Denied Entry | Hacker News Reader

Denied Entry

daniel.haxx.se

284 pointsantongribok70 comments

The thread from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14643467

Someone asked me today when I was going to visit the US again. I told them never. That is, not until this madness stops. The US now treats citizens from allied countries as enemies and that's just plain rude and not called for. There isn't a shred of evidence that any of this has made America safer in any way and it would be pretty easy to argue that it has made America less safe on account of pissing off large numbers of people both inside and outside the USA.

> The US now treats citizens from allied countries as enemies and that's just plain rude and not called for.

Alliances are made between governments, not the citizenry. What if the US thinks there's a threat to it within the citizenry of an allied country? What should the US do?

If a "travel ban" or "muslim ban" or (apparently) "guy who coded curl ban" was actually in any way effective, by any yardstick, at reducing danger to the US, then perhaps some action would be warranted. But this is completely hypothetical. I think history will judge Trump and his apologists very harshly.

> What should the US do?

Focus on the threat, not ban the whole bloody country or make all travelers from that country suffer somehow. Really this is a totally disproportional response. Note that this specific individual was blocked whereas you hypothesize a general threat, the two have nothing to do with each other unless you're aware of the Curl author being up to no good.

Something that I was curious about, and which others might also be:

>Sorry, you’re not allowed entry to the US on your ESTA.

"ESTA" stands for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, and is a program administered by US Customs & Border Protection (part of the Department of Homeland Security). It's used by people in Visa Waiver countries to submit information about themselves & their travel plans, before they depart their country of origin.

More info here: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/esta

Info on the Visa Waiver program: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/visa-waive...

I guess Mr. Stenberg could have applied for a B-1 Visa to cover the visit, but I thought the whole reason for the Visa Waiver program was to remove the need for people in member countries to get a B-1.

I live in a country which requires a B-1 anyway. The reason we have to apply for visas is that too many (3%) people overstay their visas or something like that. Well, I got the visa bought the tickets and got asked about my return tickets upon departing from London. It turns out that under ESTA you need return tickets, but with a visa you don't (and the reason for the visa in the first place is people were not returning). There is no common sense to this.

The whole point of the visa waiver program is to make travel frictionless, you just get on a plane and go -- and then here comes ESTA, wasting peoples time and money with fruitless bureaucracy again.

I wonder how many Swiss and Japanese terrorists have had their plots foiled due to the life-saving shield of ESTA.

How is this not a violation of whatever agreements all these other countries signed to let us in without any paperwork, and yet they have to file paperwork to get into the USA?

Maybe next we can quarantine all new arrivals for 72 hours in some kind of security camp, where they'll endure an arduous interview process to make sure they're safe -- run by highly qualified TSA geniuses.

As I said in the prior thread, I'm still betting on this being a clerical error.

I -- US citizen -- was once almost denied boarding of an international flight because the airline's system had screwed up my passport information, and they thought I would need a visa to return to the US (and of course I didn't have a visa). I found this out at the airport. Luckily I was able to get it resolved in time by showing the airline agents my passport, and a supervisor was able to override or correct something to let me get a boarding pass, but relying on the kindness and competence of front-line airport staff is risky at best. I might just as easily have encountered someone who would tell me "The computer says no, and I can't do anything for you when the computer says no".

Someone on the previous thread about this was arguing that the EU should start imposing the same sorts of border checks that the US does to EU citizens, on US citizens coming into the EU. The theory being that this sort of tit-for-tat approach would encourage US citizens so inconvenienced would shout for change at home.

Your post though, I think, outlines the flaw in this argument. Which is that most people don't know the rules of entry for foreign visitors to their own country, and wouldn't therefore know how onerous it is. Why would a US passport holder (by birth, of whom I assume there are a lot more than people who've acquired one after immigrating) have any clue what I, as a UK citizen, need to do in order to spend my vacation or whatever in Miami?

I'm certainly hazy on what the current rules are for US citizens to come to the UK. I think we have a visa-waiver programme in place, but I don't know what it entails at all, and whether it's already as terrible for US citizens coming here as it is for me going to the US.

So instigating those sorts of changes here is probably unlikely to have the effect that poster was hoping for. Hmm. This turned into a much longer ramble than I thought it would.

