6 ms·

How is it the same people working for one president less than 60 days later act so different ? or are they ?

by geggam 10y ago

skocznymroczny 10y ago
Probably it's been like that always at the US border, it's just now it's popular to showcase such stories as an example of "look what Trump did to our country". I heard of horror stories at the US border way before Trump took office.
- throwayawnotime 10y ago
  It is not so, such behaviour would have gotten reported as well under Obama, many countries are just waiting for the US to slip up as it is doing now, to justify their own less-than-stellar human-rights records: "see, it's just as bad in the US". Sadly ESC:bdw Luckily! the US is still better, For how long?
- nraynaud 10y ago
  I guess there is a self selection bias in the people who apply to work in the DHS, ICE and CBP in particular, and now they are given a political validation to their instinct. But it's clear, my personal close call at the US border was under Obama, and that I am far from calling him someone in love with justice.
- dagenleg 10y ago
  That's one of the good things about this whole media campaign against Trump. The media is throwing everything they can find at him and in the process expose a lot of heretofore ignored problems that have been festering for years. Maybe something will finally change?
- Arnt 10y ago
  Obama didn't get blamed for such things because he clearly didn't want them to happen. They happened, can't tell how often, but he didn't want or intend that. I didn't have the impression that Dubya wanted to harass random foreigners either. Trump, OTOH, is the kind of person who wants to throw out all the Yemeni in case one of them is another Timothy McVeigh.
  - titraprutr 10y ago
    > he didn't want or intend that You can't really prove this. Something being said in the front of the camera with a fake smile on the face is one thing, documents being signed that are not released to the public is a different story.
    - lawless123 10y ago
      True ,but we sure as hell know Trump publicly endorses it. Obama wasn't a lightning rod for this. Trump has made himself one.
      - Arnt 10y ago
        Right. Any king can claim to be innocent when a bishop is killed in his realm, and may in theory be innocent. One that said "oh, won't someone rid me of this troublesome priest" before the bloodshed can't expect to be believed innocent, though.
      - jccc 10y ago
        And that's had a direct effect on the attitude and behavior of immigration goons: "[...] the shift — and the new enthusiasm that has come with it — seems to have encouraged pro-Trump political comments and banter that struck the officials as brazen or gung-ho, like remarks about their jobs becoming 'fun.' Those who take less of a hard line on unauthorized immigrants feel silenced, the officials said." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/ice-immigrant-deportations-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/ice-immigrant-deportat... https://twitter.com/JameelJaffer/status/835842617103503361 https://twitter.com/JameelJaffer/status/835842617103503361
        AReallyGoodName 10y ago
        This combined with the fact that they now demand access to your facebook account on entry means I'm scared to post anti trump comments online. I need to travel between my birth country and my new home in the USA regularly. If I get a pro-trump homeland security agent (and it seems many of them are) scanning my phone. I fear I might be denied re-entry despite having a valid work visa. I guess we'll be seeing more and more of this in the near future. I and other non citizens are now silenced. A few more laws like this to silence a few other anti-trmup groups and the USA will slowly creep into totalitarianism for fear of losing everything they have. I'm just glad my birth country is Australia and I can happily return there before it gets really bad in the USA. The biggest problem I'm having is where shall I draw the line where I pack up my life here and return.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago
