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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 en

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 network there, I an not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is.

world2vec 1y ago
Exactly this. If someone from "high tier" countries like Canada and Germany can get locked up in ICE jails for several weeks imagine someone like me from a peripheral European country. Even worse, my youngest brother that has a more "tanned" appearance. tattoos, and a beard. I won't be visiting the US for the foreseeable future (used to go several times per year for work), just not worth the risk.
- chimeracoder 1y ago
  > Exactly this. If someone from "high tier" countries like Canada and Germany can get locked up in ICE jails for several weeks imagine someone like me from a peripheral European country. Even worse, my youngest brother that has a more "tanned" appearance. tattoos, and a beard. Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport?
  - DarkWiiPlayer 1y ago
    I would hope it doesn't include getting locked up despite having a valid visa and proof of a return flight for several weeks.
  - sofixa 1y ago
    > Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport? Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you). EU Eastern Europe, you might get funny looks but it's still not an extraordinary situation to have various shades of skin colour (e.g. Syrians, various Central Asians are migrant workers in a few of the countries in question; a lot of e.g. the Balkans are on a palette of skin colours). Non-EU Eastern Europe (referring more to Belarus than Montenegro here), might get casual racism. Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no human rights because of your skin colour, beard, tattoos or anything of the like. Other than of course the usual suspects of Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and etc. who could for any reason.
    - chimeracoder 1y ago
      > Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you). As a person who matches the description above, and has traveled to Europe extensively and frequently, I can tell you that as much as Europeans like to believe this is this case, it is absolutely not true. > Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no human rights because of your skin colour, beard, tattoos or anything of the like. Other than of course the usual suspects of Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and etc. who could for any reason. Unless you're making some extremely critical assumptions about how much wear the word "indefinite" can bear, this is unfortunately not true either.
      - InitialLastName 1y ago
        How many weeks have you spent detained by EU border officials?
      - josephg 1y ago
        A couple years ago my girlfriend and I spent about 2 months travelling through europe. We visited about 10 countries on our trip. A lot of our travel between countries was by bus. After a few bus trips we started noticing something strange - the busses often pulled over for rest stops just after we'd changed countries. Everyone would all get out of the bus to stretch our legs, and some police would miraculously appear and decide they wanted to talk to some of the people who were on our bus. Now, officially the shengen zone means there's no need to show your documents between countries. But countries still don't want certain people coming in. And they don't want drugs smuggled in either. It was really interesting who they decided to pull aside for a chat. It was almost always men who were travelling alone. Almost always men who were in the 25-45 age range. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was some racial profiling going on as well. The police never questioned me - probably because I was with my girlfriend the whole time. If she wasn't there, I bet I would have been pulled aside every time too. Anyway, I believe your experience in Europe. But if you were a man travelling alone, its possible it was partially or fully due to that. For about a decade, every time I went through security at an airport I was always "randomly selected" to have my bag swabbed for chemicals. It never happens any more, and I'm as white as they come. I assume it was a gender + age + travelling alone thing - but its still a mystery to me.
  - brookst 1y ago
    Are you implying there are similar arrests and indefinite detentions going on in Europe? Any data to share? Certainly worth being upset over if that’s a true accusation.
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    I constantly travel to EU for work. I see all kinds of people from any part of the world, and they pass through fine. When I traveled last time, I have witnessed an European denied entry for a reason I don't know, and a white male without any beard has been escorted into the immigration office. Said office had a giant window. The officers were just chatting with him while checking his documents, and also drinking some coffee and eating some cake. I didn't look that long to see whether they have offered the same to him (because it's rude). Also, I don't have an EU/UK/US passport, and I just pass fine.
    - virtualritz 1y ago
      It all depends what part of the EU and how you look. For some EU perspective: last summer we traveled with a group of social dancers from Berlin to Pula in Croatia, going to an event at the coast. Croatia joined Schengen in January 2023. We had one couple in the group that where not "white". She is German but her parents are Vietnamese and he is from Syria. They're married, they have German citizenship. They were the only ones from our group of ~20 people who got singled out and had their papers and luggage (!) checked. She looks Asian, he looks Middle-Eastern (oh, and he has a beard!). That said, they just took 10mins longer to make it through the arrivals hall. They didn't get incarcerated. However, the year before they were traveling to a dance event in Belgrade. That was was before they got married so he didn't have a German passport yet. He only had a Syrian passport and a residence permit for Germany/Schengen. Serbia is not part of the EU. Usually such a mistake means they just send you back on the next flight. Happened to two friends of mine, both "white US citizens, who didn't also know this and were traveling to Belgrade from Switzerland two years before. My Syrian friend however spent three days in a jail in cell with a dozen criminals before they let him fly back to Germany. Mind you, the event they went to was four days and he had a return ticket that could have been easily changed to the arrival day. Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g.
      - chimeracoder 1y ago
        > Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g. Some countries are more "famous" for it, but that's really just a matter of perception and how it fits into an existing narrative, not based on actual evidence. It's not like there's data showing that racial profiling is lower in France, Germany, and Sweden than it is in Eastern Europe.
  - ta1243 1y ago
    > Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport? With a Canadian or American passport (until recently)? No problem. With an Iranian passport? Probably more problems.
    - chimeracoder 1y ago
      > With a Canadian or American passport (until recently)? No problem. First of all, the folks profiling and detaining you don't ask you where your passport is from first - they'll generally make the decision and then ask for your documentation. But even then, I have a US passport, and I've had far more issues being detained in European airports than I have in the US - which is really saying something.
      - przemub 1y ago
        It’s saying that citizens are more trusted than non-citizens, obviously.
      - hylaride 1y ago
