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

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

#121

Post by vasilipupkin » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

jballanc wrote: post #40

vasilipupkin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the logic goes something like this: something bad happened to me once in country X. Therefore, I will not go back to country X. So, if something bad happens to you in Sweden, say a policeman is rude to you, or something like that, will you leave Sweden because of it ?

What makes you think these are isolated experiences? Yes, the article and the parent comment each highlight a specific case, but as someone who's had to re-enter the US multiple times in the past 2 years I can vouch that these are not isolated incidences.

62 million international tourists visited the United States last year and this number has grown over 2011. This makes me think that on average border policy is such that it is possible to navigate the system and not give up on entering the U.S. for good. Having said that, it's clearly regrettable when border agents behave inappropriately

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

#122

Post by raverbashing » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:49 PM UTC

cstross wrote: post #24

Interestingly, in the developed world it seems to be the Anglophone countries that have the shittiest attitude towards border control these days. The US is notoriously user-hostile at the borders. The UK is doing its best to catch up in a Mini-Me way with the USA's Dr Evil, and is actually on course to become even more hostile than the USA -- the only mitigating factor is that the third degree is reserved for non-cit…

Not necessarily, even though I concur that the UK border may be more "picky" than the US border

But for example, there used to be some contention with Brazilians entering Europe through Spain (Madrid specifically)

And there have been cases of Americans being denied entry in Europe even in friendly countries like Ireland

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

#123

Post by toolslive » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:50 PM UTC

My boss (he's European) has 2 passports: one to visit the Arab world, Russia, ... and another for the US. At one point, I went with him to the US and he accidentally grabbed the wrong passport. Bingo! He was stopped and examined in great detail every time: before entering the tax free zone, before boarding, before entering the US.... It was surreal.

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

#124

Post by ronaldx » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:51 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…

Is that your worst story? I read it like this:

Border officer didn't want you to take a car with a wrong/likely-illegal registration across the border - instead took some time and effort to clarify the details and then allowed you to continue.

In my mind that officer was doing their job well, and acted rather generously in your favour.

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

#125

Post by girvo » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:52 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #109

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've done a fair amount of back-and-forth between the US and China. On my most recent entry (to the US), the phase 1 guy flagged me to have my carryon manually inspected because I took the trouble to answer his questions honestly (bizarrely, the search did not involve a search of my person, or my checked luggage, so I can't imagine what it was supposed to accomplish). That forced my mother to wait an extra hour to pi…

I've been to over 40 countries so far in my life. Be "honest", with Customs: tell them what they want to hear. Being logical, assuming they understand travel at all, is a recipe for disaster. I learnt that the hard way coming in to Heathrow!

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

#126

Post by CaptainZapp » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:52 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #57

jballanc wrote: post #33

I don't think it's ever been easy to get into the US. A tour through Ellis Island will tell you as much. The difference is that, in the past, the US needed its immigrants. They built its cities and its railroads and much of the US's early industry. Later the US's immigrants were its main source of scientific advancements...but the US's relationship with its immigrants has, I think, always been strained. The differenc…

US immigration is broken on so many levels. A lot of our immigration problems stem from a political desire to increase voter rolls for one particular party. The Democrat party benefits greatly from illegal immigration from Mexico, so they refuse to do anything whatsoever to control that flow. That's great for Democrats to win elections and all, but it creates a backlash against immigration in general. Ironically, the…

  The Democrat party benefits greatly from illegal immigration from Mexico

Could you back up that assertion with proof, or at least with some sound reasoning.

While I can accept that Latinos tend to vote democrat illegal immigrants can't vote to begin with. So it certainly doesn't follow that "The Democrat party benefits greatly from illegal immigration from Mexico"

To me that sounds a bit like partisan mud slinging, I'm sorry to say.

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

#127

Post by nknighthb » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:53 PM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #113

nknighthb wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is no doubt that the U.S. immigration system is broken and needs fixing, this is a complicated political issue that is currently being debated in Congress. Conditional on this unfortunate reality, which we can't immediately change, my advice is not to over-react.

Don't deflect blame onto the system, either. I will accept many excuses for many job choices. I will not accept any excuses for being paid to do this kind of evil. If their behavior were mandated by immigration law (and it's not), they would still be 100% culpable.

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

#128

Post by eshvk » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:53 PM UTC

berntb wrote: post #87

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…

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

The Israelis are clear that what they do is racial profiling. Kind of hard to pay lip service to equality and all that bull shit and still just harass only brown people, isn't it?

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

#129

Post by tostitos1979 » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:55 PM UTC

lingoberry wrote: post #7

Something similar happened to me recently. I voluntarily left my job at a US employer, planning to move back home (to Sweden). But first I wanted to spend some time preparing for the move and waiting for my wife to wrap things up. The rules say you have to leave the country the last day of work, so I left for Canada to stay with a friend, and planned to come back on the visa waiver program. I consulted with the compa…

Eep! I might be in a similar situation shortly. A couple of quick questions, if you don't mind?

1) Did you abandon your green card app?

2) How did you move your stuff out if you couldn't get back into the US again? Were the Canadians mean to you or were they understanding?

3) If you don't mind giving some info, I'm curious what motivated your family to leave?

For us, the big reasons are we want to be close to family. Neither of us (myself or my wife) have found a job in our home country yet (have good jobs in the US) .. and I'm not doing any trips back to do job hunting because I fear I will get into the same situation as you :( So we are planning to go back home without jobs and live off of savings for the next few months. Tough beans but minimizes the chances of immigration screw ups.

Best of luck!!

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

#130

Post by girvo » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #25

lingoberry wrote: post #7

Something similar happened to me recently. I voluntarily left my job at a US employer, planning to move back home (to Sweden). But first I wanted to spend some time preparing for the move and waiting for my wife to wrap things up. The rules say you have to leave the country the last day of work, so I left for Canada to stay with a friend, and planned to come back on the visa waiver program. I consulted with the compa…

So the logic goes something like this: something bad happened to me once in country X. Therefore, I will not go back to country X. So, if something bad happens to you in Sweden, say a policeman is rude to you, or something like that, will you leave Sweden because of it ?

You've obviously never had a run in with Customs, have you? Some countries are far worse than others; those that are, aren't worth going back to, IMO.