It's actually an official principle in EU visa policy to grant visa waivers reciprocal to the other country granting it to EU citizens. The established time frames have been ignored in the case of the US for years, which is why this bubbles up regularly, especially when the situation gets worse.

"DHS has carefully developed the ESTA program to ensure that only those individuals who are ineligible to travel to the United States under the VWP or those whose travel would pose a law enforcement or security risk are refused an ESTA. While the ESTA website provides a link to the DHS Travel Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) website, there are no guarantees that a request for redress through DHS TRIP will resolve the VWP ineligibility that caused an applicant’s ESTA application to be denied.

U.S. Embassies and Consulates are not able to provide details about ESTA denials or resolve the issue that caused the ESTA denial. Embassies and Consulates will process an application for a non-immigrant visa, which, if approved, will be the only way that a traveler whose ESTA application has been denied would be authorized to travel to the U.S."

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/frequently...

As someone who has been through this bureaucracy — DHS, consulate, TRIP, etc. — I can tell you that it's a huge pain.

It's a completely opaque system. There's no way to talk to anyone directly. You can only send letters, and hope for a reply. Even seasoned immigration lawyers will have to go through this infuriatingly slow and obtuse system of sending letters and then waiting a long time to get a vague, unhelpful reply in return for some nameless functionary.

In my case, there was an error in my records, and we tried to get them to expunge the offending information. But every time we clarified to them what had happened, we got a reply back basically summarizing the issue, with no solution. My lawyers had to keep doing this until they finally got a redress number and a notification that something may be happening. Meanwhile, the various government databases are not unified or even talking to each other, so all the information about the error was apparently held by the immigration office at JFK (or something like that), not centrally at DHS, which made everything a lot harder. Eventually we received a confirmation that something had been done to rectify the problem, but — in a kafkaesque twist — they refused to say what, and they could not guarantee that there would be no further problems.

To this day I am still being pulled into the immigrations office for some light interrogation every time I enter the US. Which is whenever I come back, since I now live in the US.

The visa application process is similarly kafkaesque and characteristically unfriendly. For example, while applying for a visa, there's absolutely no way to contact the consulate (or at least there wasn't in my home country). Forget about calling or visiting, there's no way to talk to anyone except by appointment, and appointments are only for getting an interview to submit your visa application. And what's hilarious about both the visa system and ESTA is that they don't even guarantee entry. Visas are issued by the consulate, but you can get a visa from them and still be denied entry by DHS. As a European used to my government being quite friendly and approachable, the cold-heartedness of the whole thing was quite shocking.

I think the reason for the denials is a change in the interpretation of the rules.

ESTA used to be for short term visits for any reason.

I think some people in CBP now interpret it to mean a short stay that is not "work" related.

You can look up all the academics -- which were definitely covered by ESTA -- who have had issues because some people at the border were not sure on how to interpret them.

They are not alone. Way back in 2007 or so (so before Trump, but after 9/11), I overheard a German visa officer tell an American that it was totally illegal for them to work if they just came as a visitor. He had to get a work visa and it was long and complicated.

He had made the mistake of telling her that he planned to hop over to visit some clients.

He then said something like "oh, ok, its not a work trip its just a vacation. Nevermind about the visa, good bye." and walked out.

I think someone interpreted the conference as "work", and that is what lead to all this.

I think they (whoever it is) should make it clear to the officers what the policy is, and I also think the policy should be that conferences and the like are covered by ESTA.

The boundary between "business" as covered by B-1 visas and "work" can be fuzzy. If you are employed by a US company and you get paid by said company while in the US (i.e. you're not on vacation) then your trip can be interpreted as working in the US. It's not clear which Mozilla entity is Daniel's employer but I've seen similar situations. Companies that have a lot of international employees traveling to the US typically know what sort of papers or preparations need to happen to reduce the chance of these things.

Another crazy example, if you own a house in the US but you're not permitted to work there, fixing your own house counts as work and could get you deported banned from entry. You have to hire someone else to fix it.

Borders are stupid... And the US has been this way basically for ever. If anything I think they got a little better vs. e.g. 10 or 20 years ago. I used to work for a Canadian company that did a lot of business in the US and there was some time period (~15 years ago) where any company employee attempting to travel to the US had a lot of difficulty because those guys got it into their heads that the company was doing something funny.

You can run into trouble in various other places in the world as well.

