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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

#451
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump won the popular vote unfortunately. Most of the country couldn't vote at all because they are immigrants (not citizens) or because of any of the structural reasons why they couldn't take time off to vote or they were intimated at the ballot box. Voting day still isn't a federal holiday.

The bad news is that 2024 was one of those elections where both candidates were so bad, that the winner didn't even manage to get 50% of the cast votes. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024 Trump/Vance got 49.1% of the popular vote, and Kamala/Walz got 48.3% of the popular vote. None of those clowns even cracked 50%. The candidates were so bad, that you could win without getting a majority of the…

John F. Kennedy couldn’t get 50% against Richard Nixon, as just one of many examples of a fine candidate winning with less than 50% of the popular vote.

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

#452
post #192

Americans do not understand how much press there is outside the US about tourists from Ireland / Germany / Canada getting locked up in ICE jails for weeks on end. It's one thing to refuse entry to someone who doesn't have the right documents. The fear goes to a completely different level once people see tourists getting locked up. As someone who lived in the US for 22 years legally and most of my social and business…

Anecdotally: a couple of years after 9/11, when I was a student, some of my friends who travelled to the US mysteriously disappeared for a few days. Turns out someone in the friend group had done some hackery type things (I won't go into more details to preserve their anonymity), and they were basically "detained" and interrogated for several days without being able to notify anyone, including any potential lawyers (…

I'd like to provide a counterargument that it's not "iffy" to detain and question people who you're not sure sure should be allowed into the country at a point of entry, and that basically every country on the planet does it.

Non-citizens at US points of entry have very limited constitutional protection. SCOTUS has consistently held that the federal government has broad authority over immigration and border control. Basically nobody has a 1st or 2nd amendment protection at a border crossing, and non-citizens have further-restricted 4th and 5th amendment protections among others.

Border agents do not need any level of suspicion or probably cause to search your person or your effects. Failing to answer questions can result in entry being denied. US v. Ramsey held that everyone, citizen or not, has no inherent right to enter the US at a particular point of entry on a particular date and time and that basically any search is "reasonable" due to national security and law enforcement needs. That ruling was half a century ago.

Shaughnessy v. US ex rel. Mezei (1953) held that even a lawful resident who is re-entering the country after an absence can be denied re-entry without a hearing as long as that denial is lawful. Mezei lived in the US as a lawful immigrant from 1923 to 1948 then went back to Hungary for just over a year and a half. A 1924 law classified him as an "excludable alien" when he returned in 1950 he was permanently barred from re-entry. This was before LPR status was codified so I imagine there is more relevant case law to that classification specifically.

SCOTUS has consistently held multiple distinctions between citizens and non-citizens at the border: Citizens have an absolute right to enter the country, non-citizens (including LPRs) do not. Everyone loses most 4A protections at points of entry, but citizens have a reasonableness bar that non-citizens do not (US v. Montoya de Hernandez 1985, US v. Flores-Montano 2004). Citizens still enjoy due process while non-citizens do not (Shaughnessy again, Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding 1953). Citizenship ensures someone is not in a legal limbo status of being detained unreasonably or indefinitely (Boumediene v. Bush 2008), a non-citizen denied entry without the means to leave is basically stuck there. Citizens are presumed able to enter the country and have faster processing, all non-citizens including LPRs must prove admissibility every time.

So there's a century (or more) of case law supporting what some might call extreme power on the part of the federal government to deny non-citizens entry at any port of entry, for any or no reason. But what it boils down to is whether there are any countries in the world that don't have this policy? There is no country in the world where as a non-citizen I enjoy the same rights and legal recourse as a citizen if I am denied entry, and no country where it is not on me to affirmatively prove to the border agent(s) that I am legally permitted entry. It is always a privilege to enter a country other than your own.

Edit: At the risk of breaking guidelines and making for boring reading, I have to question the odds of someone being able to read this comment in ~30 seconds, process the argument, and decide its worth a downvote vs. "oh I don't like this first sentence."

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detention is already bad enough, but then reading something like this: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/british-comic-creator-r-e-bu... "While every item in her bag was swabbed and dismantled, she was subjected to a full body search. "I was in this very loud, weird, industrial space with pipes and conveyor belts and lights and sirens, being told to open my legs. I was silently crying, watching all my stuff being torn…

That story starts with her being refused entry to Canada. So, there's more than just "US border guards mean" going on here. Then it turns out that she was using Workaway, which is like AirBnB or Uber but for foreign labor on tourist visas. They don't tell you that you need a work visa to work in another country [1], but you almost certainly do anywhere you go, not just the US. The woman in the story was working in ex…

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

#454

If non-US citizens can be deported to El Salvador without due process for having a tattoo that an ICE officer deems to be "gang-related", you're immediately going to alienate most of the World's population from wanting to visit for any purpose. The lack of due process and the threat of extradition on a whim is one that feels less likely to happen to me as a caucasian with US citizens as family, but the impact of it w…

Don't even count on being a U.S. citizen making a difference. If they don't have due process for non-citizens, they just have to claim you are not a citizen to send you to El Salvador. Without due process you cannot prove you are a citizen.

