The Unwelcome Mat - How Not to Attract Tourists
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
One annoying note: my wife and I did not change our names when we got married. On a couple of recent occasions we've travelled separately via different airports/on different dates, to rendezvous subsequently. If entering the USA separately on such trips, she usually gets the third degree: "why aren't you travelling with your husband?"
There's serious institutional sexism at work in the immigration system. (Not just the discrimination against middle-easterners that we all know about.)
One point to note is that ICE personnel live and work locally. So your reception varies quite dramatically depending on your port of entry. At Portland and Seattle, for example, they're generally polite, friendly, and about as reasonable as it's possible to be while working within an unreasonable framework. On the other hand, I actively try to avoid entering the US at Newark. The least annoying US immigration clearance experience I've had was in Dublin, Ireland -- the US immigration staff screen travellers by special arrangement on Irish soil (as on Canadian soil) and they've pretty much gone native. Alas, that means flying via Aer Lingus or Delta, which add other drawbacks ...
They then did whole "papers please" routine down the length of the train. Things got quite amusing when they got to my travelling companion as he had grown a beard since having his passport photo taken - so his facial hair was given a rather close examination and a sound tug or two.
In my typically rather naive way I thought it was all quite exciting, at least until they got to some harmless old lady who clearly did not have her papers in order and the soldiers all got really very angry indeed - to the point where one took out his pistol and started waiving it around rather a lot. They probably shouted at her for the best part of an hour.
Eventually the train moved on, but it took a long time and was very unpleasant.
It's also the only place that made me take my shoes off before the metal detector, which I found quite humiliating--maybe sounds weird but there is something about having to partially undress and being made to walk around on your socks for a bit in front of very unfriendly looking officers trying to decide whether they shall give you an additional pat-down or not that just screams WELCOME TO AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE.
I dunno, it was good to have visited the place once but I'm not sure if I want to go there again. My US friends can come to Europe next time :)
This appears to have been one of the calculations of the terrorist group that put up the shoe bomber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_shoe_bomb_plot
to trying his failed attempt to blow up an airplane with a bomb hidden in his shoe. Some of the co-religionists of some of those terrorists consider it extremely degrading to be bare-footed in certain situations deemed to be "holy" situations (I know this from having been warned about how I oriented my feet in flip-flop sandals once when I was overseas in 1984), and thus they have probably been glad to humiliate Americans as Americans have reacted to the failed shoe bomb plot. My proposal is that United States airport security give up on requesting passengers to remove shoes. Yeah, maybe have chemical sensing devices with air intakes at floor level to screen for bombs on shoes, but let us all wear our shoes onto airplanes and throughout the insides of airports. The screening procedures at present appear to be an overreaction to the actual risk of a shoe bomb destroying a passenger airplane, especially in view of other countries not having the same screening procedure for airline passengers.
I once told an American acquaintance that US customs fingerprinted all my ten digits last time I was in the US. Her reaction: She refused to believe me. That her country would do that to visitors was unthinkable. And I'm from Norway, a reasonably US-friendly country (and ally, I guess).
The most appropriate reaction would be for all other countries to fingerprint all American visitors (like Brazil). But governments in small countries don't dare mess with the US.
When I got my visa, I went with my mom and brother. Since we have very similar names, the lady who took our fingerprints mixed up the fingerprints. She noticed her mistake and fixed my brothers. But she forgot mine.
End result: when I actually got to the USA and went on the scanner, I got a "fingerprint mismatch". I was directed to a room to sort it out. The immigration officer was extremely polite about it tho, way friendlier than what I expected.
After waiting in line for some guy who was accused of drug dealing but was found not guilty (they were waiting for the courthouse to open to verify), and for a girl who consistently spent as much time as she could in the US (and last time had overstayed the visa), it was my turn. The conversation was as follows:
agent: (...) 5 minute wait while he was apparently typing something, while glancing at me from time to time agent: - Who is this individual? (turns the monitor) me: uhhh... oh, that's my brother! agent: - And where's he now? me: - Just over there! (points) agent: - Oh, ok. Welcome to America. me: - Thank you.