  I think you're right about it having been going for a while because I used to live in Canada and visited the USA regularly and I found that in both countries not just border officials but the police behavior was incredibly rude and counter productive compared to what I was used to in London, in the UK. I could detect there was a certain glee some of these people get from treating other people badly which is actually quite alien in my experiences in the UK. I'd say it's actually a cultural difference because it's so prevalent over there compared to here. The part where he mentions three officials immediately shouted down a man in unison after he protested about their treatment of the woman with the child is a perfect example of the cruel and over the top behavior I was witness to. It's also quite cowardly to need three people to do that and pathetic. I should say I was not often the victim, but just watching other people being treated in this way made me feel sick and I think it's something that should be addressed by the citizens, you should say denounce this sort of treatment of anyone. Anyone who gets pleasure out of causing any sort of suffering of another person should be removed from their post, based on my experiences that would require a complete overhaul from top to bottom.
- refurb 10y ago
  That's pretty much it. I can remember stories from a decade ago about Canadians traveling to the US. They get the "business or pleasure" question. They say "pleasure" and then the border patrol does a quick search, finds "business" papers, then proceeds to ban the person for 5 years from entering the US. Nothing has really changed with regards to how people are treated.
  - shitgoose 10y ago
    Yep, I can confirm that.
schtitt 10y ago
No, they're not different. Every time I am visiting the states I have to go through the extra process of interviewing (due to things that happened a long time ago), and every time I am struck by how it seems like they're actively attempting to dehumanize the persons who are there. The border control is actually the #1 reason I am considering never visiting again. Though, as the original author, I love the US, so it's difficult.
- infodroid 10y ago
  > Though, as the original author... Do you mean to say that you are the French historian Henry Rousso?
  - lawless123 10y ago
    I think they mean "just like the original author"
  - afandian 10y ago
    In English you can say "as X, Y", for example "as Google, Microsoft releases code, "as last time, I was late" or "as the author, I love the US". It doesn't mean that "Microsoft = Google", or "I am last time" or "I am the author". Google's dictionary (wherever it comes from) has > conjunction 2: used to indicate by comparison the way that something happens or is done I think you're thinking of > preposition 1: used to refer to the function or character that someone or something has
    - infodroid 10y ago
      That's just wrong. In the original comment, "as" was used as a preposition and not as a conjunction. But it is grammatically incorrect to use the preposition "as" to draw a comparison instead of "like". See for example: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/as-or-like http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/as-o....
      - schtitt 10y ago
rwmj 10y ago
I had "extra screening" at the US border in 2007 or 2008 (I forget exactly when it was), and it wasn't much fun back then. I think the author of this article made the classic mistake of admitting he was being paid for work, which is forbidden with a regular US tourist visa. It turns out that he did have the right visa (or the type of work he was doing is permitted - it wasn't clear in the article), but as soon as you say that you're being paid, it sets off alarm bells.
j1j1j1j1 10y ago
This has been the case for a decade at least. My understanding -- reading between the lines -- is that if someone has been to the US on a J1 they are more likely to return and work illegally. CBP screen based on this. It sucks, and has for a long time. I've not personally experienced any change post-Obama. The major variability is in the CBP agent, not in top-down policies. At the end of the day you have to choose between open and closed borders. If you want to close your borders then screening is a tough business. The main difference between the US and the rest of the world is scale and desirability. A lot of people want to go there, more than any other country in the world. That makes it difficult!
dboreham 10y ago
I am very white and a native English speaker and I can attest that there have always been rude and overzealous immigration officers. Heck they are rude to me when we cross the border from Canada with the wife and two kids in the car and in-state license plates.

