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My guess is that DHS denies entry to random people just to hit some internal quotas.

This. Without reading the article, my first assumption is that a Visa was denied on random grounds, eg coming from a country where visas are already hard to get. I can't believe anyone on the US Visa offices actually doing their research on the person.

Countries where VISA applications have a high failure rate aren't part of the ESTA program to begin with. Having a low rejection rate is a condition for being in the program.

It's hard for Swedes to get a visa to visit the US? When did that happen?

>I can't believe anyone on the US Visa offices actually doing their research on the person.

Suspect Palantir, or some other contractor having some shitty software to score applicants based on social media + web searches + magic sauce.

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