I went to the door and turned back.
agent: - The exit is over there. me: - I know. I just wanted to ask you something: did you manage to fix my file? agent: - No. You'll always have this problem. me: - ... okay then.
I have no idea if that's the typical experience - I hope it is and, if true, I have no qualms about it. There was nothing inherently humiliating, there was no disrespect at any time.
Now, I considered writing to the DHS asking about it, but I am pretty sure that they'll ask me to get another visa. Which I won't until mine expires or if I'm required to change my status for some reason. See below.
By the way, paying $12 for a form is nothing, try having to travel 800km and stand in line under the sun for an hour, after paying $150 (plus travel and accommodation expenses), with no guarantees you'll actually have the damn thing issued. Oh, and that's to be done during workdays - you'll have to use vacation or sick days. Also, it must be scheduled months in advance. And you still have to file the landing papers, which ask you the same sort of questions the article was complaining about.
All that, for a country with a visa rejection rate of less than 5%.
So yeah, I agree that the US needs to be more welcoming. But it is not always that bad. It does need more consistency, though. I guess many of the "rules" are made up by whoever is in charge at that moment.
There is such a marked difference between immigration in the rest of the world and the US. Short or non-existent queues, happy staff even when you arrive at 1am, handing out candy, not behind large barriers etc.
Knowing how government work it would not surprise me at all to read that each airport now has TSA officers with SWAT training and they have all kinds of weaponry stashed in a locker somewhere.
Give it a few years, they will be.
Less an institutional approach to security, more an example of institutional panic.
The NG is fine with passing out guns - they probably break them out one weekend a month and dust them off.[1] But passing out ammo - that's a serious step. Some officers freak the heck out when they think about troops having actual live bullets in their magazines.
In the 1980s era Marines, on barracks duty, I actually rolled out to a for-real no-kidding 'we're being shot at' incident with a rifle, a radio, a flashlight and no ammunition.
The reasons _why_ are complicated (and this isn't the place for a sea story) but it boils down to 'the troops weren't trusted with bullets - they might shoot someone'.
[1] I understand this has changed, for the better, since 9/11. Now they break them out and _clean_ them on drill weekend.
I DID see something similar in a British one, though. Soldiers (not guards or police) patrolling the terminal with (to my eyes) very large guns. They also seemed to be in "spread out"-formation, keeping their distance from each other. A measure I would have thought was reserved where more caution was needed, e.g. street patrolling in a war-zone.
A rather unnerving sight, actually.
But I did see them in Frankfurt and CDG _before_ 9/11. So in some countries it's quite routine to have (para)military personnel guarding airports. In the Us it seems to be the exception. I haven't seen any recently.
If they are doing a drill or the threat level goes up, they are armed with rifles, and the cops have sub-machine guns. Fortunately, they are unloaded, so you're less likely to have an incident where they start shooting at some deranged homeless guy. Being deafened by some idiot shooting a rifle down there would suck.
When I was in Frankfurt in the 80s, it looked like every airport and train policeman carried a submachine gun.
In both Germany and the UK, I saw ordinary police carrying submachine guns outside the airport. (The UK surprised me.) Again, the 80s.
Has that changed? (I saw a couple of Italian police outside of airports with submachine guns post-2005.)
I've never seen more than a couple of automatic weapons in a US airport (and I spend way too much time in them). (BTW - M-16s aren't "big scary".)
I've seen maybe 10 US police outside of airports with automatic weapons in the last 30 years.
I was surprised how well armed the Indonesian airport police were in 2010.
I grew up in rural Alaska where guns were very much a part of everyday life, and I'm not sure I entirely agree.
Handguns are for situations where you don't expect to shoot something. Long guns are for situations where you do. In Alaska, most people carried handguns in the woods in case of bears, but a rifle indicated intent to kill things. Police often have a rifle, shotgun or both in the car, but don't get it out when they're not expecting trouble.
Something similar can be seen in the military, where soldiers whose primary job involves shooting people carry rifles or machine guns, and soldiers whose job is something else often have only a handgun.
A police officer carrying a long gun is, and should be a little alarming; it implies an unusually high expectation of a shootout.
