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Comment by wavephorm | Hacker News Reader

I distinctly remember 2001-2003 during in the post dot-com, post-911 recession when there was loud outcry to cancel all visas to open up jobs for American-born workers. And in subsequent years these ideas took on the form of erecting a wall around Mexico, and eliminating technology-related visa categories, and ending up in today's environment of extreme hostility toward business travellers at American ports of entry.

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Do other business travelers experience this extreme hostility at US ports of entry? I don't do nearly as much international travel as I used to, so I'm really interested in hearing others' experiences.

Yes, i am french (from France), been living in Montreal for 5years know, speaks perfect english (no silly french accent), but anytime i have to go to the US i get treated like shit by immigration agent when they see my passport. And it's been consistent across the 20+ times i've had to cross the border.

Sometimes they even go into what i believe to be none of their business, last christmas i was coming back from France, going through Washington (just a 6h stop), and despise the fact i had my ticket saying i was going to Montreal, my canadian working visa, the U.S. agent bombarded me with question on what i was gonna do in canada, where i was staying, on a not so friendly tone as if i was lying.

This is why i now refuse whenever possible to go through the U.S..

As for the Visa situation, it is really a pain, i had numerous companies contacting me -thinking i was Canadian as i list my town as Montreal- from SF or Seattle, then after successful interviews, getting refused by they H.R. department because i'm French and VISA paperwork is either too much or just not even possible for them.

If it's any consolation, I've often been asked the same questions, with the same suspicion bordering on hostility, when I traveled to Europe, including France (and I also speak French with almost no foreign accent -- was working as an interpreter at the time). This is the job of the customs agents. I don't think it's something unique to the US.

I will say that Canada for the most part has unusually welcoming customs agents (my wife is Canadian). So you may be "spoiled" by living in Canada. Unfortunately, even Canada's openness seems to be changing a bit now, based on my experiences over the past several years.

I'm guessing that you are too young to remember traveling through Europe before the Schengen treaty took effect and opened up the borders in 1995, but as someone who studied in France and traveled across Europe in 1991-1992, I can assure you that you would have been subject to the same treatment back then at the German, Spanish, or Belgian borders. The job of the borders guards is to be suspicious, and 9/11 has only solidified those tendencies.

>> the U.S. agent bombarded me with question on what i was gonna do in canada, where i was staying, on a not so friendly tone as if i was lying<<

This seems to be pretty standard. They are trying to catch you on a lie. I don't know about the "not so friendly tone" though. I guess it depends on the agent and what kind of day/issues he is having.

Yeah but last time i checked, Canada is not part of the U.S. and with a visa and ticket, that should be enough for him, if somebody wants to grill me it should be a Canadian Immigration agent.

[AFTER EDIT: I'm withdrawing an earlier statement in the first posting of this comment after doing some fact-checking prompted by the reply below. Thanks. I'll look up some more analysis of the current policy and its historical origins over the next few days. The sentence below was the last sentence in the original version of this comment.]

It's regrettable that today skepticism at the border is so general--surely most visitors to the United States, including you, mean no harm to the United States--but there are legal problems with being selective about whom to interrogate, so almost every visitor is questioned.

That some of the 9/11 attackers entered the US through Canada is a thoroughly debunked myth. Plus, all the attackers entered the US legally, with valid visas. The startling persistence of the myth attests to its power to support a particular side of the debate about 'illegals' or 'weak borders'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumors_about_the_September_11_a...

Misinformation: rumors later shown to be false:

[...]

Claims that terrorists entered the United States through Canada On September 12, 2001, Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of counter-intelligence told the press that five of the terrorists had entered Maine from Canada via a ferry from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and/or a remote border point in Saint-Théophile, Quebec near Jackman, Maine.[1] The myth was revived again in April 2009 when Janet Napolitano, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, informed a Canadian television interviewer that some of the terrorist-hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks entered the United States from Canada. In the same month, senator John McCain also told Fox News that some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada.[2]

Off topic, but I am glad you were offered jobs as a supposed Montrealer, as I am one too and always wondered how easy/hard it is to get a job in the US

Smaller ports of entry with smaller queues generally lead to more pleasant experiences. The HNL and RDU airports, for example, are very welcoming to tourist and business travellers.

"If what you are saying is wrong we'll find you and kick you out like dogs" - An actual dialogue blurted out by the immigration "officer" at the port of entry.

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