Mem Fox, Australian author, won't go back to US after being detained | Hacker News Reader

Mem Fox, Australian author, won't go back to US after being detained

abc.net.au

64 pointsDebugreality17 comments

A friend of mine was denied entry into the US after having travelled there a few times. Since there was no return flight the same day, and the airport was closing overnight, he had to spend the night in a cage (they call it detention center, but it is a cage), where he was raped (they call it body cavity search, but it is penetration without consent, and therefore rape). We he returned the next day, he was actually traumatized.

Two hours of questioning is nothing in comparison, and the "I felt like I was physically assaulted" line when there was no actual assault makes me sick. Actual assaults happen all the time, people from supposedly friendly nations are routinely treated like animals, and nobody even receives a letter of apology.

Ahh, the good old days, when the worst thing about being "randomly selected" three times in a row was slight annoyance and delays as they went through your baggage... now they're into full-jackboot mode.

Note this writer is white and "anglo"; but her books support respect among the different and a melting-pot worldview, so she's a dangerous subversive and worth of intimidation.

Dark times.

It's been this while for quite some time if you have "Muslim" names. "I'm sorry, my computer's stopped working. Please come this way."

And yup being sixty or seventy isn't going to help you. Perhaps new rules have made this common (I don't know) but this is how American border personnel are. It's fairly well known among the affected communities.

I have to comment about her age: when I read the article, I was shocked when she said she was 70. Her photos look like someone who isn't a day over 50. She looks absolutely fantastic.

That said, she's absolutely right to stay out of the US. This place is not safe for foreigners, and the treatment she described can be assumed to be the norm now. Take your tourism dollars to a country that treats you right.

Simply incredible.

She got a 'charming' apology letter only because she's famous and the US got caught with its pants down. To think that this happens every day to people without a platform.

As an Australian...

I'm never going to the US, no way fuck that.

Same here. Just turned down an invitation to meet an Amazon recruiter primarily because of the requirement to travel to the US.

yup, I'd be more comfortable going to one of those scary Muslim countries like Tunisia than the US.

I've met her a few times. There is nothing remotely threatening about her. Pull your heads out of of your arses, America.

Please understand that not all Americans condone this.

As an American, I really dislike statements like this. We voted for this, and a very large portion of our population wants jack-booted authoritarianism like this.

No, not all Americans condone this, just like not all Americans speak English. But we Americans can absolutely be assumed to condone this overall. We chose this, and it's not just the latest election with Trump; this kind of thing was going on under Bush and Obama too. This country has been going this way for a long time.

The Decline and Fall. American refugees welcome here. I can't remember what was it that made the possum visible again?

I'd love to move to the .au

just do it man, fairly sure you wont regert it ;-)

Maybe it is just me (and I am not mother tongue English speaker) but this:

>"I thought: 'How can human beings treat other vulnerable human beings in this fashion, in public, in full view of everybody?'

Somehow makes me think that the same things if done privately and not in public could even be admissible?

I think her point was the public humiliation made a bad thing even worse.

Yes, maybe, or maybe it was meant to underline how they (border/custom officers) had not any kind of difficulties in doing that publicly, i.e. hinting that that kind of arrogant behaviour is (or can become) the "new normal"? Anyway, it is yet another (to me) "terrifying report", I have never been to the US, but from what friends/people I know told me noone in the airport/custom have ever been anything less than respectful and professional when dealing with them (as tourists entering the country). Of course this is not even anecdotal, it is "reported anecdotal", so take it for what it is, but maybe something is really changing in the attitude towards visitors.

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