        > First of all, the folks profiling and detaining you don't ask you where your passport is from first - they'll generally make the decision and then ask for your documentation. It depends. Most countries do have certain kinds of extra policies for passports of certain countries. For example, Visa fraud, especially for education visas, is extremely common from India. So extra checks for those that the acceptance letter isn't from some diploma mill and that they're not coming to work illegally tends to to occur more often. But the same is true for local citizens that make odd, quick trips to certain countries that tend to be sources for drug smuggling - you're going to probably get pulled aside. Being a border guard is 40% art, 40% science, 10% luck, and 10% other. > But even then, I have a US passport, and I've had far more issues being detained in European airports than I have in the US - which is really saying something. You're a citizen, though. Unless they think you're importing something you shouldn't, you're far less likely to be hassled as you have more rights than others. As a Canadian, I found that Canadian border agents tend to harass their own citizens, especially at land crossings, because the default assumption seems to be we're trying to dodge paying duties. I've found American border guards mostly tend to act terse and rude (possibly as a strategy to try and trip you up?), though some of the nicest I've ever met were also American. I've found most EU guards with my Canadian passport to be bored and slow, though that may be because most Canadians going to Europe are just vacationing?
  - jajko 1y ago
    Normal stuff, millions folks like that come every year. Millions folks like that live here and also have citizenship, I have friends and colleagues working in banking fitting that description (including passports). Now I am not saying we are uniform half a billion, not at all, wear burka in eastern EU in some small backwardish village and you will raise eyebrows and maybe more. Try that in US and its the same, to put it mildly.
  - antman 1y ago
    There is no definition of “if you are not a citizen you are not a citizen and you are not entitled to a due process” in any EU airport AFAIK.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      That's not the case in the US either. Like, how would that work if a non-citizen isn't bound to law anyway? "Oh you're not American, so you're not bound by our murder laws. Free to go". But this admin highly disagrees with that notion. Really hope the courts start throwing heads sooner rather than later.
      - pseudalopex 1y ago
        Not protected by laws and not bound by laws are different ideas.
        abenga 1y ago
        This is like that old adage about conservatism.
        pseudalopex 1y ago
        You were thinking of Wilhoit's law probably. It was invented in 2018.
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    > Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport? I can answer that! It is pretty uneventful. My experience with the border checks in airports was always very pleasant (despite the lines, depending on the airport they can be pretty long)
  - theshrike79 1y ago
    Europeans as general don't discriminate based on skin colour or race as much as Americans[0]. We discriminate based on what country you're from. =) [0] I am well aware there is racism in Europe, it's just ... different here.
BLKNSLVR 1y ago
I think the news feeds within the US may be approximately equal in their delivery of "this is good change" versus "this is catastrophic change", whilst internationally it's almost entirely "this is catastrophic change" with minor pockets of intolerance apologia. I'd be interested in alternate viewpoints since I may be in a bleeding-heart, empathetic, progressive, consequence-considering news bubble. My reasoning is that a family member who lives in the US said that they feel protected / insulated because they're in a deep blue state. I don't feel this is representative of reality, or at least they should be more alarmed than they sounded.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >I think the news feeds within the US may be approximately equal in their delivery of "this is good change" versus "this is catastrophic change", whilst internationally it's almost entirely "this is catastrophic change" with minor pockets of intolerance apologia. Exactly. Americans generally don't understand the degree to which the rest of the world gets the CNN 5min recap of what's going on in the US, and it's very much the CNN recap and not the Fox one. "Tourists locked up, school children shot, government defunded, California on fire, tune in at 11 for more". The fact that ~half the country doesn't think ICE should be locking up tourists without good reason and the other ~half doesn't think ICE should be locking up anyone gets skipped. Edit: Just to head off the nitpickers, by "good reason" I mean stuff that border guards of any nation would lock anyone up for if they found, regardless of visa type, status or nation or origin.
  - bondarchuk 1y ago
    When you are in stuck in a border control jail for 2 weeks it does not particularly matter who does or does not think you should be there.
    - ornornor 1y ago
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stevage 1y ago
Yep. Last time I went to the US I made a mistake with my visa and was briefly detained. it could totally happen to me again, so I'd need a really good reason to run that risk again.
- deleted 1y ago
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- bananalychee 1y ago
  "Detained" as in sent to secondary inspection, or actually arrested?
  - the_svd_doctor 1y ago
    Aren't all immigration "arrests" all "detentions", technically speaking (not that it makes any difference in reality - you're behind bars)? Aren't ICE prisons called "detention centers"?
  - stevage 1y ago
    They used the term detained, but "secondary inspection" would also describe it. I was there maybe 40 minutes.
    - bananalychee 1y ago
      I've been in secondary, but didn't have it described to me that way. I would not call it detainment without clarifying it because I associate that word with incarceration, but I am also reluctant to travel knowing the odds of that happening again are up.
      - stevage 1y ago
        They were quite clear that I wasn't allowed to leave and I wasn't allowed to use my phone. I'm not sure where a debate about semantics would have gotten me.
  - ikanreed 1y ago
duxup 1y ago
Just the trade stuff, Trump's childish threats to allies. All seem baseless and arbitrary. Trump can't even keep track of who started the war in Ukraine... People don't realize how much good will is being toss aside.
- mbfg 1y ago
  We realize, just nothing we can do about it.
- BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  All of it. All of it is being tossed aside.
- deleted 1y ago
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- mcv 1y ago
  The fact that Trump is nuts and possibly serving Putin by destroying the West is one thing, but the fact that so many people seem fine with it, corporations and institutions eager to do his bidding, Republicans all voting along with things they used to strongly oppose, that's really an eye opener.
  - DeathArrow 1y ago
    Maybe for many people the democrats were worse and they are happy things are back to what they consider normal.
    - mcv 1y ago
      Not many, it seems. Also, not exactly normal.
      - account42 1y ago
        More normal than what was going on under Biden.
drooopy 1y ago
Flying from the EU to the US isn’t cheap, and the thought of potentially being denied entry (or worse) makes me think it's best not to visit again for another four years.
threeseed 1y ago
