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"For example: After an incident involving an American in Brazil [1], all Americans were out of a sudden required by the Brazilian authorities to get pictures taken at the Brazilian customs. The situation got so ridiculous, that at some point the airports ended up with 3 lines: "Brazilian Citizens", "Foreigners", and "Americans". In other words, Americans were singled-out from the rest of the world. Would the OP describe that as a "pleasant experience"???"

Why should Brazil treat US citizens any different, than the US treats Brazilian citizens? If the US harasses Brazilian citizens with such procedures, it is IMO perfectly OK if Brazil does the same to US citizens.

Why did this get upvoted? You're dodging the point of the comment. You're logic seems to be:

  Person1: Bad things are happening in the US
  Person2: Well, bad things are happening in Brazil too.
  Person3: But it's only fair for the Brazilians to do bad things
  because the US is already doing bad things.

The original article is griping about how bad things are travelling to the US, and how it's not that bad travelling anywhere else in the world. Someone countered with some examples of bad experiences travelling to Brazil, and then you responded saying that it's only fair for them to go tit-for-tat (which really has nothing to do with the original discussion).

Nope.

Someone commented that the situation in the US is actually not that bad, and that it's worse in Brazil: "Oh, c'mon, this sounds very over-the-top. My experience is that TSA and USCIS (formerly INS) are very professional and follow a strict protocol. The protocol may be unfair or not, but that's the protocol, not the professional's fault. In places like Brazil your entire trip is at the hands of chance: Most times you get a nice officer, but sometimes not."

But that's not true. Travelling to Brazil is rather unproblematic for citizens of most countries. Only citizens of countries that harass Brazilian citizens are harassed equally.

So I agree that related to the original article my comment was off-topic. But it's very on-topic in regard to the off-topic parent posting (because from a non-US citizen's perspective there aren't any problems when traveling to Brazil, but plenty of problems when traveling to the US).

Brazil isn't part of the Visa Waiver program and felt that its citizens were being treated unreasonably. Thus, they began being rude to Americans. (IIRC)

Kind of an asshole move, but highly entertaining to watch from the outside.

Brazil has a well-known tit-for-tat policy in foreign matters. They will apply to a country's citizens whatever policy that country applies to Brazilians. So Americans were singled out because they singled out Brazilians. It's called having balls.

Except they weren't singled out. Visa waiver program requires each member be at certain economic and political levels. Countries like Singapore met the requirement and are included, countries like Brazil, China, and India don't. This isn't elementary school anymore, you expect diplomats to act diplomats and get policies enacted, not come up with some stupid scheme even a 10 year old could see through.

What the politicians should be doing is saying, "we want to be part of Vfw too, what can we do to get there?" and not, "the US gov't don't like us, so we won't like them!" Instead of trying to work closer together, this policy only makes the divide bigger. I was ready to go to Brazil for a vacation, but chose South Africa instead because of this silliness.

To an American, not going to Brazil has very little impact on them. They'll take their money and go elsewhere.

Americans weren't singled out either. Brazil's policy is the same for all countries: the same hurdles Brazilians have to go through in a given country, citizens of that country will have to go through in Brazil.

EDIT: Would Florida prefer that half a million Brazilians hadn't visited in 2010? It works both ways, you see.

Except, Brazil treats them as one issue when most other countries treat them as 2. Instead of going, "what can we do to encourage more Americans to come here?", and "how can we lower the US VISA requirements for our people". The former is an active discouragement, most Americans don't leave the US so putting $160 visa fee is a huge roadblock. The latter, is just misguided, it affects americans, but the people they should be addressing are the lawmakers and the state department, the people that actually write the VISA rules.

On one short trip to Brazil, entering at GIG, I was singled out, had my passport held and told I couldn't enter and would have to return to the US. The Federal Police told me specifically and precisely it was for reciprocity - some Brazilians had been turned away in the US and so they were doing the same for me. They had no legal reason to deny me entry, it was simply because I am American.

It's not having balls. It's having a temper tantrum.

Many, many countries have repricosity-based policies for these things, but the "repeicosity" is applied in a very one-sided way by all of them. Policy that pisses them off will be emulated and applied to foreigners unlucky enough to be from whatever country offends them, but unusually lax or inexpensive policies won't usually be up for reciprocal treatment. Consider visa fees. All kinds of places will charge US and UK citizens extra, but few will give discounts to those from countries with extremely inexpensive entry.

I consider this sort of policy to be little more than an immature way to vent at more powerful countries. Sure it sucks that it's hard to get a tourist visa if you're Brazilian and going to the US (or Chinese going to Japan, or Russian going to Finland, etc..), but that's due to very high rates of people applying for such visas fleeing and working illegally. The risk of someone from a richer country doing so in a poorer country is far, far lower. Any sort of "repricosity"-based response to this reality accomplishes little more than hassling ordinary people who aren't at all to blame for the forces shaping the situation.

reciprocity

  It's called having balls.

Having balls for brains, maybe. Instead of working on making the US border experience more efficient and human-oriented, they just make it harder for a selected group of people. An easy way out, I say.

You have no idea if they tried exactly what you are suggesting. And given that diplomats do exactly that, I'm pretty sure they did, and it didn't work.

> this sounds very over-the-top

It is from reddit, which pretty much thrives on over-the-top, especially if it's about how EEEEVIL the US is.

"In places like Brazil your entire trip is at the hands of chance: Most times you get a nice officer, but sometimes not."

In my experience, this exactly sums up travelling to the US.

>> all Americans were out of a sudden required by the Brazilian authorities to get pictures taken at the Brazilian customs

I'm curious why this would be such a hassle. I work in China right now and every time I go through customs, there's a little web cam there that takes a photo of me while the customs officer looks at my passport and stamps it. I think both foreigners and citizens experience it. Adds no time to the process at all. I even see my photo on the computer screen if the screen is angled right.

Unless Brazil simply doesn't have the ability to set up this kind of tech....

I also live in China.

1. In China the system is set-up for that. The little web-cam and the system are integrated with a push of a button, and the process is very quick. In Brazil they didn't have anything. They were taking pictures with off-the-shelf digital cameras, and I read an article saying that they did not even have a system set-up to transfer the pictures out! It was really something implemented overnight, clearly just to piss people off.

2. Sorry if I was not clear, but my point about the hassle was not much the picture itself, but the fact that Americans were singled-out and placed on a different line. This is borderline racist IMO.

Note: Brazil eliminated this stupid policy a while ago. I mentioned it just as an example.

Se my comment above, you completely ignore the reason for that policy.

As a Brazilian, I am well aware of the reason for the policy. Two wrongs don't make a right.

They have that webcam picture experience in the US too, at least for non-citizens.

I think that's kind of the point. The unpleasantness is institutionalized in the US, whereas it's random/haphazard in most other places.

Don't accept the protocol! It is degrading, the scanners pose a health risk, and it is all a waste of money with no benefit to security. America spends several times more on TSA that the entire FBI counter-terrorism budget.

I would say as a non-USA person travelling to other countries is quite pleasant vs going to the USA, his statement is not over the top.

I would the experience of a USA person travelling to other countries wouldn't be quite as pleasant as their is a lot of pent up rage against USA in other countries and when they get to meet a yank they have a chance to express it.