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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

Wow, some really interesting edge cases in there that require serious thought.

US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction". So you can do something that is perfectly legal in Canada, then a month later be denied entry to the US for doing it.

If you work at a 100% legal Government-run Cannabis store and want to go to the US for a holiday, you "Could be found admissible". could!

When arriving by air into Canada you will be asked about previous Cannabis use. What? They don't ask about previous alcohol use, why do they for what is now perfectly legal Cannabis?

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I just had a crazy thought - so it's legal in Canada, it's legal in Washington State, but it's illegal in the eyes of the border guard separating the two because he's a US federal employee. That's seriously fascinating.

Well, the thing is it's not really legal in WA, Federal law applies to WA. It's just not illegal at the state level any more.

Au contraire, that's my point - it is legal in the state of Washington, by the vote and actions of the people. Likewise, by the vote and actions of the people of British Columbia it is legal. But, to a political body 2000 miles away it is not. And, because they have a representative who stands in a little box separating those two groups who have voted and acted, it is somehow made illegal should he or she wish to harass someone crossing that invisible line. It's ripe for a Kafka novel really.

> it is legal in the state of Washington, by the vote and actions of the people

The people who live in Washington only decide a subset of the laws for the state. It is still illegal to possess or consume weed in Washington because WA is a part of the United States of America, where weed is illegal nationwide.

The "United States of America" as a political body is defined by the borders of the United States of America (within which WA is completely contained), it is not located in Washington DC.

You are missing the nuance of what I'm saying, but I don't have the energy to explain it right now.

Are you the Cory Klein in Minnesota (with whom I went to college)?

That's not particularly nuanced: you can probably find may examples of actions that are legal on a state level, but illegal on a Federal level.

> Are you the Cory Klein in Minnesota

Nope, although there are less than 50 Cory Kleins in the United States, so hooray for unlikely probabilities!

> US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction". So you can do something that is perfectly legal in Canada, then a month later be denied entry to the US for doing it.

That was already the (insane) case. Consider people who live in the Netherlands, or Czechia, or Portugal.

Hey, person living in Czechia here. Weed is illegal here. For carrying a joint or up to 10g of weed, you can get fined up to 600USD. More than that and you might have some serious problems with police. Of course you can't smoke it in public only at home.

I think it's quite a misconception about Czechia being super weed friendly. As a tourist you are most probably going to get scammed on streets of Prague. If you want to feel more free about weed consumption Netherlands is the place to go to.

Tangent: when did "Czechia" become a recognized short form of "Czech Republic"? (I lived and worked in Prague in the late 90's and before today had never come across "Czechia".)

1925; but more seriously, 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_the_Czech_Republic

Some years ago but I'm really surprised there are people who care about whether the words they use are officially "recognized".

I don't particularly care about what's official so much as what people use in conversation, but seeing the name of a country change within my own lifetime is an unusual and interesting experience.

Then you may probably be interested in knowing it's just a change in the official code (and I believe quite a number of such changes took place all over the world during your lifetime) and that it even isn't a change but an addition - the "old" name remains ("Czechia" to "The Czech Republic" is what "Mexico" is to "The United Mexican States" or what "Russia" is to "The Russian Federation"). Every Czech or other eastern-European would perfectly understand you if you'd have been using the word "Czechia" in in the past although it wasn't used much in English speech actually. I had even been using it in some semi-official texts in 2008, it wasn't invented in 2013 and wasn't any kind of unacceptable or widely-unknown before.

I don't think it's "just" an official change; whether a cause or consequence of the official change, I've encountered Czech people saying "Czechia" in English a lot more often in recent years than earlier. (E.g. the place I bought my bike from redesigned their website and the new one says "Proudly made in Czechia" where the old one said "Made in Czech Republic"). Of course these things are gradual but I do think it's a real change.

Northern Ireland has unionist-associated and nationalist-associated names [1] - using one of them without knowing you're doing so might make people think you've got strong opinions on something you actually don't know much about.

So if you hear someone using a country name you've never heard before, I can understand being cautious about adopting it :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_names_for_Northern...

<<The country will retain its full name but Czechia will become the official short geographic name, as "France" is to "The French Republic">>

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36048186

As far as I've noticed, most ppl including residents seem to just call it "Czech".

Anecdata: in 2005 I dated a Czech who called the country "Czech" when speaking English (her third language).