It's not even about being locked up in an ICE jail. In Australia, we just had someone [1] who was detained for 8 hours with their phone/laptop searched all because they stopped over in Hong Kong rather than flying direct to the US. It's that kind of irrational, unpredictable behaviour that makes travellers stay away and instead choose from one of the hundreds of other desirable travel destinations who want you to visit. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/an-australian-was-denied-us-entry-for-bizarre-reasons-he-s-not-alone-20250403-p5lov8.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/an-australian-w...
danmaz74 1y ago
I'm Italian, my wife is Russian and my sister lives with her family in California. I've always been pretty vocal online about my dislike for Putin, and since the war in Ukraine started, I became very worried about visiting Russia, just in case they needed some random Italian guy to extort concessions from the Italian government. So, I stopped going (we were planning a family trip right in the Summer of 2022). For this Summer we wanted to visit my sister, so we bought tickets last December. I've always been pretty vocal about my dislike for Trump too. Well, for the first time, I'm worried that, when traveling to the US, some overzealous TSA agent could ask me to get access to my social media accounts, and that I could be refused entry, or even get sent to one of those wonderful privately owned jails; you know, for lèse-majesté. I reckon that the risk is too little to warrant us canceling our trip, but honestly, if I didn't have my tickets already, I would probably not have bought them now. This is the craziest timeline.
- BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  I literally do not have any social media accounts (does HN count?), and I'm concerned that would immediately mark me as a suspicious individual (although I can eloquently justify this to the nth degree if required). Having said that, weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of scrubbing your social media accounts to minimise that particular concern? I don't have any, so I don't know what I'd be losing, but I can say that I feel sorry for some family members of mine who have been sucked in to the social media dopamine addiction farm. They'd be better off without it and having more time to be their own selves and live their own lives rather than other people's. /rant (sorry)
  - danmaz74 1y ago
    Fact is, I don't want to self-censor. But thank you for your suggestion.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    Strikes me there's a new AI service in there: aged social media accounts. Run by bots for at least 2 years and available for purchase to give you a plausible looking online footprint when needed. (A similar service exists for Cayman Island holding companies IIRC)
moolcool 1y ago
In the case of Canada I think it has more to do with the tariffs, and the open hostility to our sovereignty.
gitfan86 1y ago
This is the nature of social media. If you see 10 examples of something happening in another country there is a good chance you will alter your behavior. The reverse scenario is happening too. There are americans that refuse to go to europe because of the examples they seen of immigrants committing crimes and ruining neighborhoods. As someone who spends a lot of time on both locations, I know that both scenarios are rare, and can logically overcome the emotional response after seeing examples online. But for people who don't travel much I understand.
- piva00 1y ago
  I travel quite a bit, and there are only 2 places on Earth where I was close to a shooting happening in real time: São Paulo, Brazil, and Oakland, California. As much as the scenarios can be rare, there is an undeniable sense of everything hanging by a thin thread when traveling around the USA, which I've only experienced in Latin American countries in all my trips. Giving that I'm originally from Brazil even though with Swedish citizenship, I won't be traveling to the USA anytime in the near future. I have no idea what could happen, might be a completely rare occurrence to be profiled at the border, jailed for no cause, etc., but there's nothing in the USA worth enough to make me even more paranoid at crossing its borders. It's more like the straw that finally broke the camel's back, it's been brewing for a while, I've been stopped by CBP for holding both a B-1/B-2 visa on my Brazilian passport as well as an ESTA on my Swedish one, I do not want the potential issues that another interrogation by CBP at present times could create, like being sent to some jail for 20 days instead of just being refused entry and put on a plane to get back to the EU.
  - drstewart 1y ago
    I travel even more than you and only got robbed twice in 40 years on earth: in Johannesburg, South Africa and Stockholm, Sweden. You can claim it's rare, but it happened on 100% of my trips to Sweden. Therefore, I will never travel back to Sweden. It's just not worth it and I have no idea what could happen (stabbing? murder?). Nothing in Sweden is worth the absolute fear this country provokes.
    - 1y ago
TwoNineA 1y ago
> 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. From my point of view, if POTUS blathers about annexing Canada, then the US doesn't deserve my tourist dollars, neither my Netflix subscription, neither my Amazon prime subscription. I've cut back on purchases/subscriptions from US companies as much as it was possible for me and my family. Also cancelled a trip to south east US. Purely out of spite.
- tgv 1y ago
  It's not spite, or doesn't have to be. Non US-citizens have very few ways of exerting pressure on the current administration, but money happens one of them.
- enaaem 1y ago
  Most stuff on Amazon is made in China anyways. Might as well order directly from Aliexpress or the producer's website. Exactly the same items, but without the American middleman.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    There's definitely going to be some sort of EU-China rapprochement now. Not that China is less oppressive - they remain more oppressive, and I wouldn't like to, say, get caught with weed going into China. But they're much less loudly annoying about it. (another one to watch out for: opiate painkillers in your hand luggage into Middle Eastern states, including Dubai.)
    - Juliate 1y ago
      And they're much more consistent/predictable than the US, at this point.
    - deleted 1y ago
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- rekoil 1y ago
debian3 1y ago
If you are from Canada, get Nexus. Much less trouble crossing in USA. Small fee to pay for the peace of mind and the process to cross is so much faster.
- mikepurvis 1y ago
  Well yes, that would be a thing to do if this was only about personal safety (and one was only worried about the border and not getting vanned on some random street corner). At this point it's also about standing with our countrymen and spending our tourist dollars at home.
johnnyanmac 1y ago
I'm not surprised at all. That's North Korea/Russia levels of terror and it's honestly sickening that Trump can just go on TV and say "yeah it's a good deal I'm glad we're working with El Salvador".It's maddening the admin can admit a "mistake" but then fight with a judge that they can't be ordered to fix a blatant obsruction of the constitution they loved waving around the year prior I wouldn't take any risks either.
s_dev 1y ago
Ireland or at least Dublin Airport is unique in that it has 'US Preclearance' so when you land you simply pick up your bags at the carousel and leave the airport as you've passed US immigration based in Dublin Airport. This means if you're going to be denied entry it will probably be in Dublin which will make it a preferred airport of origin within the EU -- this is massively more convenient than getting stuck in JFK.
- tremon 1y ago
  The most high-profile cases weren't about people/tourists being denied entry. They were about people being detained on their exit from the US.
