> Good travel advice to follow in a later post…
Do not travel to the US until they treat non-citizens as people.
Do not travel to the US until they treat non-citizens as people.
In my company, people have a choice where they're sent, so if you like being stripped naked by the border monkeys, go but don't complain later.
The US isn't the only country that does this.[1] Maybe instead of avoiding the US, don't leave your home country at all?
[1]http://globalnews.ca/news/3268531/cellphone-search-at-the-bo...
The prints were taken in the old-school way using ink and file cards - after which the cards were unceremoniously dumped in a bin.
Apparently, it is possible to be a d--k with some class when working border patrol duty. :-)
75 MILLION non-citizens visit the United States each year and 41% of those entered via New York, Miami or Los Angeles.
On a typical day, less than 1000 people are refused entry. Some of the reasons for refused entry include not having sufficient funds to support themselves for the duration of the trip, suspicion of being an intended immigrant without a visa for that purpose, ties to criminal organizations, having overstated a previous visa, having a dangerous infectious disease, having been found guilty of crimes of moral turpitude (rape, fraud, child mokestation,) having been found guilty of a major crime, a lack of proof (in the case of tourists) of continuing ties to their origin country.
This hyperbole about non-citizens not being treated as people is just nonsense.
In Schengen (and many other countries, such as Korea), you can get randomly stopped for visa and passport checks, especially in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. If you overstay a Schengen visa for even a few days, you can sometimes expect to endure a more inconvinient immigration experience when attempting to leave the area (especially in Germany.) You have U.K. immigration working on Eurostars leaving from Brussels South and also allows them to actually work in the station. You have Belgium-UK information sharing and coordination on that route.
There have been instances of U.K. Immigration denying entry to an American woman carrying a cello because she was to play in a free concert at a university in Leeds. They deemed that unpaid activity "work," detained her for 8 hours and deported her back to Chicago. Other academic performers have been denied entry when carrying large instruments as well.
My point: immigration everywhere has seemingly arbitrary, ridiculous incidents. Should we just stop traveling anywhere?
As a US citizen who has traveled to nearly 60 nations, I have never met a more accusatory, aggressive, macho, angry, often-times rude reception than in my land of birth, and I'm a native-born citizen!
While what you say, regarding Schengen border controls, may be somewhat true, the nature of their "extra procedures" is completely different in quality to the American counterpart. One doesn't find the systematic large-scale militarized detention center processes nor attitudes. We are the most aggressively suspicious nation and yet no one seems to question 1) if it's even effective. Barring warrant nabs, which a simple ID scan can produce, what actual harm to the public is being prevented and at what cost to our national values and business productivity? (to say nothing of the MOOD)
2) if, in fact, foreigners are actually coming over to the USA with the explicit intent to harm the nation and how you could possibly stop that at a border, if they were to comply proceduraly. I would warrant that most people will be hostile to hostile and intrusive questions asked by an irate and overworked angry border beaurocrat whose only daily joy, as pointed out in the article, is in exercising their power to expel someone etc...
3) What about Ben Franklin's famous quote and our national values? "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
I think that it's clear as the nose on my face that recent top-level directives and a general change in leadership and policies has resulted in a more rigorous entry process to the USA and the work culture for these officers has changed from "be polite cheerful and thorough" to "give em a hard time"
If we can get some acknowledgment of this point, that would be great :D Why such a sycophantic attitude towards those abusing power?
I don't disagree with your other sentiment but this part made me laugh. My anecdotal experience has been that it varies considerably depending upon the staff member but generally they are as bored as immigration at every foreign port I've entered (Sample size of 40+ US entries as a permanent resident at LAX, ORD, ATL, SFO, IAH, and several land border checkpoints with Canada. Foreign experience has been NZ, Australia, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia, UK, Spain, France, Denmark, and Germany - all major entry points) and never had issues with US immigration, including one time when a green card expired while I was out of the country.
I've been grilled more aggressively by UK and Danish immigration! I always assumed that this was just part of their training to catch people looking to overstay though.
We have a mix of US and New Zealand passports and I've always put the NZ one on top - the agent usually starts admiring the design as I hand it over and the conversation starts on a friendlier note!
As a digital nomad this is what worries me when I go to the US. I would never want to live in the US but try convincing a border guard...
I'm alway extremely nervous when encountering an immigration officer in the US because they are much more aggressive than the ones I've encountered in other countries (and I've traveled all over Europe and Asia).
In China I was required to register with the authorities every time I switched hotels.
I've had interactions with Canadian border agents that was very unpleasant and seen German border agents armed with submachine guns take people off of trains.
Now, I think we (the US) should change the way our border officers behave & I think demanding access to electronic devices is dumb & harmful, but border patrol everywhere are agents of the state and can be scary to interact with.
For the record I've also had great interactions with Chinese, Canadian, German & American border agents.
I know what to expect in those countries and I know that there won't be any issues so long as follow the official or unofficial (in the case of southeast China) rules.
In the US, I don't like the arbitrariness of the border agents , I'm never sure if I might have an issue or not (like the article about the French academic). And, while not all US border agents are agressive, the most agressive agents I've met were all in the US.
How do they know? Do they check/request bank account details at the airport?