How is it the same people working for one president less than 60 days later act so different ? or are they ?

by geggam 10y ago

How is it the same people working for one president less than 60 days later act so different ? or are they ?

Probably it's been like that always at the US border, it's just now it's popular to showcase such stories as an example of "look what Trump did to our country". I heard of horror stories at the US border way before Trump took office.

throwayawnotime 10y ago
It is not so, such behaviour would have gotten reported as well under Obama, many countries are just waiting for the US to slip up as it is doing now, to justify their own less-than-stellar human-rights records: "see, it's just as bad in the US". Sadly ESC:bdw Luckily! the US is still better, For how long?
nraynaud 10y ago
I guess there is a self selection bias in the people who apply to work in the DHS, ICE and CBP in particular, and now they are given a political validation to their instinct. But it's clear, my personal close call at the US border was under Obama, and that I am far from calling him someone in love with justice.
dagenleg 10y ago
That's one of the good things about this whole media campaign against Trump. The media is throwing everything they can find at him and in the process expose a lot of heretofore ignored problems that have been festering for years. Maybe something will finally change?
Arnt 10y ago
Obama didn't get blamed for such things because he clearly didn't want them to happen. They happened, can't tell how often, but he didn't want or intend that. I didn't have the impression that Dubya wanted to harass random foreigners either. Trump, OTOH, is the kind of person who wants to throw out all the Yemeni in case one of them is another Timothy McVeigh.
- titraprutr 10y ago
  > he didn't want or intend that You can't really prove this. Something being said in the front of the camera with a fake smile on the face is one thing, documents being signed that are not released to the public is a different story.
  - lawless123 10y ago
    True ,but we sure as hell know Trump publicly endorses it. Obama wasn't a lightning rod for this. Trump has made himself one.
    - Arnt 10y ago
      Right. Any king can claim to be innocent when a bishop is killed in his realm, and may in theory be innocent. One that said "oh, won't someone rid me of this troublesome priest" before the bloodshed can't expect to be believed innocent, though.
    - jccc 10y ago
      And that's had a direct effect on the attitude and behavior of immigration goons: "[...] the shift — and the new enthusiasm that has come with it — seems to have encouraged pro-Trump political comments and banter that struck the officials as brazen or gung-ho, like remarks about their jobs becoming 'fun.' Those who take less of a hard line on unauthorized immigrants feel silenced, the officials said." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/ice-immigrant-deportations-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/ice-immigrant-deportat... https://twitter.com/JameelJaffer/status/835842617103503361 https://twitter.com/JameelJaffer/status/835842617103503361
      - AReallyGoodName 10y ago
        This combined with the fact that they now demand access to your facebook account on entry means I'm scared to post anti trump comments online. I need to travel between my birth country and my new home in the USA regularly. If I get a pro-trump homeland security agent (and it seems many of them are) scanning my phone. I fear I might be denied re-entry despite having a valid work visa. I guess we'll be seeing more and more of this in the near future. I and other non citizens are now silenced. A few more laws like this to silence a few other anti-trmup groups and the USA will slowly creep into totalitarianism for fear of losing everything they have. I'm just glad my birth country is Australia and I can happily return there before it gets really bad in the USA. The biggest problem I'm having is where shall I draw the line where I pack up my life here and return.
ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago
I think you're right about it having been going for a while because I used to live in Canada and visited the USA regularly and I found that in both countries not just border officials but the police behavior was incredibly rude and counter productive compared to what I was used to in London, in the UK. I could detect there was a certain glee some of these people get from treating other people badly which is actually quite alien in my experiences in the UK. I'd say it's actually a cultural difference because it's so prevalent over there compared to here. The part where he mentions three officials immediately shouted down a man in unison after he protested about their treatment of the woman with the child is a perfect example of the cruel and over the top behavior I was witness to. It's also quite cowardly to need three people to do that and pathetic. I should say I was not often the victim, but just watching other people being treated in this way made me feel sick and I think it's something that should be addressed by the citizens, you should say denounce this sort of treatment of anyone. Anyone who gets pleasure out of causing any sort of suffering of another person should be removed from their post, based on my experiences that would require a complete overhaul from top to bottom.
refurb 10y ago
That's pretty much it. I can remember stories from a decade ago about Canadians traveling to the US. They get the "business or pleasure" question. They say "pleasure" and then the border patrol does a quick search, finds "business" papers, then proceeds to ban the person for 5 years from entering the US. Nothing has really changed with regards to how people are treated.
- shitgoose 10y ago
  Yep, I can confirm that.

schtitt 10y ago

No, they're not different. Every time I am visiting the states I have to go through the extra process of interviewing (due to things that happened a long time ago), and every time I am struck by how it seems like they're actively attempting to dehumanize the persons who are there. The border control is actually the #1 reason I am considering never visiting again. Though, as the original author, I love the US, so it's difficult.

infodroid 10y ago
> Though, as the original author... Do you mean to say that you are the French historian Henry Rousso?
- lawless123 10y ago
  I think they mean "just like the original author"
- afandian 10y ago
  In English you can say "as X, Y", for example "as Google, Microsoft releases code, "as last time, I was late" or "as the author, I love the US". It doesn't mean that "Microsoft = Google", or "I am last time" or "I am the author". Google's dictionary (wherever it comes from) has > conjunction 2: used to indicate by comparison the way that something happens or is done I think you're thinking of > preposition 1: used to refer to the function or character that someone or something has
  - infodroid 10y ago
    That's just wrong. In the original comment, "as" was used as a preposition and not as a conjunction. But it is grammatically incorrect to use the preposition "as" to draw a comparison instead of "like". See for example: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/as-or-like http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/as-o....
    - schtitt 10y ago

rwmj 10y ago

I had "extra screening" at the US border in 2007 or 2008 (I forget exactly when it was), and it wasn't much fun back then. I think the author of this article made the classic mistake of admitting he was being paid for work, which is forbidden with a regular US tourist visa. It turns out that he did have the right visa (or the type of work he was doing is permitted - it wasn't clear in the article), but as soon as you say that you're being paid, it sets off alarm bells.

j1j1j1j1 10y ago

This has been the case for a decade at least. My understanding -- reading between the lines -- is that if someone has been to the US on a J1 they are more likely to return and work illegally. CBP screen based on this. It sucks, and has for a long time. I've not personally experienced any change post-Obama. The major variability is in the CBP agent, not in top-down policies. At the end of the day you have to choose between open and closed borders. If you want to close your borders then screening is a tough business. The main difference between the US and the rest of the world is scale and desirability. A lot of people want to go there, more than any other country in the world. That makes it difficult!

dboreham 10y ago

I am very white and a native English speaker and I can attest that there have always been rude and overzealous immigration officers. Heck they are rude to me when we cross the border from Canada with the wife and two kids in the car and in-state license plates.