- DeathArrow 1y ago
  How can US border police work in a foreign country where they don't have a jurisdiction?
  - lolc 1y ago
    What jurisdiction extends where depends entirely on the agreements some diplomats must have worked out. When I travel between France and England for example the paper checks are at the point of departure and there are no more checks on arrival.
dr__mario 1y ago
> I am not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is. I've turned down a 7-day-all paid-trip my company was offering me to San Francisco for this (and I had in the past a bad experience at Puerto Rico's border).
elric 1y ago
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 (not that students have lawyers on speed dial, but whatever). The culprit wasn't even among the people who were detained. No arrests were ever made. Just some good old scare tactics against teenagers. Basically: behaviour at US borders has been iffy for a lot longer than some folks might think.
- jmull 1y ago
  I don't know if you intend this, but you're implying nothing's changed but our awareness. However, there has been a significant change.
- p_l 1y ago
  Yeah, recent news are essentially raising this from "crossing US border is dangerous, prepare yourself" to "US border guards got a quota of terror to inflict, do you really want to gamble?"
- jeffbee 1y ago
  "Some of my friends, who are criminals, were questioned by border police" is not what we are discussing.
  - elric 1y ago
    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.
    - pc86 1y ago
      Everyone's rights are severely curtailed at border crossings.
littlecranky67 1y ago
> 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. And they shouldn't. As far as I know, those cases of German getting locked up media coverage was intense, but the stories didn't check out. Those were cases of Germans entering by foot via Tijuana, making condracting claims to the ICE officer - raising suspicions with those officers. In case of entering the US by plane, I haven't seen and credible articles that resulted in detention.
- realityking 1y ago
  Fabian Schmidt holds a green card and was detained at Boston Logan airport and held for over two weeks: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna196714 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna196714 (It’s not clear to me if he has been released. The last media reports are from two weeks ago)
  - littlecranky67 1y ago
    He failed to show up to a hearing about his green card. Not saying his treatment is warranted, but all those cases had at least some kind of merrit where an ICE agent might become suspicious. It is not as random tourists getting detained. "Schmidt’s green card was allegedly tagged for him failing to attend a hearing because the invitation was sent to his old address, according to the family’s fundraiser to cover Schmidt’s legal costs and loss of earnings. “To compound this error, he had just recently been provided with a new replacement Green Card since he had lost the original one,” the fundraising page says. “Even then U.S. Immigration failed to let him know that there was an outstanding hearing which he had missed and that his card would be tagged.”" Source: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/03/21/family-of-german-national-detained-at-logan-alleges-mistreatment-by-border-patrol/ https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/03/21/family-of-...
    - realityking 1y ago
      Good context. But mistakes happen but the response seems widely out of proportion. A system that demands absolute perfection from me is still not one I’d want to encounter.
alxlaz 1y ago
^ 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 miss a flight. Now that it's a political issue, rather than a logistical matter, so it's no longer professional or civilised, no thanks. I have one US customer and thankfully Google Meet is enough, because I'm not getting anywhere near the US for them. I can find other customers if I have to, but I don't think legal fees for navigating the oh-we-totally-had-good-reason-to-think-he-was-a-terrorist-your-honour jail are as easily deductible. As for leisure, haha, no, there are plenty of things to see all over the world where the chances of getting jailed because you said the wrong thing about the wrong president are much smaller. My visa expires this year, I'm not planning to renew it any time soon.
- DeathArrow 1y ago
  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?
  - Juliate 1y ago
    ...yes? The risk is now definitely higher (and advertised by your own administration) than in many other destinations on Earth.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    At the border? Well, it's not a high chance in absolute terms, but the risk of being deemed to have broken the law due to visa/ESTA noncompliance is a lot higher. I would certainly no longer do US travel for a conference on a tourist visa in case that's deemed "work". (pop quiz to Americans: what visa do I need for that situation, and how difficult is it to get?)
  - windward 1y ago
    It doesn't have to be high to be negative EV
nkozyra 1y ago
> 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. We read about it, too. It just seems absolutely nobody close to power is willing to do anything to even tap the brakes.
detourdog 1y ago
I think foreigners might not realize how freaked out some Americans are. They appear to be testing the boundaries by going after easy targets.
Arubis 1y ago
There's a pretty sizable proportion of USians that have a hard time accepting that other countries exist. For what it's worth, we're also starting to have similar (though so far less pronounced) reactions to domestic travel. There's a number of states that are unsafe to travel to if you or someone in your family has a gender identity that's not on the approved list--and that has an outsize effect. I won't go to those places since they don't deserve my tax dollars, and am just jumping on a bandwagon of plenty of other people in making that decision.
- DeathArrow 1y ago
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xfalcox 1y ago
I just got an invite to Google I/O, which I've always dreamed of attending, but as someone from South America I'm having nightmares about ICE. It's just a 4 days trip, but I have an entire family that needs me to come back and not sent for a decade to a random overseas prison.
DeathArrow 1y ago
>
DeathArrow 1y ago
> I an not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is. Why would someone end up in a jail if he doesn't break any law?
throwaway5752 1y ago
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- DeathArrow 1y ago
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  - throwaway5752 1y ago
    They didn't simply expel them, the sent them to a foreign prison. Don't misrepresent what occurred. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a legal resident. They are doing this to people who _do_ have the right to stay. Even for those who are in the US illegally, they are entitled to basic human rights and have protections under US law. They can be deported in accordance with domestic and international law. Sending them to foreign prison camps instead is in fact a crime against humanity.
yodsanklai 1y ago
I don't think this is the main reason. US show hostility to the rest of the world, talking about annexing other countries or trying to ruin their economy. I know Trump doesn't represent all USers, but still, I much rather spend my tourist money somewhere else.
bchasknga 1y ago
Just like a lot of Americans (including the left) that I personally know who still think "51st state" is a light-hearted joke or "Trump doesn't mean it" or they don't think it's a serious threat. They don't know or don't think canadians takes this seriously and it's not fucking funny.

