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Comment by unwantedLetters | Hacker News Reader

I understand that the US Immigration guys can be fairly hard to deal with.

But this is really not what I experienced at all. I studied at a university in the US and I hold an Indian passport. I travelled in and out of the country multiple times, but not once was I asked questions like "Are you a terrorist?". I was only held by the officials once at immigration for 20 minutes. This was when I transferred from one university to another (You don't need to re-apply for a visa for this which is why it leads to some confusion cause you are not going to the university mentioned on the visa).

I never felt like anyone was trying to trick me, or insult me, or ever asked me questions like those above.

Do they treat students differently? And has anyone else ever experienced the issues mentioned by the parent poster?

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Those are questions you are expected to answer in DS-160 form for nonimmigrant visa.

Some examples:

Are you coming to the United States to engage in prostitution or unlawful commercialized vice or have you been engaged in prostitution or procuring prostitutes within the past 10 years?

Have you ever been involved in, or do you seek to engage in, money laundering?

Do you seek to engage in espionage, sabotage, export control violations, or any other illegal activity while in the United States?

Do you seek to engage in terrorist activities while in the United States or have you ever engaged in terrorist activities?

Have you ever or do you intend to provide financial assistance or other support to terrorists or terrorist organizations?

Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization?

Have you ever ordered, incited, committed, assisted, or otherwise participated in genocide?

Have you ever committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in torture?

Have you committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in extrajudicial killings, political killings, or other acts of violence?

Have you, while serving as a government official, been responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom?

Those questions appeared in a questionaire given to everyone inside the airplaine. A friend of mine told me that it wasn't the first time he saw that questionaire. It became kind of a joke after it.

Plenty of people get treated decently, it's not like everyone in Homeland Security are evil jack-booted thugs. I suppose most of them are pretty good people doing their jobs with the rules they have to enforce.

However... the system does not work nearly as well as it should, and is based on creaky, broken rules.

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