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.

> 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.

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.

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

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

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.