world2vec 1y ago

Exactly this. If someone from "high tier" countries like Canada and Germany can get locked up in ICE jails for several weeks imagine someone like me from a peripheral European country. Even worse, my youngest brother that has a more "tanned" appearance. tattoos, and a beard. I won't be visiting the US for the foreseeable future (used to go several times per year for work), just not worth the risk.

chimeracoder 1y ago
> Exactly this. If someone from "high tier" countries like Canada and Germany can get locked up in ICE jails for several weeks imagine someone like me from a peripheral European country. Even worse, my youngest brother that has a more "tanned" appearance. tattoos, and a beard. Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport?
- DarkWiiPlayer 1y ago
  I would hope it doesn't include getting locked up despite having a valid visa and proof of a return flight for several weeks.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport? Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you). EU Eastern Europe, you might get funny looks but it's still not an extraordinary situation to have various shades of skin colour (e.g. Syrians, various Central Asians are migrant workers in a few of the countries in question; a lot of e.g. the Balkans are on a palette of skin colours). Non-EU Eastern Europe (referring more to Belarus than Montenegro here), might get casual racism. Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no human rights because of your skin colour, beard, tattoos or anything of the like. Other than of course the usual suspects of Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and etc. who could for any reason.
  - chimeracoder 1y ago
    > Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you). As a person who matches the description above, and has traveled to Europe extensively and frequently, I can tell you that as much as Europeans like to believe this is this case, it is absolutely not true. > Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no human rights because of your skin colour, beard, tattoos or anything of the like. Other than of course the usual suspects of Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and etc. who could for any reason. Unless you're making some extremely critical assumptions about how much wear the word "indefinite" can bear, this is unfortunately not true either.
    - InitialLastName 1y ago
      How many weeks have you spent detained by EU border officials?
    - josephg 1y ago
      A couple years ago my girlfriend and I spent about 2 months travelling through europe. We visited about 10 countries on our trip. A lot of our travel between countries was by bus. After a few bus trips we started noticing something strange - the busses often pulled over for rest stops just after we'd changed countries. Everyone would all get out of the bus to stretch our legs, and some police would miraculously appear and decide they wanted to talk to some of the people who were on our bus. Now, officially the shengen zone means there's no need to show your documents between countries. But countries still don't want certain people coming in. And they don't want drugs smuggled in either. It was really interesting who they decided to pull aside for a chat. It was almost always men who were travelling alone. Almost always men who were in the 25-45 age range. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was some racial profiling going on as well. The police never questioned me - probably because I was with my girlfriend the whole time. If she wasn't there, I bet I would have been pulled aside every time too. Anyway, I believe your experience in Europe. But if you were a man travelling alone, its possible it was partially or fully due to that. For about a decade, every time I went through security at an airport I was always "randomly selected" to have my bag swabbed for chemicals. It never happens any more, and I'm as white as they come. I assume it was a gender + age + travelling alone thing - but its still a mystery to me.
- brookst 1y ago
  Are you implying there are similar arrests and indefinite detentions going on in Europe? Any data to share? Certainly worth being upset over if that’s a true accusation.
- bayindirh 1y ago
  I constantly travel to EU for work. I see all kinds of people from any part of the world, and they pass through fine. When I traveled last time, I have witnessed an European denied entry for a reason I don't know, and a white male without any beard has been escorted into the immigration office. Said office had a giant window. The officers were just chatting with him while checking his documents, and also drinking some coffee and eating some cake. I didn't look that long to see whether they have offered the same to him (because it's rude). Also, I don't have an EU/UK/US passport, and I just pass fine.
  - virtualritz 1y ago
    It all depends what part of the EU and how you look. For some EU perspective: last summer we traveled with a group of social dancers from Berlin to Pula in Croatia, going to an event at the coast. Croatia joined Schengen in January 2023. We had one couple in the group that where not "white". She is German but her parents are Vietnamese and he is from Syria. They're married, they have German citizenship. They were the only ones from our group of ~20 people who got singled out and had their papers and luggage (!) checked. She looks Asian, he looks Middle-Eastern (oh, and he has a beard!). That said, they just took 10mins longer to make it through the arrivals hall. They didn't get incarcerated. However, the year before they were traveling to a dance event in Belgrade. That was was before they got married so he didn't have a German passport yet. He only had a Syrian passport and a residence permit for Germany/Schengen. Serbia is not part of the EU. Usually such a mistake means they just send you back on the next flight. Happened to two friends of mine, both "white US citizens, who didn't also know this and were traveling to Belgrade from Switzerland two years before. My Syrian friend however spent three days in a jail in cell with a dozen criminals before they let him fly back to Germany. Mind you, the event they went to was four days and he had a return ticket that could have been easily changed to the arrival day. Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g.
    - chimeracoder 1y ago
      > Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g. Some countries are more "famous" for it, but that's really just a matter of perception and how it fits into an existing narrative, not based on actual evidence. It's not like there's data showing that racial profiling is lower in France, Germany, and Sweden than it is in Eastern Europe.
- ta1243 1y ago
  > Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport? With a Canadian or American passport (until recently)? No problem. With an Iranian passport? Probably more problems.
  - chimeracoder 1y ago
    > With a Canadian or American passport (until recently)? No problem. First of all, the folks profiling and detaining you don't ask you where your passport is from first - they'll generally make the decision and then ask for your documentation. But even then, I have a US passport, and I've had far more issues being detained in European airports than I have in the US - which is really saying something.
    - przemub 1y ago
      It’s saying that citizens are more trusted than non-citizens, obviously.
    - hylaride 1y ago
      > First of all, the folks profiling and detaining you don't ask you where your passport is from first - they'll generally make the decision and then ask for your documentation. It depends. Most countries do have certain kinds of extra policies for passports of certain countries. For example, Visa fraud, especially for education visas, is extremely common from India. So extra checks for those that the acceptance letter isn't from some diploma mill and that they're not coming to work illegally tends to to occur more often. But the same is true for local citizens that make odd, quick trips to certain countries that tend to be sources for drug smuggling - you're going to probably get pulled aside. Being a border guard is 40% art, 40% science, 10% luck, and 10% other. > But even then, I have a US passport, and I've had far more issues being detained in European airports than I have in the US - which is really saying something. You're a citizen, though. Unless they think you're importing something you shouldn't, you're far less likely to be hassled as you have more rights than others. As a Canadian, I found that Canadian border agents tend to harass their own citizens, especially at land crossings, because the default assumption seems to be we're trying to dodge paying duties. I've found American border guards mostly tend to act terse and rude (possibly as a strategy to try and trip you up?), though some of the nicest I've ever met were also American. I've found most EU guards with my Canadian passport to be bored and slow, though that may be because most Canadians going to Europe are just vacationing?
- jajko 1y ago
  Normal stuff, millions folks like that come every year. Millions folks like that live here and also have citizenship, I have friends and colleagues working in banking fitting that description (including passports). Now I am not saying we are uniform half a billion, not at all, wear burka in eastern EU in some small backwardish village and you will raise eyebrows and maybe more. Try that in US and its the same, to put it mildly.
- antman 1y ago
  There is no definition of “if you are not a citizen you are not a citizen and you are not entitled to a due process” in any EU airport AFAIK.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
    That's not the case in the US either. Like, how would that work if a non-citizen isn't bound to law anyway? "Oh you're not American, so you're not bound by our murder laws. Free to go". But this admin highly disagrees with that notion. Really hope the courts start throwing heads sooner rather than later.
    - pseudalopex 1y ago
      Not protected by laws and not bound by laws are different ideas.
      - abenga 1y ago
        This is like that old adage about conservatism.
        pseudalopex 1y ago
        You were thinking of Wilhoit's law probably. It was invented in 2018.
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  > Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport? I can answer that! It is pretty uneventful. My experience with the border checks in airports was always very pleasant (despite the lines, depending on the airport they can be pretty long)
- theshrike79 1y ago
  Europeans as general don't discriminate based on skin colour or race as much as Americans[0]. We discriminate based on what country you're from. =) [0] I am well aware there is racism in Europe, it's just ... different here.