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

#455
post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Some of my friends, who are criminals, were questioned by border police" is not what we are discussing.

That is very much not what I said. Additionally: some of recent people who've been detained are "criminals" as well, a missing document, a tattoo-gun there on a tourist visum, etc. Doesn't make it right to treat them like utter garbage or to make their rights disappear.

Everyone's rights are severely curtailed at border crossings.

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

#456
post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am still in debt from the last time they took me to the back room, did some kind of x-ray which detected my belt buckle. They declared the belt buckle was actually drugs up my ass, they strip searched me, and they then dragged me to two different hospitals chained and shackled and then sent me the bill when nothing was found. For this, the AUSA issued a retroactive search warrant, signed after they did it.

Sorry to hear about your traumatic encounter. Was this all after Trump's ICE enforcement changes? In any case, if you haven't already started this already, there are certainly US law firms that would love to take your case pro-bono, as in the US the government foots the bill for compelled medical exams unless the person was later found guilty. Also, the US Fourth Amendment requires warrants to be issues before search…

I have contacted multiple attorneys including the one of Ashley Cervantes who had a nearly identical case (almost all same facts except she was vaginally raped by finger of doctor) who lost. They all said they do not take these kind of cases as they are too difficult to win. Cervantes IIRC still owes that bill as well.

If it were normal police I think you would be right but federal / CBP it is effectively impossible to overcome. One of the big things they do is play jurisdiction fuck-fuck games, if you start to win in federal court the judge will find a reason why it should have been in the state court and vice versa. The other thing they did in say when I lodged a complaint to the nursing board was they just played flip flop games that it was a police search when I complain of illegal health care, but when you complain the police search is illegal it gets shifted to just being health care, so they just flop a catch 22 to avoid being responsible for either.

>Was this all after Trump's ICE enforcement changes?

Was under Biden.

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

#457
post #99

>This newsletter doesn’t delve into politics, and the reason for this change is both pretty obvious and not in need of further discussion here. Can someone state the obvious for me please? The two thoughts in my head were "this is because tourism is down" and "this is because migrants/asylum seekers aren't crossing the border at the moment". I would think you'd draw different conclusions if it's one or the other, but…

A few reasons come to mind, as a EU citizen: * The US has repeatedly threatened military invasion of a country (Denmark) near mine. * The US has basically given Russia the green light to invade the rest of EU when ready. * Mentioned elsewhere in this thread: The many reports of travellers being detained for weeks. * The US has recently started an economic war on the entire world, except Russia. Why would I want to vi…

Thanks for sharing your perspective, but my question is about the proportion of people like you who are thinking about visiting compared to people who are thinking about migrating.

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

#458
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ this. Once (oh, actually twice!) while travelling, I have had entirely benign trouble with paperwork (things like not filling a form correctly on the first attempt). Explaining the circumstances to someone who has to figure out if you're scatter-brained, unlucky, or an actual criminal, isn't particularly fun, but it's been entirely professional and civilised. We resolved it all in about half an hour. Didn't even mi…

So you genuinely think that if you go to the US you have a high risk of being imprisoned without due process even if you you don't break any US law?

If they happen to look at you on social media / somewhere on the Internet and see that you've spoken out against the current administration's policies, you might be imprisoned (based on what's happened so far). It's the new lese majeste.

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

#460
post #339

Same here. Canceled my plans for US visits for the near future. Absolutely zero desire to have part in that. Will spend my money elsewhere.

Good. Take your money elsewhere. Urge conference organizers to move venues away from USA. If organizers ignore pleas, then cancel it all together. I’m American and this administration has set this country back decades. The only way people will rise up here is if their pockets are hurting. 401K accounts are down bad. Imports of American goods down significantly. Industries that relied on global trade partners (agricul…

Yep. It's only going to get worse before it gets better, but that's necessary to change the political situation — that's the real "medicine" that we're taking here.

People will only wake up when the economy really hurts. That's why they voted for 47 in the first place, so I hope they're even more awake now.

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