I would be very sympathetic if this article described a situation in which the U.S. wouldn't give this person a visa and so they couldn't travel there. However

I would be very sympathetic if this article described a situation in which the U.S. wouldn't give this person a visa and so they couldn't travel there. However, I struggle to find much sympathy for the actual case in which the U.S. didn't "technically" (?) give this person a visa but they tried to cross the border anyway, border control wasn't amused by this (shocker), they had to wait around a little bit and explain themselves, and then they basically got the best outcome they could have possibly hoped for in trying to cross an international border knowingly without the correct paperwork.