BLKNSLVR 1y ago

I think the news feeds within the US may be approximately equal in their delivery of "this is good change" versus "this is catastrophic change", whilst internationally it's almost entirely "this is catastrophic change" with minor pockets of intolerance apologia. I'd be interested in alternate viewpoints since I may be in a bleeding-heart, empathetic, progressive, consequence-considering news bubble. My reasoning is that a family member who lives in the US said that they feel protected / insulated because they're in a deep blue state. I don't feel this is representative of reality, or at least they should be more alarmed than they sounded.

potato3732842 1y ago
>I think the news feeds within the US may be approximately equal in their delivery of "this is good change" versus "this is catastrophic change", whilst internationally it's almost entirely "this is catastrophic change" with minor pockets of intolerance apologia. Exactly. Americans generally don't understand the degree to which the rest of the world gets the CNN 5min recap of what's going on in the US, and it's very much the CNN recap and not the Fox one. "Tourists locked up, school children shot, government defunded, California on fire, tune in at 11 for more". The fact that ~half the country doesn't think ICE should be locking up tourists without good reason and the other ~half doesn't think ICE should be locking up anyone gets skipped. Edit: Just to head off the nitpickers, by "good reason" I mean stuff that border guards of any nation would lock anyone up for if they found, regardless of visa type, status or nation or origin.
- bondarchuk 1y ago
  When you are in stuck in a border control jail for 2 weeks it does not particularly matter who does or does not think you should be there.
  - ornornor 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - 1y ago

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stevage 1y ago

Yep. Last time I went to the US I made a mistake with my visa and was briefly detained. it could totally happen to me again, so I'd need a really good reason to run that risk again.

deleted 1y ago
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bananalychee 1y ago
"Detained" as in sent to secondary inspection, or actually arrested?
- the_svd_doctor 1y ago
  Aren't all immigration "arrests" all "detentions", technically speaking (not that it makes any difference in reality - you're behind bars)? Aren't ICE prisons called "detention centers"?
- stevage 1y ago
  They used the term detained, but "secondary inspection" would also describe it. I was there maybe 40 minutes.
  - bananalychee 1y ago
    I've been in secondary, but didn't have it described to me that way. I would not call it detainment without clarifying it because I associate that word with incarceration, but I am also reluctant to travel knowing the odds of that happening again are up.
    - stevage 1y ago
      They were quite clear that I wasn't allowed to leave and I wasn't allowed to use my phone. I'm not sure where a debate about semantics would have gotten me.
- ikanreed 1y ago

duxup 1y ago

Just the trade stuff, Trump's childish threats to allies. All seem baseless and arbitrary. Trump can't even keep track of who started the war in Ukraine... People don't realize how much good will is being toss aside.

mbfg 1y ago
We realize, just nothing we can do about it.
BLKNSLVR 1y ago
All of it. All of it is being tossed aside.
deleted 1y ago
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mcv 1y ago
The fact that Trump is nuts and possibly serving Putin by destroying the West is one thing, but the fact that so many people seem fine with it, corporations and institutions eager to do his bidding, Republicans all voting along with things they used to strongly oppose, that's really an eye opener.
- DeathArrow 1y ago
  Maybe for many people the democrats were worse and they are happy things are back to what they consider normal.
  - mcv 1y ago
    Not many, it seems. Also, not exactly normal.
    - account42 1y ago
      More normal than what was going on under Biden.

drooopy 1y ago

Flying from the EU to the US isn’t cheap, and the thought of potentially being denied entry (or worse) makes me think it's best not to visit again for another four years.

threeseed 1y ago

It's not even about being locked up in an ICE jail. In Australia, we just had someone [1] who was detained for 8 hours with their phone/laptop searched all because they stopped over in Hong Kong rather than flying direct to the US. It's that kind of irrational, unpredictable behaviour that makes travellers stay away and instead choose from one of the hundreds of other desirable travel destinations who want you to visit. [1] https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/an-australian-was-denied-us-entry-for-bizarre-reasons-he-s-not-alone-20250403-p5lov8.html?js-chunk-not-found-refresh=true https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/an-australian-w...