Further tangent: at least part of it has been "die Tschechei" in German since 1918 per the Wiktionary[0] and that's certainly the word people used in West Germany in the 80's, and I believe it's used widely today despite "Tschechien" being official[1].

The Wikipedia article (in German) suggests Tschechei is from Čechy which seems to be Czech for Bohemia. But I am not Czech nor Cseh nor tschechisch nor Čech so I may soon stand corrected. :-)

[0]: https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tschechei [1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tschechien

Maybe illegal, but there are still bars in Prague very openly selling pot.

Openly? Hardly. You are to know a place and how to ask for it.

While true, it's trivial to find this info on Google Maps.

I've only found some shops claiming they only sell CBD products and not THC. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, I have little experience with Google Maps, I've just opened Google Maps and searched for weed and cannabis.

Weed (THC) is illegal in the Czech Republic, thus it is not openly advertised. Search for a "weed bar prague" in ordinary google search; various forums and reviews will show up. Then put some bar name into google maps and there will probably be a "user guide" in reviews. If not, then move to the next one - there are dozens, if not hundreds. If there is no guide and you're certain the bar sells weed, simply ask for it directly, usually the only requirement is to buy a drink first.

>usually the only requirement is to buy a drink first.

And if you obviously have no clue what you're doing and don't even try to buy a drink, they'll definitely know you aren't a cop and offer you the weed.

I know its illegal and would prefer to avoid the risk of doing so myself but I've seen people smoking smelly weed outdoors and the cops walking along and without paying attention many times in Prague and I adore this.

It is not legal in portugal

Consider people who live in the Netherlands, or Czechia, or Portugal.

It's not technically legal in any of those countries.

Also in the Netherlands is "tolerated" not "legal", they have directives gedoogbeleid that make some cases of selling and possessing, besides self-growing, of limited amounts of cannabis not prosecuted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_the_Netherlands

> US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use

What? How? Why? That makes no sense.

They can deny entry for pretty much any reason.

You are correct that the US border policy with Canada doesn't make any sense.

I don't see a single reason why you can be forced to incriminate yourself. If confession equals conviction, laws about right to remain silent should also apply.

I would happily say "no" and smile if I was you when asked about what you did in a different country that they have no business knowing.

That's sort of orthogonal to the consequence of honestly answering the question.

And of course the policy also says that if they think you lied, they might use that as a reason to deny entry in the future.

Yes, but did not they teach you to think before talking?

They are free to not let you in, but you are free to ignore any irrelevant or intimate questions.

Nope. Ignoring or refusing to answer the question is grounds for denying admission or being permanently denied admission.

You can just say "no". And smile. Will be completely correct on your part.

> Guard: "Have you consumed weed in the last 30 days?"

> You: "No"

If you have consumed in the last 30 days, then your "No" response is definitely not correct.

Yes it is correct. They have no business asking this. If a question is incorrect, you can answer whatever you like to it.

Lying is only giving wrong answers on correct questions. If a person sticks their nose where it does not belong, too bad.

I have rights to do any kinds of thingd to my body, and I have exactly zero obligation to disclose it, unless in strict contexts of medical help or driving.

I don't understand your "teach you to think before talking" remark. I said your comment was orthogonal because it didn't address anything I had said in my other comment. Of course someone wanting to the enter the country will weigh their options, I'm just laying out the potential consequences, for someone that apparently had not heard of them (the other commenter, not you).

You have no rights at the border.

Say who? Did you notify the UN about these findings?

https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/3846

You seriously do not think that you can override Human Rights agreements with some "congress bill", do you?

For some time you might act that way, but you are trespassing.

There is no right to cross the border, but there's loads of other rights, human and otherwise, that you still undeniably have while being at the border.

The legislation I linked to suspends all constitutionally-guaranteed rights "at" the border (ie within 100 miles of a border crossing, including any airports with international flights) if you are not an American citizen. The suspension of constitutional rights has been tried and upheld by a number of SCOTUS cases.

There is no international body regulating any other kind of right, despite the well-meaning intention of a number of organizations.

If you are not an American citizen you are still a citizen of some other country, which has its own obligations before its citizens to uphold their human rights, even when they cross someone other's border.

This may end up ugly for the USA if they try to abuse that decision. Not every country in this world is Mexico.

