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British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

theguardian.com

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Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#171

Post by necovek »

wat10000 wrote: post #164
necovek wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going to a country for work on a tourist visa (waiver) and without a working permit is ridiculous on top of staying longer than the usually allowed 90 days in any sequence of 180 consecutive days. Do not put yourself in a position for a foreign government to put you in detention and "hope for the best".

Agreed. But I care a lot more about what my government does to people who break the rules than I care about people breaking minor rules.

Agreed as well. But the question is punted down to how do you decide if someone is breaking minor rules or major ones instead?

AFAIK, US usually resolves that with courts (in this case Immigration Court). That requires a court date which is not as quick to come by.

The way to improve the situation for the future is to introduce changes to the law to allow voluntary deportation for anyone who's not a wanted criminal — but the laws are what they are, and I wouldn't want immigration clerks to have the full power.

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#172

Post by bmicraft »

necovek wrote: post #116
kennysoona wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a right and a wrong way to enforce the law, though. Putting her in a literal prison and in an orange jumpsuit is overkill. Clearly she just screwed up and thought what she was doing was ok, but isn't a threat. Let her go back to the UK and no longer be eligible for ESTA. How is that not sufficient?

There is only one way to enforce the law, which is to enforce it upon learning of all the circumstances, both in favour and not in favour of the accused. The fact that you are not familiar with the law never protects you by design ("oh sorry, I never realised I wasn't allowed to just take their bike and ride away") — so it's upon the courts to make judgement on the entire set of circumstances. The problem with any im…

> The problem with any immigration service in the world is that they are dealing with non-citizens which lack most protections citizenship would have given them

No, this is specifically a problem with the US if they withhold many those rights to non citizens. In developed countries existing as a person gives you those rights, not citizenship.

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#173

Post by gruez »

kennysoona wrote: post #157
necovek wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only one way to enforce the law, which is to enforce it upon learning of all the circumstances, both in favour and not in favour of the accused. The fact that you are not familiar with the law never protects you by design ("oh sorry, I never realised I wasn't allowed to just take their bike and ride away") — so it's upon the courts to make judgement on the entire set of circumstances. The problem with any im…

All people involved have jurisdiction on how to apply the law. Putting this girl in prison and a jumpsuit is ridiculous. It creates yet another person who will come to rightfully hate the US, gets bad press affecting tourism and business, and for what? For a girl that loved the US, misinterpreted or misunderstood something and is staying a little longer, spending more money and having good experiences. Enforce the la…

>All people involved have jurisdiction on how to apply the law. Putting this girl in prison and a jumpsuit is ridiculous.

So what are you proposing? Giving someone from an European country better treatment than someone from South America? Sounds like racism/white privilege to me.

>It creates yet another person who will come to rightfully hate the US, gets bad press affecting tourism and business, and for what? For a girl that loved the US

South Americans are fleeing prosecution from drug gangs or economic devastation. That's a far stronger justification than some girl who "loved the US" and wants to backpack for a few months.

>misinterpreted or misunderstood something and is staying a little longer, spending more money and having good experiences.

As other people have mentioned, it's basically plastered everywhere during the ESTA process that you can't work. "misinterpreted or misunderstood" seems like a stretch.

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#174

Post by potato3732842 »

throw16180339 wrote: post #141
ohgr wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s malicious incompetence. They probably rolled this out so fast and fired everyone who could manage it at the same time that it’s running at the stage of “how do we not starve these people” levels of chaos. What a shit show though.

ICE probably has quotas for detainment, so they're imprisoning people who would previously have been sent home.

Every day is a slow day these days so those guys who were hired to detain people are really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It's like being pulled over for nothing because there's nobody else to pull over at 1am on a Tuesday.

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#175

Post by [deleted] »

wat10000 wrote: post #163
mingus88 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she was staying in Portland with a family doing chores (aka work) in exchange for housing (aka compensation) then I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Add to this the 4mo trip on a 90 day tourist visa and I would expect nothing less than detention since they can’t exactly turn her around since CA already turned her away

“Illegal” and “a crime” are not synonymous. Immigration violations are mostly civil infractions, similar to jaywalking and low-level speeding offenses. Among other things, this means that you don’t get a public defender if you can’t afford a lawyer for your immigration case.

[deleted]

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#176

Post by AlotOfReading »

gruez wrote: post #158
AlotOfReading wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't just let people wander in. The US-Mexico border is incredibly militarized, with multiple lines of checkpoints on either side and a massive amount of technology and manpower to support patrolling the desert between ports. It's closer to a conflict border than it is to a typical international border.