Back when I worked for Mozilla, I often had to travel to the Toronto office for team meetings (most of the team I was on was remote).

I always had to carry a letter to give to CBSA at the Canadian border, explaining the difference between Mozilla US and Mozilla Canada, that I was an employee of Mozilla US and would not be paid by Mozilla Canada, that I would not do any work for Mozilla Canada, and in fact (I loved this bit) that I would not be "working" (whatever that legal term meant) at all while in Canada, only attending meetings. We used to joke that we couldn't fix bugs while at those gatherings, since that would be work and put us in violation of what the letter said.

> I overheard a German visa officer tell an American that it was totally illegal for them to work if they just came as a visitor.

That can't be right. You are definitely allowed to work on a visa waiver in Austria and as far as I know it's the same in Germany if the company you work for applies for a permit. That is independently of the purpose of the visa.

In Austria at least all visas do not permit you to seek employment ("labor market access") where as permits (usually called "titles") give you labor market access. The border crossing is then usually decoupled from the permit.

For instance if you need a visa to enter Schengen you will need a Visa to cross and a title/permit to work. If you are visa exempt you only need the title/permit.

A quick googling also suggests that is the case for Germany.

No, the situation is different in Germany. You are not allowed to work under a visa waiver. The permit is something you personally apply for and not the company. Some time ago the permits regulating work and stay were unified so you only get issued one thing that contains everything. Some residence titles give you access to the whole labour market, some are coupled to a specific job, some don't allow you to work at all.

There is a special exemption for US citizens (and some others) which allows them to apply for a residence permit after entering Germany on a waiver. Until it is granted, no work is allowed.

The question though is whether "visiting clients" actually constitutes work. Just negotiating contracts does not, actually performing work there is (duh).

Ah. Interesting. That was decoupled in Austria and since we steal all the things from Germany I assumed it was the same there.

The allowed business activities under the visa waiver program are:

* consult with business associates

* attend a scientific, educational, professional, or business convention or conference

* attend short-term training (you may not be paid by any source in the United States with the exception of expenses incidental to your stay)

* negotiate a contract

Source: https://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/visit/visa-waiver-...

Academic conferences are explicitly allowed. This sounds more like "consult with business associates" though which should still be allowed.

Horrible though this is, it's (bizarrely) better than the pre-ESTA alternative. My brother was denied entry to the US in 2003 while traveling on a visa waiver. At this point he was detained (without access to counsel) until a suitable outbound flight was available, and deported. The red stamp in his passport renders him ineligible to apply for an entry visa until 2018. This is all on the discretion of one immigration official, with no recourse for appeal. The justification is that when you sign the visa waiver, you agree to all this.

Edit: my brother is not entirely innocent in all this, but knowing before you fly is an improvement

In what way wasn't he innocent? Did he talk back to the official, or not have a return ticket?

he answered no to the question "Have you ever been arrested"

FWIW that can still happen with ESTA as well.

Being denied entry is the same as being accused of a crime, but not being allowed to face your acuser nor defend yourself in any way. It's infuriating in every way, even if it doesn't affect directly. Why? Because someone, somewhere - most likely without a shred of empirical proof - decided that it would be "safer" if people aren't told why they were denied, because otherwise the "bad guys" would be able to circumvent the system or some other equally moronic rationale. We all know the type of close minded, ignorant pinhead who made that decision, and it's infuriating they actually have any sort of control over our daily lives.

Not sure I agree with the analogy " Being denied entry is the same as being accused of a crime"

Consequence of being accused of crime is prosecution, with potential loss of freedom (or death).

Consequence of being denied entry into one country in the world -- is not the same (unless you are unfairly prosecuted in your own country and there is no other country that you can go to).

Being denied to enter a country, more akin, in my view, to being denied a job interview (and subsequent employment).

How is "being denied to enter a country" not "loss of freedom"?

I get that this is a nice jumping off point for a general condemnation of the security state, but in this specific case, the VISA waiver program is primarily intended for tourism and allows only very limited business use:

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/BusinessVisa%20Pu...

The common thread is that you can use it to receive awards, attend conferences, or meet with clients, but only if you do not receive any income for doing that. So something like an office all hands meeting is really a gray area -- you are being paid a salary to attend that all hands meeting. IANAL, but it doesn't seem like an extreme situation to say that this should require a regular B-1 VISA and not be covered under the visa waiver program.

