Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days • Hacker News Board

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#191

Post by smokefreeskies » Fri, Sep 04, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

foolfoolz wrote: post #56

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #53

The U.S. has a brain drain problem. This is what I was trying to explain to all my friends who jumped ship after the 2016 presidential election. The only way to save the U.S. is for all the good people to stay but "noooooooooooooooo", all the smart people wanted to run off to canada or germany or whatever. Please come back. It's getting really bad.

your bubble does not represent reality. the u. s. is and has been the destination for brain drain for decades. and our decades long green card application list shows it’s not going anywhere

I have a lot of French and Indian friends that we have met in the Bay Area in the last seven years. 7 out of 8 of the French tech workers we met here have gone back to France within 5 years. Out of the 40 or so Indian immigrant tech folks I know, there have been very few recent immigrations, a lot of the flow dropped off about three to four years ago, all preferring to go to Europe or Canada. Of those who did come here before that time period, around 5-6 have gone back to India, as the number of unicorns in Bangalore have increased and salaries in tech giants there are pretty good now. Another 2-3 left for Europe. All of them are elite school grads from India.

The reasons cited are mostly (1) random lottery to move from f1 to h1b, with less than 50% chance of making it, (2) the decades long queues for h1b to green card with lots of process overhead, low certainty, random restrictions on travel and arbitrary changes in immigration laws.

The queues will still be long for years to come, as the old applications clear out... But the trend downward has already started.

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#192

Post by gwbas1c » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 12:48 AM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #38

setpatchaddress wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting to the point where one must ask why someone wealthy enough to fly internationally would want the hassle of entering the US. It's been bad since 9/11, but it's insane now. I can't imagine the TSA is treating people better than they did pre-Trump. Maybe things will be better next year.

> It's getting to the point where one must ask why someone wealthy enough to fly internationally would want the hassle of entering the US. Sometimes it's the only sensible option - e.g. as far as I know (the Kiwis I know all go via LAX), London to Auckland via LAX is cheaper, quicker, easier, etc. than going a non-US route like Singapore.

A layover isn't entering the country. You don't need to go through customs.

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#193

Post by dwheeler » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

rurp wrote: post #127

awalton wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're a billionaire who can actually get a Congressperson on the phone, you're burning cycles. They've got an army of staff that do nothing but write stock replies, print and sign documents with stamps and mail them back to constituents. That's what involvement in our government has become in America - a bunch of people shouting into an endless void, and the people in power doing more or less whatever fits th…

> They've got an army of staff that do nothing but write stock replies, print and sign documents with stamps and mail them back to constituents. While this is certainly true and billionaires have far more sway than a random citizen, I don't think it's quite as dire as you say. I've heard from multiple people who work in politics that letters like these are tracked by the staff and the tallies considered by the repres…

My Congressional Representatives' Office called me this morning. They want a little additional information about Daniel Stenberg, and then they will write a letter to the US Embassy.

Obviously that's no guarantee that the problem will be resolved, but at least there are efforts to try to resolve this problem. I hope this breaks the logjam.

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#194

Post by dwheeler » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 5:35 AM UTC

refurb wrote: post #185

dwheeler wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an incentive to do it because the congressman is my representative, and I am a voter who is a complaining. I live near DC, so I guess I assume others know more about the US system than is common knowledge. My apologies. Please let me explain. Of course the congressman will not actually read the letter. That's not the point. The point is that every congressman has a mechanism for accepting requests from cons…

No doubt you can try and hey, maybe it will work? I definitely know it works for people stuck in the immigration system, but this particular example (a visa for a temporary trip to the US) doesn’t seem like it would rank all that high on a Congressman’s priorities. My guess is they’ll look into and tell you there isn’t anything they could do. Might speed up the rejection though.

The Congressman himself doesn't read these things. There are staffers in his office who do this. It's the usual way to try to get things unstuck.

I already got a phone call back from the Congressman's office from a staffer. She explained that she needed a few additional pieces of info. I've already contacted Daniel Stenberg as well. So we will see!

