Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#81

Post by blisterpeanuts » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #77

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #67

U.S. Immigration agents are trained to look for certain traits in visitors: nervousness, unusual or inconsistent answers to questions, history of visiting certain countries. Any of these characteristics trigger an automatic escalation in the interrogation process. This individual, albeit sounding perfectly innocent, unfortunately triggered several hot buttons and the hapless agents were too unimaginative, uninformed,…

> I learned not to say I was there to take a class. Just visiting. Hope to spend lots of money. Ok, have a nice day! Isn't lying to those people a really bad idea?

Lying by omission.

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#82

Post by nknighthb » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #73

dferlemann wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a logical issue. It's an emotional one. So, it depends on the person. Wouldn't you held anything against a country if that's country's border control detained you, denied the services you paid for, denied the properties you have in the country, treated you like a sub-human? Would you try to enter that country again? Try, just try to be empathetic...

I agree with you and I am empathetic, but somehow 67 million international tourists manage to enter the U.S. per year, according to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings so perhaps, my advice is, don't overreact.

Rather than directing your "advice" to the victims, direct it to the US immigration officers.

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#83

Post by raverbashing » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #26

Mithaldu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard about the Schengen Area? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

It's not really a counter example. The Eurocrats would love the peoples of Europe to be citizens of a united states of Europe (polls suggest people are not so inclined). The Schengen agreement is a logical step towards that goal and is undeniably helpful for travellers. Countries in the continent of America don't appear to have any such ambition.

Except the Schengen area includes countries not on the EU (and exclude countries part of the EU - for a reason)

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#84

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

onetwofiveten wrote: post #79

techsupporter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't see what is broken here. No one has the unquestioned right to enter any country except one where they hold citizenship. This post documents one person who was turned away for what he felt was an unreasonable position but that's still up to the United States to decide. It may shock people on Hacker News to learn this, but many other countries turn people away for "frivolous" reasons or no reason at al…

This is a pretty empty argument. It's up to the United States to decide all of its policies. So what? That doesn't make it unreasonable for outsiders to comment on how stupid or broken they are. Similarly broken policies in other countries aren't really much justification either.

And how broken were they? Clearly the agents had just caught a smuggler; the OP said so. They were performing their duties up to some standard.

This article is essentially about a 'false positive' by the border agents, nothing more.

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#85

Post by slashdotaccount » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #26

Mithaldu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever heard about the Schengen Area? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

It's not really a counter example. The Eurocrats would love the peoples of Europe to be citizens of a united states of Europe (polls suggest people are not so inclined). The Schengen agreement is a logical step towards that goal and is undeniably helpful for travellers. Countries in the continent of America don't appear to have any such ambition.

That's wrong. The ambition clearly exists, steps for free movement are already taken and it's only going to be more unified with time advancing.

http://enwp.org/UNASUR#Free_movement_of_peoples

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#86

Post by moocowduckquack » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #77

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #67

U.S. Immigration agents are trained to look for certain traits in visitors: nervousness, unusual or inconsistent answers to questions, history of visiting certain countries. Any of these characteristics trigger an automatic escalation in the interrogation process. This individual, albeit sounding perfectly innocent, unfortunately triggered several hot buttons and the hapless agents were too unimaginative, uninformed,…

> I learned not to say I was there to take a class. Just visiting. Hope to spend lots of money. Ok, have a nice day! Isn't lying to those people a really bad idea?

No, they can't spot lies, they can only spot things they are not expecting. Tell them a short boring story if the truth is unusual.

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#87

Post by berntb » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #67

U.S. Immigration agents are trained to look for certain traits in visitors: nervousness, unusual or inconsistent answers to questions, history of visiting certain countries. Any of these characteristics trigger an automatic escalation in the interrogation process. This individual, albeit sounding perfectly innocent, unfortunately triggered several hot buttons and the hapless agents were too unimaginative, uninformed,…

Thanks for the overview, but...

I am a hard line atheist anti-idealist that don't make that much difference between islamists, socialists and astrology readers. Idealists lie to themselves and others, because they mix up their self image with their opinions -- or they are just propagandists (since they know they are correct, the target is "winning" as in convincing, not learning.)

Politically, I think the US left is as crazy as the US Fox right.

The point is, there are subjects where I'm less of a laid back "live and let live"-guy -- but it is hard to be more unlikely as a dangerous criminal or terrorist than me. Still, I would be nervous entering the US borders by now.

From what I've read, the Israelis make border checks less problematic. It is hard to scale their solutions to US?

Edit: ma2rten, I answered that first half to swombat 40+ minutes before you wrote. See "There is a serious position to have"

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#88

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

joshuaheard wrote: post #69

Sounds like the U.S. doesn't want him back. I've traveled to over 30 countries and the U.S. does not have a monopoly on rude bureaucratic custom officials. My worst story is probably in Germany where the border officer would not let me take the used car I had purchased in Germany across the border because the chain of title in my registration was out of order. He ended up calling all the previous owners in the title…

Sounds like an actual financial issue - not to you, but perhaps to one of the previous owners who was cheated. Turns out not to be the case; the fact that a German checked a paperwork detail is not at all surprising to me.

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#89

Post by barrkel » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:23 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #77

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #67

U.S. Immigration agents are trained to look for certain traits in visitors: nervousness, unusual or inconsistent answers to questions, history of visiting certain countries. Any of these characteristics trigger an automatic escalation in the interrogation process. This individual, albeit sounding perfectly innocent, unfortunately triggered several hot buttons and the hapless agents were too unimaginative, uninformed,…

> I learned not to say I was there to take a class. Just visiting. Hope to spend lots of money. Ok, have a nice day! Isn't lying to those people a really bad idea?

The less information you give to these people, the less reason they have to stop you. So don't volunteer info.

He didn't say he was lying. He said he learned not to say something.

Re: Why I Will Never Go Back to the United States

#90

Post by moondowner » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:24 PM UTC

This pretty much sums it up:

> "We are under the impression you have more ties with more countries we are not on friendly terms with than your own. We decided to bring you back to the Canadian border."