Now you can argue that all hands should be covered, or that the VISA waiver laws should be changed, but reasonable people can disagree about this. I don't think the situation warrants current the level of outrage, or is a good poster boy for condemning bureaucrats wanting "control over our daily lives".

Also, the individual was not denied entry, he was denied a VISA waiver. He can still get the VISA and then enter. This is really something you need to check beforehand.

It's popular to poo on USA these days, but I had a similar experience with Canada.

I was about to present at NIPS (a ML conference in Vancouver) in 2010, but was denied visa (Czech citizen - EU). No reason given. Those pesky PhD computer scientists, we don't want them in our country, ruining our economies! :)

I also cursed a bit, but unlike the OP, didn't cry (WTF?). It's their country, their rules, their loss (I think).

I wasn't the only one by the way, and NIPS moved away from Canada the following year.

> I also cursed a bit, but unlike the OP, didn't cry (WTF?).

It's not really constructive to criticize how someone else responded emotionally to the same situation. It's great for you that you didn't cry, but it's not like anyone chooses to cry, and there's nothing wrong with them for doing so.

Well, that was my initial reaction, honestly. It's great for you that your reaction was different, but it's not like anyone chooses their initial reaction. How is criticising me for it constructive?

I only wish the best for Daniel, I know the situation sucks.

Kudos to the QUIC working group for this absolutely correct response: "We won’t hold any further interim meetings in the US, until there’s a change in this situation."

Couldn't this hurt people in the US who want to go to a conference but would have trouble with reentry?

Yes it can if you are referring to non-citizens.

Yes, but it's better than the alternative.

Since they have meetings rotating between multiple continents, the WG chair probably already knows about all participants for which this is an issue. They explicitly mention being aware of this problem in their announcement, but that they deem it less critical right now.

I'm a US citizen and routinely fly to various out of country locations including somewhat suspicious places like Belarus (no longer need a visa to go there for short trips) and have never had a problem re-entering. It probably doesn't hurt that I'm a middle-aged white guy, though.

International conferences should be considering this also. I'm a plain white guy with nothing dramatic to hide and I was apprehensive on my recent visit to the US. I can imagine people working in tech security, or with backgrounds/family from particular countries, would be more nervous.

I work in tech security and indeed, I've thought about this topic and I'd be nervous as hell.

Then again, needing to put my laptop in check-in luggage (with a backdoored lock? Is that really a thing? I only saw "TSA-approved locks" mentioned somewhere and am only inferring the existence of backdoored locks here) is a no-go in the first place, so I'd need to (1) want to go to the USA, (2) not take a laptop and (3) probably buy a special backdoored suitcase. That's a pretty rare combination.

1. Don't take the laptop, preferably don't take a phone, unless you can factory wipe it before entering customs. If this is not an option, don't go. With 10 years in forensics/ more in IT and a good/careful eye to the legislation, I have made the sad decision I can't go. (various work conferences)

Factory-wiping will not stop them from installing a rootkit in something like the SSD controller's firmware. I would be very reluctant to take any electronics with me across a US border. Maybe a cheap Android phone (that's not my main phone and that's not logged into my actual Google account) so that I can call up a map or get a taxi.

The laptop thing seemed to have been in response to a legitimate terror threat actually, unlike all the other travel bans we've been seeing. I recall that the UK imposed it too, or was trying to, in response to intelligence reports that ISIS was going to use this attack vector.

Just think of TSA locks as open source locks https://github.com/Xyl2k/TSA-Travel-Sentry-master-keys

You don't need the backdoored lock. The TSA will helpfully use bolt cutters on any locks they don't have a working key for.

Source: Me and my suitcase a couple of years ago. (Which had a TSA approved lock on it!!)

People coming to unstable states like US or Ukraine, balancing on the edge of government collapse, should expect such things to happen with pretty high probability. I really can't see why this could be surprising at all.

Actually Ukraine is the stable escape strategy for conferences which should have been held in Russia. Latia is also quite popular, but Ukraine is the usual target to escape Russia's strange visa handling. I wonder what will be the escape country for the US situation. Canada or Mexico.

It seems to me that Japan would be better place to hold tech conferences than any other country right now

Been to a tech conference in Japan. Extremely expensive, and nobody speaks English. Europe still holds the best options.