>The US doesn't just let people wander in. The US-Mexico border is incredibly militarized, with multiple lines of checkpoints on either side. [...] It's closer to the DMZ than it is to a typical international border. Unless "multiple lines of checkpoints" actually means "multiple booths so visitors can be processed in parallel", this is most certainly false. Here's the San Ysidro boreder crossing in Tijuana: https://…

San Ysidro is a port, only a small part of a much larger system run by the US CBP that extends up to 100 miles into the US. Here's the map of checkpoints for San Diego sector where San Ysidro is [0]. You can see an outdated map of the commonly used checkpoints for the whole US [1]. There's also a bunch of invisible infrastructure hidden between these checkpoints, from ALPR to facial recognition systems, not to mention regular patrols by USBP. Each sector's run a bit differently in practice, depending on various constraints and the different kinds of crossing they see. Tucson sector uses more mobile checkpoints because of congressional limitations for example, while Yuma sector focuses more on deep-desert patrolling in cooperation with tribal authorities because that's a well-developed coyote route.

A reasonably similar system of checkpoints exists on the Mexican side as well, oriented against people heading north.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/GAO-05-4...

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/USBP_Int...

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#177

Post by mingus88 »

wat10000 wrote: post #163
mingus88 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she was staying in Portland with a family doing chores (aka work) in exchange for housing (aka compensation) then I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Add to this the 4mo trip on a 90 day tourist visa and I would expect nothing less than detention since they can’t exactly turn her around since CA already turned her away

“Illegal” and “a crime” are not synonymous. Immigration violations are mostly civil infractions, similar to jaywalking and low-level speeding offenses. Among other things, this means that you don’t get a public defender if you can’t afford a lawyer for your immigration case.

And? She violated the terms of her visa. That's illegal. She was detained at the border because of this.

I agree that 10 days in lockup feel excessive for this, but I honestly, as someone who has traveled and crossed many borders, I have a hard time finding sympathy. I wouldn't expect to be treated well at many, many border crossings if I was found to have broken the law while I was in country.

It sure would be nice if the USG scolded her and told her to get back to court in 14 days for her immigration trial, but that's a laughable misread of the current government's position on immigration. And Trump has been ringing that bell loudly for a decade now. Immigrants arriving on a tourist visa and simply staying forever is the most common form of illegal immigration and this is exactly how I would expect the Trump administration to treat someone in her position.

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#178

Post by wat10000 »

necovek wrote: post #171
wat10000 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. But I care a lot more about what my government does to people who break the rules than I care about people breaking minor rules.

Agreed as well. But the question is punted down to how do you decide if someone is breaking minor rules or major ones instead? AFAIK, US usually resolves that with courts (in this case Immigration Court). That requires a court date which is not as quick to come by. The way to improve the situation for the future is to introduce changes to the law to allow voluntary deportation for anyone who's not a wanted criminal —…

Court is not the only way. How many people do you know who got thrown in jail for a minor speeding offense? The system is plainly capable of distinguishing between “needs to go to jail until they can see a judge” and “can go home” cases. This one is just silly, though: it’s “must go home” combined with “can’t leave.”

You can have a system that treats people humanely. We choose not to.

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#179

Post by ty6853 »

kennysoona wrote: post #157
necovek wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only one way to enforce the law, which is to enforce it upon learning of all the circumstances, both in favour and not in favour of the accused. The fact that you are not familiar with the law never protects you by design ("oh sorry, I never realised I wasn't allowed to just take their bike and ride away") — so it's upon the courts to make judgement on the entire set of circumstances. The problem with any im…

All people involved have jurisdiction on how to apply the law. Putting this girl in prison and a jumpsuit is ridiculous. It creates yet another person who will come to rightfully hate the US, gets bad press affecting tourism and business, and for what? For a girl that loved the US, misinterpreted or misunderstood something and is staying a little longer, spending more money and having good experiences. Enforce the la…

Don't worry they do it to citizens too. On one occasion CBP told me they would not let me enter the country. On another they imprisoned me for ~12 hours, on another they asked me if I work in the US and tried to demand ever more intrusive questions about it.

... I am us citizen presenting with us passport, look and talk extremely white with no foreign accent.

Re: British tourist detained by US authorities for 10 days over visa issue

#180

Post by wat10000 »

mingus88 wrote: post #177
wat10000 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Illegal” and “a crime” are not synonymous. Immigration violations are mostly civil infractions, similar to jaywalking and low-level speeding offenses. Among other things, this means that you don’t get a public defender if you can’t afford a lawyer for your immigration case.

And? She violated the terms of her visa. That's illegal. She was detained at the border because of this. I agree that 10 days in lockup feel excessive for this, but I honestly, as someone who has traveled and crossed many borders, I have a hard time finding sympathy. I wouldn't expect to be treated well at many, many border crossings if I was found to have broken the law while I was in country. It sure would be nice…

My point is that it’s a low level of illegality that does not deserve a week or two in jail. We have the concept of proportionate punishment. You don’t go to jail for jaywalking. You do go to jail for grand theft. The legislature has decided that most immigration offenses are more like jaywalking. Such offenses should not result in being locked up for days.

If you have a hard time finding sympathy for someone who made a mistake that harmed nobody, was told they have to leave, and then was locked up for a week and a half and not allowed to leave, I suggest you work on that because it really should not be difficult.

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