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#195

Post by dwheeler » Sat, Sep 05, 2020, 8:29 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #111

dwheeler wrote: post #4

This is absurd. I'm a US citizen, so I'll contact my Congressman to have his staff look into it. I don't have any special power, any US citizen can contact their congressman, but maybe that will kick-start something.

Why would a Congressman go to bat for a foreigner who can't get entry into the US? I mean, I guess their office could push the gov't for an actual decision, but I can't see them fighting for approval.

I wasn't suggesting that a Congressman directly go to bat, though that would be awesome. Any US citizen can contact their Congressional Representatives' Office to request that some bureaucratic problem be resolved, and the Congressional office directly contacts the relevant organization within the executive branch. I live near Washington DC, and it's just part of the process.

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#196

Post by Matthias247 » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 3:44 AM UTC

kingofpandora wrote: post #154

Matthias247 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm it was about 6 month - before Covid. Since then some parts of the government slowed down, and processing might take much longer. For a step that should typically have taken up to 6 weeks I had to wait 4 month. But since things normalize it might now be getting better again.

I know PRs can enter Canada right now but you don't get your PR until you land, so is it possible for new immigrants to come at the moment with the restrictions on entry?

Sorry, I don't know. I guess your best bet is trying to contact the immigration offices - but it might be hard to reach anyone since things are so overloaded.

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#197

Post by vaxman » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 11:23 AM UTC

stjohnswarts wrote: post #162

Please forgive us Daniel, perhaps this national nightmare will be over Jan 21 2021

Yeah, 78 days of tech layoffs due to the public equity market crashing will drive demand for cheap foreign labor, just as in January 2001. How I miss having an Indian show up offering every imaginable skill set for $7/hr. How ironic that the catalyst for that crash was the gov’t finally acting on “old” Microsoft and 20 years later, they have a technocratic Indian CEO that came of age in all of that.

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#198

Post by vaxman » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

vaxman wrote: post #197

stjohnswarts wrote: post #162

Please forgive us Daniel, perhaps this national nightmare will be over Jan 21 2021

Yeah, 78 days of tech layoffs due to the public equity market crashing will drive demand for cheap foreign labor, just as in January 2001. How I miss having an Indian show up offering every imaginable skill set for $7/hr. How ironic that the catalyst for that crash was the gov’t finally acting on “old” Microsoft and 20 years later, they have a technocratic Indian CEO that came of age in all of that.

Clarifying, market crashed in April 2000 and October 2000, then the shock in September 2001 before the freeze that lasted until 2006. (I implied Oct ‘99 or Nov ‘00, but same difference.)

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#199

Post by zimpenfish » Sun, Sep 06, 2020, 11:10 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #192

zimpenfish wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's getting to the point where one must ask why someone wealthy enough to fly internationally would want the hassle of entering the US. Sometimes it's the only sensible option - e.g. as far as I know (the Kiwis I know all go via LAX), London to Auckland via LAX is cheaper, quicker, easier, etc. than going a non-US route like Singapore.

A layover isn't entering the country. You don't need to go through customs.

Do you have a citation for that? Because all the Kiwis I know have to get ESTAs when they go through LAX.

Here's Air NewZealand's page which says you need an ESTA to go through LAX: https://www.airnewzealand.co.uk/flights-to-auckland

"All passengers that travel via Los Angeles International Airport, must be travelling on their own machine readable passports and complete the ESTA online form at least 72 hours prior to departure from the UK."

They also link to https://www.airnewzealand.co.uk/us-entry-and-transit-require... which is fairly clear to me that you're going through US security and customs.

Re: Daniel Stenberg (curl) has been denied entry to the US for 870 days

#200

Post by dav43 » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:43 AM UTC

dwheeler wrote: post #4

This is absurd. I'm a US citizen, so I'll contact my Congressman to have his staff look into it. I don't have any special power, any US citizen can contact their congressman, but maybe that will kick-start something.

Good luck - if you get traction please post an update. I too love shouting into the void of bureaucracy.