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Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

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Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#211

Post by vain »

taylodl wrote: post #89

Why would a foreigner visit the US when you may be detained and treated like an animal at any time for the most trivial of reasons? Furthermore, why would you visit a country that's actively undermining others around the world? Why would you provide your financial support to that? It's the same reason Tesla sales have fallen off a cliff. You can only mistreat people so much before they push back.

This at least reflects my feelings about visiting anytime soon.

I mean if I was just put on a flight back (for a tweet they found on my phone or such), that'd be kind of bearable. At least one visitor from the UK got locked up in a facility for a week.

Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#212

Post by stuartjohnson12 »

baxtr wrote: post #139

I think it's relevant to consider the baseline. Based on a quick online research, I estimate there are about 30-40k visitors landing from Europe in the US on any day. So roughly 3 million people in the last 3 months. I have seen maybe 5-10 very prominent cases in the last 3 months. Are these numbers roughly correct? Do we have any knowledge that this number is higher than before?

I would guess that this is a similar situation to mass shootings at school - quantitatively low risk, qualitatively both repeating and horrifying enough that most Europeans would choose drastic measures to minimise the risk of such a thing rather than accept it as a cost of doing business.

Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#214

Post by jmyeet »

I completely understand why. It is difficult to comprehend how much damage is being doen to America's reputation and soft power. I feel it necessary to give the following advice:

1. Erase your phone before entering the US. Restore it from backup after arrival. CBP has the right to inspect your phone. While you may be able to refuse, likely this means you'll be denied entry and there's nothing you can do about that unless you're lawful permanent resident ("LPR");

2. Don't post on social media under your real name about topics that are likely to get you into trouble. The big ones are anything pro-Palestine or anything critical of Trump;

3. If you are an LPR, do not sign anything they want you to sign if you're detained. What they're trying to do is to get you to voluntarily surrender your LPR status [1]. You have the right to be paroled into the US. Only an immigration judge can forcibly revoke your status;

4. There's stricter enforcement of rules that always existed, particularly abandonment of residency. A green card isn't (and was never intended as) a way to visit the US freely a few weeks a year while living somewhere else;

5. If you are a visa holder you have fewer rights. If you live in the US on a valid visa, I would be extremely hesitant to travel outside the US at all; and

6. Notify friends and family of your travel plans. Additionally, if your country supports it, register your travel with your embassy. The US version of this is STEP [2]. You want someone to make enquiries on your behalf if you are detained and are unable to make outside communications. It's wild that this is where we are.

[1]: https://www.uscis.gov/i-407

[2]: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...

Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#215

Post by josephg »

chimeracoder wrote: post #137
sofixa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport? Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you). EU Eastern Europe, you might get funny looks but it's still not an extraordinary situation to have various shades of skin colour (e.g. Syr…

> Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you). As a person who matches the description above, and has traveled to Europe extensively and frequently, I can tell you that as much as Europeans like to believe this is this case, it is absolutely not true. > Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no…

A couple years ago my girlfriend and I spent about 2 months travelling through europe. We visited about 10 countries on our trip. A lot of our travel between countries was by bus. After a few bus trips we started noticing something strange - the busses often pulled over for rest stops just after we'd changed countries. Everyone would all get out of the bus to stretch our legs, and some police would miraculously appear and decide they wanted to talk to some of the people who were on our bus.

Now, officially the shengen zone means there's no need to show your documents between countries. But countries still don't want certain people coming in. And they don't want drugs smuggled in either.

It was really interesting who they decided to pull aside for a chat. It was almost always men who were travelling alone. Almost always men who were in the 25-45 age range. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was some racial profiling going on as well. The police never questioned me - probably because I was with my girlfriend the whole time. If she wasn't there, I bet I would have been pulled aside every time too.

Anyway, I believe your experience in Europe. But if you were a man travelling alone, its possible it was partially or fully due to that. For about a decade, every time I went through security at an airport I was always "randomly selected" to have my bag swabbed for chemicals. It never happens any more, and I'm as white as they come. I assume it was a gender + age + travelling alone thing - but its still a mystery to me.

Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#216

Post by jajko »

baxtr wrote: post #139

I think it's relevant to consider the baseline. Based on a quick online research, I estimate there are about 30-40k visitors landing from Europe in the US on any day. So roughly 3 million people in the last 3 months. I have seen maybe 5-10 very prominent cases in the last 3 months. Are these numbers roughly correct? Do we have any knowledge that this number is higher than before?

Its like Tesla's FSD killing people. The threshold for acceptance of fuckups is very small, especially when you don't do anything wrong and there is a lot of needless humiliation. Why risk it? There are actually nice welcoming places all over the globe.

Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#217

Post by freeamz »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #189
paulddraper wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes but then you hang a “no guests” sign outside. You don’t let them in your house and then scream at them, lock them up in the bathroom for 2 weeks before kicking them out.

yeah locking up for 2 weeks just doesn't make any economic sense, it must cost the tax payer a fortune vs just deport them?

Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#219

Post by frob »

mjaniczek wrote: post #41
daedrdev wrote: post #5

After several tourists were detained for weeks in terrible conditions, it’s little wonder why

I'm an EU citizen who's on the organizer team of Elm Camp 2025, and I'm really on the fence whether to even risk the flight to US and attending, hearing these stories :(

Do not come here.

First, do it for your own safety. A wrong form or the wrong answer to a verbal question after 18 hours of travel could land you in weeks of brutal detention.

Second, do it to help the cause. We here in America need to suffer the consequences of our actions. We need to see conferences canceled. We need to see imports stopped. We need to see people refusing to bring their knowledge and expertise here.

It is going to be a long, dark four years for the globe. It's going to take all of us working from within and without to have any hope of dismantling this evil empire.

Re: Foreign visits into the U.S. fell off a cliff in March

#220

Post by b112 »

brookst wrote: post #145
palata wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the President of the United States threatens to invade ex-allies, I don't think that the threatened people give a shit about what the American people think about it. The fact that this guy is the President means that most Americans were not against it, right? Of course most Americans don't want random people detained. But still, this is happening in the US. And one thing that I believe is absolutely clear outsid…

> most Americans are perfectly fine with "America First". I agree with everything you said, except this. Sub “many” and I’d go with it. But at least here, in blue state / more-sane land, there is widespread horror and outrage. We’re only at the “tens of thousands of people protesting” stage and I’ll be the first to say Americans need to do more, but I think it’s going to far to say most Americans don’t care about the…

but I think it’s going to far to say most Americans don’t care about the impact elsewhere.

Indeed.

Recently in Palo Alto for a few months. Saw lots of people protesting Tesla dealerships, lots of interesting and creative anti-Trump and Elon signs.

Not one word of Canada, of Greenland. Trumps stated goal of destroying Canada's economy to force annexation, or to outright just take Greenland seem not protest worthy.

Most people I spoke to seemed barely conscious of the issue.

To be fair, other matters may be higher pri in their minds, so if other events were not happening in parallel, it may be different.

But when 65 billion dollar defence hardware purchases are being dropped (they are), when future military purchases are not going to happen, when police cars, municipal vehicles are not going to be from US companies any more, when natural resources are going to be sold to the EU and China instead (sadly), the US is going to feel this for a very long time.

Because these are choices for decades. And it's not only Canada making them.

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