They abuse it routinely. Almost any Canadian who crosses regularly has seen it or experienced it. Especially since 9/11. It's just part of life being next to an aggressive large imperial power.

>which has its own obligations before its citizens to uphold their human rights

So you want the country the person is traveling from to impose their Will on the country they are traveling to?

Yes and it will definitely happen. Their ambassador sending notes to your state department and then starting to reconsider bilateral agreements.

Happens all the time.

Crossing a foreign border is a privilege not a right.

A problem we can fix!

Or within 100 miles of the border or any border services control point, like say an airport with international flights.

So no-one in San Francisco has any rights b/c it's within 100 miles from SFO ;)?

- I'm just kidding..

Not because it's near SFO, but because it's near the Pacific Ocean. They consider that a border. https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/05/who-lives-in-border-p...

Not entirely true (re: no rights)

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

More accurate to say that border control agents will not respect your rights at their border.

>I don't see a single reason why you can be forced to incriminate yourself.

While thread didn't really get into citizenship, if you're aren't a citizen of the state in question you have no right of entry. The state has the right to ask for any information they wish and set criteria for entry as they wish. It's not a matter of "incrimination" as in you go to jail, it's a matter of obtaining permission for entry, you have no "right to remain silent". And in a democratic state I don't think that's immoral either. Knowing is in fact their business, and if it shouldn't be then the government should tell its border controls to not inquire at all.

>I would happily say "no" and smile if I was you when asked about what you did in a different country that they have no business knowing.

Obviously as a practical matter there are many situations where the odds of getting caught are minimal to non-existent, but I would be very cautious about casually committing perjury. Particularly in this worrying day and age of photos everywhere and ever increasing ML that can actually make sense of it and centralized datasets that governments may be able to gain access to. For example, particularly when the behavior is made legal I'd expect there to be a lot more people who post pictures of themselves using cannabis or not being concerned if someone else in the picture is because of course it's legal. Combine with spreading facial recognition and person tagging on places like Facebook and advertising (since it's legalized) that will be actively and legally interested in "is so-and-so a user so we can sell them related products" and someone could quite easily end up in a database saying "confirmed to use cannabis" without ever knowing. There are many times where "the coverup is worse then the crime" is quite true, and something that would merely get you politely or not so politely turned away would turn into a serious crime by lying about it. You can't know when an authority is asking you something out of actual interest vs a question they know the answer to already just to test you.

Honesty and political pressure seems better in this specific case given that it's not like there isn't already a major legalization movement in the US too. Canada is an extremely important business partner and source of tourism and ally. If enough Canadians were denied entry over this then even under this administration pressure to simply change the rules to ignore it would be very high. If not under this one then when the Democrats retake control.

"if you're aren't a citizen of the state in question you have no right of entry."

There's a huge racial component. Essentially all of this "you're not allowed to" talk is strictly for white people only.

I had to re-read the parent after seeing your comment. Are you saying:

1) It is racist to deny a non-citizen entry

2) Fuzzy rules for entry allow room for racial bias

3) Something else?

You have very few rights at a border. Almost any border, not just the US. A border is very much like a no-man's land where the law of the country you are entering or leaving is suspended. You can be held, searched without cause, refused entry at a guard's discretion (no reason is needed), and so on. Arguing your 'rights' at a border is one very good way to be seen as cause to get secondary screening and perhaps refusal of entry. And they are pretty good at detecting if you are lying - lots and lots of training there, you'd be surprised how easily unprepared people give themselves away in even the most simple lies.

Canada will deny a US citizen entry if they’ve ever had a DUI in their life, even if it was 30 years ago. Many people find this out the hard way.

A friend had an expunged disorderly conduct when he was 13. We were in our 20s, and were detained by the Canadian border for about 9 hours. Then they escorted us back because of the disorderly.

The second time I got detained was only for 5 hours though. The second time I went in mid to late 20s by myself. After searching my car for 3 hours, they didn't find anything and I was let go.

I hate it.

That's interesting, I went to Canada with my Mom and sister one time when they were visiting. My sister had a felony from when she was under 18 and it was also expunged or whatever the term.

We had to sit for about an hour and she had to go through a bunch of questioning but eventually they let us all through.

Every time tho I've had my car searched, it's too much of a hassle really to bother with going up there anymore for me personally.

