traveled to dozens of US states, some of which are larger than EU countries with minimal hassle, no fingerprints taken, no interrogations or passports required. About 10 years ago, Canadians could do the same with just a driver's licence (and it was reciprocal for US citizens visiting C…

The EU borders are somewhat more formal than US state borders. So while it is not a good similarity to the US border control, it's equally unlike state borders.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#52

Post by ido »

die_sekte wrote: post #16

Anybody willing to share how Schengen/EU borders are for foreigners?

I'm a non-EU citizen living in Austria for the past 6 years.

I travel extensively through the EU (probably cross an EU border at least 10 times/year on average) and never had any issues except for 1 time in Berlin where the immigration officer asked why I have been in the EU for so long.

I showed him my Austrian residency permit and he waived me through.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#53

Post by pyre »

gst wrote: post #33
felipe wrote: post #17

> I've been to Russia before the cold war ended. I've been all over the middle east. I've been to China. I've travelled all over Europe. I've been to Cuba and I've been to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Nicaragua. What all of these places have in common is that going there was a far more pleasant experience than going to the US. Oh, c'mon, this sounds very over-the-top. My experience is that TSA and USCIS (formerly INS)…

"For example: After an incident involving an American in Brazil [1], all Americans were out of a sudden required by the Brazilian authorities to get pictures taken at the Brazilian customs. The situation got so ridiculous, that at some point the airports ended up with 3 lines: "Brazilian Citizens", "Foreigners", and "Americans". In other words, Americans were singled-out from the rest of the world. Would the OP descr…

Why did this get upvoted? You're dodging the point of the comment. You're logic seems to be:

  Person1: Bad things are happening in the US
  Person2: Well, bad things are happening in Brazil too.
  Person3: But it's only fair for the Brazilians to do bad things
  because the US is already doing bad things.
The original article is griping about how bad things are travelling to the US, and how it's not that bad travelling anywhere else in the world. Someone countered with some examples of bad experiences travelling to Brazil, and then you responded saying that it's only fair for them to go tit-for-tat (which really has nothing to do with the original discussion).

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#54

Post by schintan »

paraschopra wrote: post #14

I will tell another personal experience. I am based out of India and have been invited to speak at a conference in San Francisco. I applied for a business visa and was denied that visa because apparently I am young (23) and they have not heard about my startup (it is of course not an IT service giant like Infosys, TCS or Wipro) or conference (it's about A/B testing). Mind you: my startup is doing quite well financial…

My experiences have been as bad too..I am an Indian citizen and came to the US for graduate studies about 3 years back. Immediately after graduation,I was supposed to join a reputed company but due to some administrative glitch by the USCIS, it took me 6 months to get the required work authorization. I was barely able to convince the company to hold my job. Those were the most harrowing days. I came to India this December for vacation and my work visa application has been again kept on hold status since the past 2 months and I am struck here. I am again on the verge of losing my job. The worst part of all this is, the administration at no point does seem to care about letting people know what causes the hold up and the estimated time for it to get resolved. The lack of transperancy is so frustrating. Each day you just pray that you will get some update from them. And I am not alone, I know atleast 5-6 persons who have been held up for some reason or the other at this time. I really like life in the US and the opportunities it provides, but now I am seriously contemplating if all this is worth it.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#55

Post by jrockway »

wisty wrote: post #6

NegativeK Insurance is for things that could destroy you if you didn't have it. Otherwise, by the law of averages, it's a waste of money. Unfortunately, in the US, lots of things can destroy you: Lawsuits from car accidents, medical issues, not having a car, et cetera. Nice comment.

By the law of averages, all insurance is a waste of money. Insurance companies make money. They do this by collecting more fees than they pay out. In aggregate, they win and you lose.

The real question to ask is, "can I afford this insurance" and "is it worth it to me". If you buy a $250 mp3 player and the "insurance" is $300 and lasts for 6 months, it's a waste of money, because you aren't going to break your mp3 player twice in 6 months. But if it's $20 to insure your $10,000 of camera equipment which has a replacement cost equal to a month of income, then you should probably go for it. It's a bad deal, but $20 is the cost of a few beers, which is also a bad deal.

Anyway, someone makes money on every transaction. That doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't be a party to that transaction.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#57

Post by limmeau »

psykotic wrote: post #32
die_sekte wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I am an EU/Schengen citizen, and I would like to know what non-EU, non-Schengen citizens experience at the EU/Schengen borders.

My live-in partner went home with me to Denmark for Christmas. The border crossing in Copenhagen Airport was pleasant and completely without incident. What was maddening was the process of applying for a visitor's visa. In addition to forms, it required around 25 pages of auxiliary documentation, including her most recent pay-slip; a print-out of her bank balance on the day of submission; a letter addressed to the em…

What countries are you originally from?

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#58

Post by psykotic »

limmeau wrote: post #57
psykotic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My live-in partner went home with me to Denmark for Christmas. The border crossing in Copenhagen Airport was pleasant and completely without incident. What was maddening was the process of applying for a visitor's visa. In addition to forms, it required around 25 pages of auxiliary documentation, including her most recent pay-slip; a print-out of her bank balance on the day of submission; a letter addressed to the em…

What countries are you originally from?

I am a Danish citizen. She is a university-educated project manager for a large international engineering firm in Thailand.

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#59

Post by GFischer »

buro9 wrote: post #12
danssig wrote: post #2

I wonder how much longer it will take before americans get enough to take a stand about this. I suppose it would never reach critical mass with flying because not enough americans are flying to care, which is why I can't wait for TSA to follow through with their plan to set up their nonsense at bus stops and subways.

Most Americans aren't seeing this stuff. When I was married and my American wife got to join me in the queue I was in, and had to go through the same process that I went through. Well she was incredulous that she was being treated that way. Until Americans actually experience this, nothing will be done about it. I've considered that enough to think that a better way to approach it is to subject people to the kind of…

"if Americans want to visit other countries that they are finger-printed, interrogated, X-Ray'd, delayed and otherwise harassed."

That's exactly what Brazil is doing and mentioned elsewhere in the comments:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2234963

Re: Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US

#60

Post by dalore »

ErrantX wrote: post #43
arethuza wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the more surreal conversations I've had while entering the US was one guy who wanted to know why I've been to Turkey/Egypt/Morocco so many times - he just seemed to refuse to believe me when I said that they are really nice places to go on holiday and that they are very common holiday destinations for Europeans. I actually had to explain what it is that I like about them! Note - I'm from the UK. [Edit: Note th…

The intriguing thing is that out of about 15 US trips only one had a bad border experience (and that was a work trip where we took our own equipment, which was understandable).

A group of us colleagues were heading into SFO for a work conference. This one guy who was a Sihk but no turban got asked what did he do for a living, so he said a C++ software engineer. The border guard then asked a few C++ questions like what is a virtual function.
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