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Is there any evidence that this guy was specifically singled out for being non-white, or that this has anything to do with Trump at all?

Border guards are allowed to ask you questions to see how you react and to corroborate your story.

If someone (from any country) entered claiming to be a physicist, would it be reasonable to ask him to try to solve some integrals?

No, it wouldn't? What does a border guard know about calculus, much less some physicist's particular area of research? The whole reason this is farcical is that self-balancing search tree algorithms are notoriously based on multiple balancing cases and it's ridiculous to expect someone to have memorized them. Some even rely on amortized bounds which only complicates the implementation and explanation further.

Even ignoring the border guard's competence, there's a difference between being able to solve problems and being able to solve problems after traveling for 23 hours straight - as @cyberomin said he had been. Maybe if it's pure recital from memory, something so basic that it should come to mind automatically without active thought (self-balancing trees are not even close), then I might trust myself to answer while sleep-deprived to that extent; but even then, I might easily make very stupid mistakes. If solving the problem requires even a bit of active intellectual effort, then forget about it; I'm too tired for that shit.

How would a border agent even prove they possess the necessary skills and knowledge to even verify the veracity of an answer? As a tech consultant who spends inordinate amounts of time explaining to clients various kinds of plausible-sounding bullshit from others, I seriously doubt border agents can fare better.

That's not the purpose of questioning - the answer doesn't matter, it's how the questions are answered.

How are immigration officers supposed to do their jobs? The purpose of immigration officers isn't to just blindly stamp passports; they actually have to determine if the person attempting to enter should be allowed to enter. Which interestingly, is the job of immigration officers across the world.

I feel like people are just looking for fight and begging for something about which to be outraged. Immigration and Customs officers from all countries have been doing this as long as there have been Customs and Immigration.

You could give any answer to those kind of questions and as long as you seem confident and sound truthful, you breeze past and aren't given a second look. The CBP officer might just happen to be knowledgeable in your field enough to be able to verify your answer or he may have no clue and just pulled a question from his ass. They are just looking for a reaction and the tone of your answer.

Well, they might have the key. If your answer does not match the answer in the key, BAM, you are not allowed.

(Not saying that this is the correct approach, just saying that this is possible if correctness is not a goal.)

I never said he was singled out, or by race/ethnicity/color even.

Whether this relates to Trump: As others have pointed out, yes this has been happening before Trump, I'm not alluding to Trump being the sole cause. The point that I'm making is that leaders (president and even local leaders) who can make statements or take actions that are contrary to the country's laws have an effect on the guy on the streets. If you tell me that foreigners are taking our jobs (regardless of its truth), I might not be very objective as a CBP employee. I might even be biased against certain people, but that's hard to judge as we are different as humans.

The guy on the tweet said he was asked 10 other questions, and they seemed to expect textbook/Wikipedia type answers. A blog post from him will hopefully have more details for us to make better observations. You make a fair point about the physicist, but everything in moderation is fair.

My point if any, is that what leaders/politicians say affects our attitude and often opinions. Whether we like such leader or not, I hope we can agree on that at least.

This story has nothing to do with Trump, his policies, or rhetoric. CBP tries to assess if a story is valid, this sounds like some kid who took a few classes being a dick. Stop trying to make every little thing about Trump because of your personal bias. You sound just as ignorant as the idiots who tried to pillory Obama at every turn.

This was happening before Trump:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13742349

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13741979

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13742737

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13741871

> This is what happens when you have a populist president

Spare me. This stuff was happening pre-Trump, and it will happen post-Trump.

Care to provide a citation for people being asked hard algorithmic questions by CBP before?

To be clear, I don't think Trump is directly responsible for this. But I think he's sent a signal to fascists and racists around the country that America is for white people and it's okay to throw your weight around. He's a bully, so he's emboldened other bullies (which, unfortunately, dominate law enforcement).