Was it really necessary for him to refer to his Twitter follower count so many times?

> By the end of the Tuesday, I had about 2000 new followers

That's the only time he mentioned a number of followers.

"Several well-followed people retweeted me and that caused even more new followers and replies."

"By the end of the Tuesday, I had about 2000 new followers and twitter notifications that literally were flying by at a high speed."

"I’m now (end of Wednesday, 60 hours since the check-in counter) at 3000 more twitter followers than what I started out with this Monday morning."

Two direct references to a count, one indirect reference.

He's really just chronicling what happened while expressing astonishment at the traction the story got (and the consequences thereof).

Oh, I know it, and I'm sure I would've felt similar in his position. I just responded to the previous comment so that other people wouldn't have to go back to the article to see if they'd misread something, the way that I did.

I don't think it was necessary or added any value to his story, but it would've been noticeable and of interest to him so maybe he thought it was relevant in describing the attention/support he'd felt. In the absence of any reasoning regarding the ESTA denial, maybe any detail he could add seemed warranted?

I kinda read this as a stream of consciousness post about what happened. In that context, it's more an expression of astonishment that that actually happened than boasting or anything.

FWIW, I had something kind of similar happen to me a couple years ago. I posted an open letter [0] to a famous politician in my state, shared it on Facebook and Twitter as I do with all my posts, and went to bed. Overnight, it went viral and I woke up to an email box full of messages, tons of mentions on various social media outlets and a couple of phone calls from newspapers and TV stations wanting interviews.

The next few days were pretty crazy. More than anything, it was just a shocking experience to realize that that many people actually cared. I imagine he's had a similar experience. And, in fact, I wrote a follow up post [1] a week or so later rather similar to his.

So yeah, I just read this as a guy who's shocked that the world cared what happened to him. I wouldn't read more into it than a guy who's grateful that that many people took notice.

[0] http://www.robpeck.com/2015/06/an-open-letter-to-roy-moore/

[1] http://www.robpeck.com/2015/07/what-happens-when-your-post-g...

Kudos to you that is one heck of an argument and laid out in a way that it is impossible to refute. Scary thought: those people that function as enablers of people in power with detestable views are always ready to jump forward, no matter how dirty the deed that needs doing.

My guess is that he is pointing out the Streisand effect which is his only avenue for revenge against the opaque USA bureaucracy.

> Was it really necessary for him to refer to his Twitter follower count so many times?

I was wondering about the same thing. Sounds like "Twitter Humblebrag" * to me....

> I’m now (end of Wednesday, 60 hours since the check-in counter) at 3000 more twitter followers than what I started out with this Monday morning. This turned out to be a totally crazy week and it has severally impacted my productivity. I need to get back to write code, I’m getting behind!

* = http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=humblebrag

If the creator of cURL wants to brag, I doubt it's going to be about his Twitter follower count.

He's a programmer who probably spends a lot of time looking at data. It's an understandable frame of reference for someone trying to make sense of a stressful situation (especially when the media has brought attention to it).

So sad. I wish half this country hadn't gone mad

By spreading FUD in this way, I wouldn't be surprised if major conferences happening in SF start moving to other countries: Apple WWDC, GDC, Google I/O, Salesforce's Dreamforce, Oracle's JavaOne... many people go through significant effort to cost their travel and it's no fun that with no notice you can get sent back home.

Really dumb move.

True.

However, it's coherent with everything else going on around this administration.

To be honest, I don't think San Francisco conferences being impacted would cause any movement in policy.

Assuming that conferences moving would even impact policy in the first place, I'd expect Las Vegas conferences to be the ones that trigger change. Just on the tech side, Black Hat/DefCon and CES immediately come to mind. Las Vegas relies very much on conferences, and at least one casino/resort owner (Sheldon Adelson) is a well-known Republican supporter.

Remember, though: This is still a low number of visitors being denied entry. It would take a sizable number of regular attendees—or a notable number of high-profile attendees—being denied entry to cause rumblings of change.

What if one or more keynote speakers are denied entry? That can heavily impact a conference.

They started denying all Chinese visitors of security conferences in Las Vegas in bulk a few years ago already. Our local CIA/NSA guy was very proud of it. "Not welcome!" he said.

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