danmaz74 1y ago

I'm Italian, my wife is Russian and my sister lives with her family in California. I've always been pretty vocal online about my dislike for Putin, and since the war in Ukraine started, I became very worried about visiting Russia, just in case they needed some random Italian guy to extort concessions from the Italian government. So, I stopped going (we were planning a family trip right in the Summer of 2022). For this Summer we wanted to visit my sister, so we bought tickets last December. I've always been pretty vocal about my dislike for Trump too. Well, for the first time, I'm worried that, when traveling to the US, some overzealous TSA agent could ask me to get access to my social media accounts, and that I could be refused entry, or even get sent to one of those wonderful privately owned jails; you know, for lèse-majesté. I reckon that the risk is too little to warrant us canceling our trip, but honestly, if I didn't have my tickets already, I would probably not have bought them now. This is the craziest timeline.

BLKNSLVR 1y ago
I literally do not have any social media accounts (does HN count?), and I'm concerned that would immediately mark me as a suspicious individual (although I can eloquently justify this to the nth degree if required). Having said that, weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of scrubbing your social media accounts to minimise that particular concern? I don't have any, so I don't know what I'd be losing, but I can say that I feel sorry for some family members of mine who have been sucked in to the social media dopamine addiction farm. They'd be better off without it and having more time to be their own selves and live their own lives rather than other people's. /rant (sorry)
- danmaz74 1y ago
  Fact is, I don't want to self-censor. But thank you for your suggestion.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Strikes me there's a new AI service in there: aged social media accounts. Run by bots for at least 2 years and available for purchase to give you a plausible looking online footprint when needed. (A similar service exists for Cayman Island holding companies IIRC)

moolcool 1y ago

In the case of Canada I think it has more to do with the tariffs, and the open hostility to our sovereignty.

gitfan86 1y ago

This is the nature of social media. If you see 10 examples of something happening in another country there is a good chance you will alter your behavior. The reverse scenario is happening too. There are americans that refuse to go to europe because of the examples they seen of immigrants committing crimes and ruining neighborhoods. As someone who spends a lot of time on both locations, I know that both scenarios are rare, and can logically overcome the emotional response after seeing examples online. But for people who don't travel much I understand.

piva00 1y ago
I travel quite a bit, and there are only 2 places on Earth where I was close to a shooting happening in real time: São Paulo, Brazil, and Oakland, California. As much as the scenarios can be rare, there is an undeniable sense of everything hanging by a thin thread when traveling around the USA, which I've only experienced in Latin American countries in all my trips. Giving that I'm originally from Brazil even though with Swedish citizenship, I won't be traveling to the USA anytime in the near future. I have no idea what could happen, might be a completely rare occurrence to be profiled at the border, jailed for no cause, etc., but there's nothing in the USA worth enough to make me even more paranoid at crossing its borders. It's more like the straw that finally broke the camel's back, it's been brewing for a while, I've been stopped by CBP for holding both a B-1/B-2 visa on my Brazilian passport as well as an ESTA on my Swedish one, I do not want the potential issues that another interrogation by CBP at present times could create, like being sent to some jail for 20 days instead of just being refused entry and put on a plane to get back to the EU.
- drstewart 1y ago
  I travel even more than you and only got robbed twice in 40 years on earth: in Johannesburg, South Africa and Stockholm, Sweden. You can claim it's rare, but it happened on 100% of my trips to Sweden. Therefore, I will never travel back to Sweden. It's just not worth it and I have no idea what could happen (stabbing? murder?). Nothing in Sweden is worth the absolute fear this country provokes.
  - 1y ago

TwoNineA 1y ago

> 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. From my point of view, if POTUS blathers about annexing Canada, then the US doesn't deserve my tourist dollars, neither my Netflix subscription, neither my Amazon prime subscription. I've cut back on purchases/subscriptions from US companies as much as it was possible for me and my family. Also cancelled a trip to south east US. Purely out of spite.

tgv 1y ago
It's not spite, or doesn't have to be. Non US-citizens have very few ways of exerting pressure on the current administration, but money happens one of them.
enaaem 1y ago
Most stuff on Amazon is made in China anyways. Might as well order directly from Aliexpress or the producer's website. Exactly the same items, but without the American middleman.
- pjc50 1y ago
  There's definitely going to be some sort of EU-China rapprochement now. Not that China is less oppressive - they remain more oppressive, and I wouldn't like to, say, get caught with weed going into China. But they're much less loudly annoying about it. (another one to watch out for: opiate painkillers in your hand luggage into Middle Eastern states, including Dubai.)
  - Juliate 1y ago
    And they're much more consistent/predictable than the US, at this point.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
rekoil 1y ago

debian3 1y ago

If you are from Canada, get Nexus. Much less trouble crossing in USA. Small fee to pay for the peace of mind and the process to cross is so much faster.

mikepurvis 1y ago
Well yes, that would be a thing to do if this was only about personal safety (and one was only worried about the border and not getting vanned on some random street corner). At this point it's also about standing with our countrymen and spending our tourist dollars at home.

johnnyanmac 1y ago

I'm not surprised at all. That's North Korea/Russia levels of terror and it's honestly sickening that Trump can just go on TV and say "yeah it's a good deal I'm glad we're working with El Salvador".It's maddening the admin can admit a "mistake" but then fight with a judge that they can't be ordered to fix a blatant obsruction of the constitution they loved waving around the year prior I wouldn't take any risks either.

s_dev 1y ago

Ireland or at least Dublin Airport is unique in that it has 'US Preclearance' so when you land you simply pick up your bags at the carousel and leave the airport as you've passed US immigration based in Dublin Airport. This means if you're going to be denied entry it will probably be in Dublin which will make it a preferred airport of origin within the EU -- this is massively more convenient than getting stuck in JFK.

