Immigration in the US is designed around rewarding the daring liar. Overstaying a visa isn't even illegal and extremely difficult to enforce, and working infor

Immigration in the US is designed around rewarding the daring liar. Overstaying a visa isn't even illegal and extremely difficult to enforce, and working informally is trivial and pretty much impossible to enforce in a country where citizens don't have to carry ID (sometimes even to vote). Anyone 100+ miles into the country on a tourist visa is basically home free, probably even for life and triply so if they speak English and look European. So what the US does is put the meanest scariest motherfuckers around in CBP/HSI at the border and then say whatever they need to turn the crank, which does little to someone who knows what's happening but great at scaring a naive German woman who doesn't realize border officers are basically playing a confidence game.