I was detained for about an hour when entering at the Canadian border from the US. I'm a Canadian citizen, and was in the US for a conference for about a week. Canadian CBP is... something.

A DUI is a criminal offence. You are being denied entry to the country because of the criminal offence.

Canadians are being denied entry into the US simply for what the US deems to be "immoral behavior".

That is a very slippery subjective slope to be on.

Even having investments in Cannabis stocks can get you barred for life.

Do you know where your mutual funds go at night...

DUI is also considered a felony in Canada.

Canada does not have felonies or misdemeanors. You are either in violation of the criminal code, or you aren't.

I suppose I should have said equivalent to a felony, since Canada uses different terms.

http://www.canadaduientrylaw.com/felony.php

We have summary and indictable offences. A summary offence is more or less a misdemeanor, an indictable offence is basically a felony.

Yes, but the terminology and implications are different.

You can have a criminal conviction and still vote, for example.

Many US states restore the vote.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-v...

"Many" but not nearly all. In Canada prisoners can and do vote.

I'm curious—would there be a way to comparatively analyze Canadian and American election results, to figure out whether prisoners' disenfranchisement has an impact on policy?

State to state comparisons would probably work better.

Canada is actually super good about this.

If you're coming from Australia, the official immigration docs ask do you have a DUI? If yes, was it below .07 Blood Alcohol Content?

(In Australia the crime is .05 or above, but in Canada the crime is only > .07)

So even if you broke the law in Australia and got a DUI at .06, Canada will ignore it, because technically driving at .06 in Canada is not a crime, so they don't deem you to have committed a crime at all!

Generally in Canada it's .08 legal limit. In BC it was dropped to .05

I've been denied entry in the past because I was insufficiently precise when writing down a date in my paperwork.

They can deny for any arbitrary reason, or no reason at all!

Border guards are duty-bound to turn away people that they suspect are likely to commit crime and, in the United States as a whole, weed possession/consumption is still considered a crime worthy of jail time.

Although I think weed should be legal, in the mean time I am not interested in my taxes paying for the confinement or deportation of Canadians. Ergo, one can support weed legalization and also believe that weed consumption can be used from a practical perspective to deny entrance to foreigners.

> Although I think weed should be legal, in the mean time I am not interested in my taxes paying for the confinement or deportation of Canadians. Ergo, one can support weed legalization and also believe that weed consumption can be used from a practical perspective to deny entrance to foreigners.

This makes no sense. How does having consumed weed in the past entail that one will consume weed in the United States? This is like saying that a person who has driven on the left in the past will drive on the left in the United States, and should therefore be denied entry. It's ridiculous.

I think driving on the left is a false analogy. We don't drive on the left because we enjoy it or because it makes us happy. However, if we have consumed weed in the recent past, that is a strong signal that we have a preference for weed and would pursue the experience again in the future.

If you and I had a betting market that allowed us to bet on an individual's likelihood of consuming weed while in the United States, knowledge of that person's past behavior in consuming weed would be a strong piece of evidence that you could use when making a bet.

Anybody consuming weed today is more likely to have consumed it in the last 30 days than somebody that is not consuming weed today.

So what probability do you assign to someone smoking weed illegally in the United States, given that they have smoked weed in a different country where it's legal?

I wonder if border screening is cheaper than just deporting convicts back to Canada?

Of course making actual behavior consequential rather than potential behavior doesn't have those delicious authoritarian overtones.

> US border guards might deny you entry if you admit to previous cannabis use - for them "A confession is as good as a conviction"

Why? Is it not just selling and possession but also the very act of smoking illegal in the USA? Are the USA citizens forced to follow the homeland laws wherever they travel even if the laws at where they are are different? It sounds like if they had to still drive the right sides of the roads when in UK/Japan.

No, it's more similar to being denied entry to the US because you have previously driven on the left side of the road in the UK.

Or you have driven at 200mp/h on the Autobarn in Germany.

Obviously perfectly legal in Germany, but seriously illegal in the USA, so the border guards will deny you entry for breaking a US law while you where in a country where it's not illegal! insanity!

If you admit to smoking it, you must have been in possession of it.

Why the distinction? Both smoking and being in possession are illegal in the US anyway.

It can make logical sense to ban selling or producing but outlawing a person to consume whatever (except when driving, operating machinery or doing some other kind of job potentially dangerous to others) is plain absurd - every person's body belongs only to themselves and they drink/smoke/eat whatever they want.