tremon 1y ago
The most high-profile cases weren't about people/tourists being denied entry. They were about people being detained on their exit from the US.
DeathArrow 1y ago
How can US border police work in a foreign country where they don't have a jurisdiction?
- lolc 1y ago
  What jurisdiction extends where depends entirely on the agreements some diplomats must have worked out. When I travel between France and England for example the paper checks are at the point of departure and there are no more checks on arrival.

dr__mario 1y ago

> I am not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is. I've turned down a 7-day-all paid-trip my company was offering me to San Francisco for this (and I had in the past a bad experience at Puerto Rico's border).

elric 1y ago

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 (not that students have lawyers on speed dial, but whatever). The culprit wasn't even among the people who were detained. No arrests were ever made. Just some good old scare tactics against teenagers. Basically: behaviour at US borders has been iffy for a lot longer than some folks might think.

jmull 1y ago
I don't know if you intend this, but you're implying nothing's changed but our awareness. However, there has been a significant change.
p_l 1y ago
Yeah, recent news are essentially raising this from "crossing US border is dangerous, prepare yourself" to "US border guards got a quota of terror to inflict, do you really want to gamble?"
jeffbee 1y ago
"Some of my friends, who are criminals, were questioned by border police" is not what we are discussing.
- elric 1y ago
  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.
  - pc86 1y ago
    Everyone's rights are severely curtailed at border crossings.

littlecranky67 1y ago

> 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. And they shouldn't. As far as I know, those cases of German getting locked up media coverage was intense, but the stories didn't check out. Those were cases of Germans entering by foot via Tijuana, making condracting claims to the ICE officer - raising suspicions with those officers. In case of entering the US by plane, I haven't seen and credible articles that resulted in detention.

realityking 1y ago
Fabian Schmidt holds a green card and was detained at Boston Logan airport and held for over two weeks: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna196714 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna196714 (It’s not clear to me if he has been released. The last media reports are from two weeks ago)
- littlecranky67 1y ago
  He failed to show up to a hearing about his green card. Not saying his treatment is warranted, but all those cases had at least some kind of merrit where an ICE agent might become suspicious. It is not as random tourists getting detained. "Schmidt’s green card was allegedly tagged for him failing to attend a hearing because the invitation was sent to his old address, according to the family’s fundraiser to cover Schmidt’s legal costs and loss of earnings. “To compound this error, he had just recently been provided with a new replacement Green Card since he had lost the original one,” the fundraising page says. “Even then U.S. Immigration failed to let him know that there was an outstanding hearing which he had missed and that his card would be tagged.”" Source: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/03/21/family-of-german-national-detained-at-logan-alleges-mistreatment-by-border-patrol/ https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/03/21/family-of-...
  - realityking 1y ago
    Good context. But mistakes happen but the response seems widely out of proportion. A system that demands absolute perfection from me is still not one I’d want to encounter.

alxlaz 1y ago

^ 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 miss a flight. Now that it's a political issue, rather than a logistical matter, so it's no longer professional or civilised, no thanks. I have one US customer and thankfully Google Meet is enough, because I'm not getting anywhere near the US for them. I can find other customers if I have to, but I don't think legal fees for navigating the oh-we-totally-had-good-reason-to-think-he-was-a-terrorist-your-honour jail are as easily deductible. As for leisure, haha, no, there are plenty of things to see all over the world where the chances of getting jailed because you said the wrong thing about the wrong president are much smaller. My visa expires this year, I'm not planning to renew it any time soon.

DeathArrow 1y ago
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?
- Juliate 1y ago
  ...yes? The risk is now definitely higher (and advertised by your own administration) than in many other destinations on Earth.
- pjc50 1y ago
  At the border? Well, it's not a high chance in absolute terms, but the risk of being deemed to have broken the law due to visa/ESTA noncompliance is a lot higher. I would certainly no longer do US travel for a conference on a tourist visa in case that's deemed "work". (pop quiz to Americans: what visa do I need for that situation, and how difficult is it to get?)
- windward 1y ago
  It doesn't have to be high to be negative EV

nkozyra 1y ago

> 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. We read about it, too. It just seems absolutely nobody close to power is willing to do anything to even tap the brakes.

detourdog 1y ago

I think foreigners might not realize how freaked out some Americans are. They appear to be testing the boundaries by going after easy targets.

Arubis 1y ago

There's a pretty sizable proportion of USians that have a hard time accepting that other countries exist. For what it's worth, we're also starting to have similar (though so far less pronounced) reactions to domestic travel. There's a number of states that are unsafe to travel to if you or someone in your family has a gender identity that's not on the approved list--and that has an outsize effect. I won't go to those places since they don't deserve my tax dollars, and am just jumping on a bandwagon of plenty of other people in making that decision.

DeathArrow 1y ago
[flagged]

xfalcox 1y ago

I just got an invite to Google I/O, which I've always dreamed of attending, but as someone from South America I'm having nightmares about ICE. It's just a 4 days trip, but I have an entire family that needs me to come back and not sent for a decade to a random overseas prison.

DeathArrow 1y ago

> I an not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is. Why would someone end up in a jail if he doesn't break any law?

throwaway5752 1y ago

[flagged]

DeathArrow 1y ago
[flagged]
- throwaway5752 1y ago
  They didn't simply expel them, the sent them to a foreign prison. Don't misrepresent what occurred. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a legal resident. They are doing this to people who _do_ have the right to stay. Even for those who are in the US illegally, they are entitled to basic human rights and have protections under US law. They can be deported in accordance with domestic and international law. Sending them to foreign prison camps instead is in fact a crime against humanity.

yodsanklai 1y ago

I don't think this is the main reason. US show hostility to the rest of the world, talking about annexing other countries or trying to ruin their economy. I know Trump doesn't represent all USers, but still, I much rather spend my tourist money somewhere else.

bchasknga 1y ago

Just like a lot of Americans (including the left) that I personally know who still think "51st state" is a light-hearted joke or "Trump doesn't mean it" or they don't think it's a serious threat. They don't know or don't think canadians takes this seriously and it's not fucking funny.