> But I think he's sent a signal to fascists and racists around the country that America is for white people and it's okay to throw your weight around

You have that exactly backwards. He was voted in legitimately by the right and center because the left failed to do anything to address their grievances, justified or not, and circumstances.

Trump (and Brexit, etc.) is the signal that the public is sending to the left and may heaven help us all because we're sure going to need it.

I think the reasons Trump won and the message he's sending in office are, in fact, different things. There were a whole lot of unhappy Trump voters (people voting for him despite lots of reservations about his policies and demeanor) and a lot them were due to the left not addressing their grievances.

That doesn't change the fact that his rhetoric has emboldened hard-right fascists and bullies. It's inarguable at this point.

I'm not sure I follow... the parent comment didn't seem to question the legitimacy of his election. And I also think that Trump's attitude in general can be seen by many as a validation of that behavior ("throwing your weight around" / bullying).

When I applied for my TN I had to convince the border guard I could do the job. I didn't have to balance a binary tree but I did have to name drop CS concepts.

There are a number of examples on this page of it happening previously and in a variety of locations.

Do you have a citation supporting bullies dominating law enforcement -- specifically Immigration enforcement officers?

Thanks, you made the point better than I could have. I'll validly get some flack for starting out by linking my comment to POTUS, which is good as it teaches me to reason much better with sensitive topics where there's often no objective answer.

This is what happens when you have a president you don't like. Everything you don't like around you becomes their fault.

It happened before Trump but there is no way that someone aggressively calling for greater immigration enforcement isn't going to be encouraging border agents to do whatever they think is "greater enforcement" and as we can that greater enforcement is mighty arbitrary.

So, it's "yes and no but mostly no"

People have been asked CS questions at airport security earlier too?

First, this wasn't airport security, this was immigration. Secondly, CBP officers routinely ask questions to incoming passengers -- even to Americans! Binary Trees? I don't know -- but neither does anyone else because we're talking hundreds of thousands of people per day and only a self-selecting few post their encounters on Twitter; all of the oil field workers returning from Africa probably aren't posting their every encounter with Immigration on Twitter. People having their bags ripped apart by Thai Customs aren't likely getting featured on Hacker News. How are Serbians treated when they transit the Frankfurt Airport? I have a friend who is a designer who was asked to open his computer and show some of his designs and I have had others who entered Germany/France with no problem. Most people don't post play-by-play of their travel experiences -- so we see a very narrow and potentially inaccurate view based on stereotypes and anecdotes rather than fact.

All of this "anecdotes are now valid data" nonsense seems to be contradictory for a group of people who purport to be interested in software engineering and the implied respect for statistical validity that would encompass.

Why is this even a story? Immigration officers ask questions to detect inconsistencies -- nothing at all new about that-- nothing even wrong with that. The guy couldn't even answer it and was still admitted. If he was arrested because he couldn't solve binary trees, now THAT would be a story.

> This is what happens when you have a populist president, people start disregarding the law and listen to the President even if he/she is wrong.

Where are you getting this from? You're linking the questions supposedly asked to someone entering the US to the president that was inaugurated a little more than 30 days ago, who has not passed any kind of legislation or EOs that would have any impact on what border control agents ask their clients.

> The point I'm getting at is that this lawlessness started because a populist president and other leaders started shooting from the hip, making inflammatory statement and playing political football with our lives.

Zuma has been in power since 2009. Ah yes, I remember the SA of 2008, such a peaceful, strife-free wonderland.

I'll presume you to either also be South African or at least following politics here. Yes, Zuma wasn't in power, but this was around campaigning time leading up to 2009. The violence wasn't pervasive around most of the country, but was in many people's post-analysis linked to local politicking.

The country wasn't different between 2008 and 2009, but as a township living black South African I can tell you that because of what populists have said, and the role of the media incorrectly reporting to click-bait us, things have gotten worse.

To answer your first question, many people have posted that this has been happening in the US, what I'm saying is that if a senior political can say something popular yet Constitutionally incorrect, people who have the "power" to act on that will use their power.