I've once found some (something less than a gram), seriously. Nobody was around who it might belong to so I've just smoked it immediately. The law (well, a FAQ on the police website) says I should have taken it and given it up to the police but what if an officer would stop me for a check during my way and find it - wouldn't it be possession anyway? The purpose of possession is unverifiable and forbidding a person to consume any kind of substance is ridiculous.

I have been sent to the back of the queue to tick boxes on forms correctly by U.S. customs/border jobsworths and wondered why the experience has to be so patronisingly humiliating.

Once on a connecting flight so I wasn't even wanting to leave the airport. At the time I was working for a highly regarded company and going on to do some work for CBC in Toronto. I had flown in on business class and my smile, polite British English, white skin, smart clothes, clean passport and squeaky clean criminal record should have given me a free pass. I wasn't even carrying any highly unusual electronic hardware. And no I had not been a member of the 'communist party'.

As I saw it there was just a problem of 'customer service'. The mentality of border guards should be to welcome guests to the country and not treat everyone as a criminal.

As a non-U.S. person I am like a lot of people that just see the U.S. as not the place to want to go to. I know that most Americans lay on fantastic hospitality for visitors, welcoming you into their homes and looking out for you. But the hostile border guards obfuscate that.

Canada is the far more preferable destination, whether you want to be stoned all day or not matters little really, the legalisation of weed sends a signal that Canada is the much more welcoming place to go.

Tourism matters, I do wonder how much tourist trade the U.S. misses out on due to the negative perception the world has of the place.

I travelled to the US once and it was incomparable to anywhere else I'd been in the world with regards to border control. I won't go back. I was even questioned by some shady American dude at the gate in London, was a weird experience.

> The mentality of border guards should be to welcome guests to the country...

Perhaps they assume that if border guards establish a friendly relationship like that, it will only help bad actors distract the border guard from strictly enforcing the rules through jokes, small talk, etc.

Still, if the USA wants that approach, it could still learn a lot from Israeli passport control. Whenever I have entered Israel I have been asked a lot of questions and the official had some reasonable suspicion about my plans and travel history, but this questioning was still done in a fairly respectful and professional way. The guard wasn’t glum and surly like American border agents.

As a US citizen, I can honestly say that I have never experienced more unprofessional, rude, and outright hostile border control experiences than some of the ones I've experienced when reentering the US, and I doubt they treat non-citizens any better. Unfortunately in the US, the customs and border control people often seem to be the rejects who can't get a job anywhere else and relish lording their power over you.

i travel every year to the US for vacations and for US border patrol, it really depends on the state.

i hated coming in through detroit or atlanta (one atlanta officer even tried to find me on facebook -- wtf?). but only had good experiences with new york city and chicago.

> As a US citizen, I can honestly say that I have never experienced more unprofessional, rude, and outright hostile border control experiences than some of the ones I've experienced when reentering the US

Everyone in the world says this about their own border agents! People always seem to be most critical of their own.

Do they, though? I've never heard anyone in the EU complain about border control.

The Border Guards have absolutely no incentives to let you in and many good reasons to deny you entry on even the smallest reasons. Much like ICE and TSA, the whole organization is built entirely around gatekeeping/policing and will have people who will power trip the fuck out of their job without any kind of accountability whatsoever.

> why the experience has to be so patronisingly humiliating.

It's intended to be stressful because that gets people to crack. My advice is to not take it personally unless they really push the line. The stress is part of their procedure to make sure you are not lying.

A border guard banging on for 5 minutes about "anchor babies" is part of the procedure?

Well, on that journey I had tickets for the connecting flight which was already boarding and the flight back, not to mention a paid for room in a posh hotel (in Canada) and plenty of accompanying documents from the main Canadian broadcaster. None of these documents were chewed by the dog and a sensible human being could use common sense to see that everything was legit.

However, for someone with a gun on their belt, having got their education from Hollywood films and with a government that snitches on the world to lock up dark skinned people in Guantanamo I guess this jobsworth mentality makes sense to them.

Upsetting people who have good money to spend means they don't come back. You don't want to be treated like garbage by imbeciles that insult your intelligence. It is taken personally. The U.S.A. is not that special, it is just full of entitled people that think they are special.

If your worst border crossing experience ever is being sent to the back of a queue to fill in a form again, then i suspect you have no idea of what an actual bad immigration or customs interaction might involve.

I would argue that it is in no way a formal part of the process but rather a symptom of the culture in that industry. There is no written policy that says they have to be disrespectful. They dehumanize people and see themselves as superior, this is the result of essentially giving a group of people extreme power in much the same way as the Stanford prison experiment. They have very little limits on their power within 100 miles of the US border, essentially able to do as they please. If they overstep their bounds, their is generally no punishment.

There is no reason they cant do the same job while treating everyone with respect. When you work with a group of people that see themselves as hammers, everyone else is a nail.

The biggest problem with US border patrol is that they rotate the agents around. I grew up going into Quebec 4 or 5 times a year, and when you were coming back home, you always knew when you got an agent that had been stationed on the Mexican border. They'd have their hand on their pistol the whole time, and badger and hassle you. This is at a small crossing where 99% of traffic is log trucks, locals visiting family, and Canadians crossing over to buy cheap gas at the US side general store. It's not a high threat area, but those agents that had been on the other border were habituated to the possibility of drugs and human trafficking, and that any interaction could go south into a deadly confrontation.

"that any interaction could go south into a deadly confrontation"

Except those situations are very rare. CBP's own website lists a total of 40 deaths over the past 15 years. I looked at over half of them, and very few were actually a "deadly confronatation"

Some of the deaths: * One intern died after collapsing during a 1.5 mile run that was part of his final exam. * At least two died following from heart attacks * Another two are listed as having collapsed and died with no further cause. * Another was listed as heat related. * At least two people died in separate incidents when their vehicles hit large animals. * At least four people have died due to accidental drowning. * At least three died when their aircraft crashed. * At least one was hit by a drunk driver. * At least two killed when their vehicle was hit by a freight train. * At least two were killed during altercations while off duty.

Most of the rest appear to be single vehicle crashes. It appears that less than 10 were actually shot, stabbed, or otherwise killed by people, and I didn't see a single listing of one happening at a border control station.

These people want you to believe they have an incredibly dangerous job. While it's certainly more dangerous than working in IT, the truth is that law enforcement isn't even in the top 10 of dangerous jobs!

the truth is that law enforcement isn't even in the top 10 of dangerous jobs

The police unions would have you believe that it was. Regarding people killed on the job, law enforcement is right there with construction work, but most deaths on the job are traffic deaths. Actual genuine targeted murders of police officers are rare, it's about 40/year. The number of civilians killed in police-involved shootings is a different magnitude altogether, over 1000/year.

>While it's certainly more dangerous than working in IT,

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but I've come to believe tech is a very dangerous career. Years ago I recall looking out my office window and realizing that everyone I could see in front of me had a (free!) soda on their desk and most of them had diabetes. Heart disease, diabetes, back problems, carpal tunnel, eye strain, obesity - tech is a silent killer. Sitting at a desk for 8+ hours a day will do that.

I’m with you. I’m a Canadian and I try to avoid crossing US border at all costs, even flying transit. I’ll pay more for a ticket to avoid layover in US. The experience is just so bad.

Yup, I fly direct just to avoid the security theatrics. It's just not worth it.

Yeah, we get excited when we see great flight deals, but then realize they require a US stop over, so no longer valid for us to consider!

> I have been sent to the back of the queue to tick boxes on forms correctly by U.S. customs/border jobsworths and wondered why the experience has to be so patronisingly humiliating.

Because that's one way that police forces make it clear to you who is in charge.

Also, because you have no recourse against people wielding absolute power over you.

As Canadians, my wife and I refuse to travel to the US or take any flights that stopover in the US. We would love to go road tripping or get cheap flights to visit various places, but it's just off limits for us, possibly for many years, due to the ridiculousness of what is going on at the border and in the white house.

We watch cheap flight deals pretty regularly and have noticed we are seeing a lot more cheap flights to the US than normal, so it makes us think that perhaps the US is starting to suffer on tourism, but it could just be our biases.

As more people get fed up like us, tourism will wane, but I doubt it'll make a big enough dent anytime soon for any action to be taken, especially when it's spread across the entire US, so harder to see at once.

Note that they can't stop you from entering the country if you're a US citizen. They can, however, make it a massive pain in the ass. Anyone have any practical experience here?

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