You know that, I now that. But to someone who rarely or never shoots an M16 is indeed big and scary.
Or just big. Two years ago we had an exchange student from mainland China. He'd never _seen_ a gun not carried by a soldier and never handled one not in a video game.
The idea that I had some pistols and rifles around the house was interesting to him ... but I thought he'd stroke out when I took him to a gun store and he was able to actually _handle_ an AR15.
But most Americans I've talked to comment on the large rifles, but never on the handguns carried by normal police officers. It's normal for cops to have handguns, so it's nothing for them to be afraid of.
Friend was a former Forth Worth police officer. His first week of patrol his issue pistol was broken. He didn't find out about this until he pulled it on a guy and it went 'click' not 'bang'.
It amazed me that this guy, who was not stupid, carried a gun around for a week without doing a function check on it.
How about a gun in the hands of a woman?
Or, a car in the hands of a human?
Or, a match/lighter?
You're surrounded by people with things that can kill you (he says considering the lethal potential of desk stapler).
I had, for a number of years, a .22 target pistol. Made for the specific purpose of punching small holes in paper. You _could_ use it for killing people, but you'd have to work at it.
That aside, being terrified of a thing seems like a sad way to live.
I'd be more afraid of a person with intent to harm, than the specific tool he uses.
How many accidental gunshots vs. how many accidental incidents of accidental suffocation caused by supermarket bags?
Bags killed over 2000 infants btwn 1980 and 1997.
Accidental firearm deaths about 1000/year. So, you are right. But it's not as though accidental bag suffocation is insignificant and brushed aside as minimal.
Citation needed. Since they're not that effective at that "specific purpose", either their designers are incompetent or that isn't actually their "specific purpose". (And no, "what are they designed for if not killing people?" isn't actually an argument, evidence, etc.)
A gun is just a thing, a tool, it can't do anything.
What matters is the operator, his intent.
A Marine with his bare hands is dangerous. A cheerleader with a bazooka is not.
Sorry, wrong answer. It's not 'staying in control' it's the will to use the weapon to cause harm that 'will or may result in death'.
A cheerleader has no training, is not desensitized, hasn't been indoctrinated that guys downrange are targets and no longer actually human.
We're not ... I'm not ... talking about anything but intent to harm.
Marine has it. Cheerleader doesn't.
Cheerleader is harmless. Marine isn't.
This intentionally simple example excludes random fumbling with controls.
An armed cheerleader, given alcohol or significant emotional distress is more likely to act rashly than a marine who was intentionally subjected to abuse in basic training to see if he'd snap under pressure and trained to be disciplined at all times.
Your initial thinking isn't wrong, but this is HN; we pick things apart here.
My inner-bitter clinger is going to go weep to Jesus now.
I'm sorry, but a cheerleader with a bazooka is most decidedly dangerous.
Not a bit. The bazooka is not dangerous, the _operator_ is.
Thought experiment. We've got a Thunderdome. Make it bigger (for kicks) and with more protection so shrapnel doesn't shred the crowd.
We've got Midvale High's cheerleader team, two US Rangers just back from Afghanistan.
Give the Rangers knives, the cheerleaders bazookas, grenades, shotguns, whatever.
I'll take the Rangers to win anyday. You'll really bet on the cheerleaders to win?
Imagine a short tunnel. You're in the tunnel. The cheer leader is also in the tunnel.
Give the cheerleader a live, loaded, bazooka. Cheerleader doesn't know where or what the trigger is, or what any of those flaps, buttons, and triggers are, or how to hold the device.
Where do you want to stand? Within arms length of the cheerleader? Within 10 metres of the cheerleader, in front of the bazooka?
Most people are saying that the cheerleader might have no intention of killing you (and would be horrified if they did) but that there is a strong chance that they would, by accident.
I yell like a banshee, run forward, knock her on her butt and smash her over the head with the bazooka.
Or, I talk nice, put on my authority voice, walk forward and then knock her down and smash her over the head with the bazooka.
Depends on the cheerleader. Talking nice will probably work best, thinking about it. And oh, hey, there is that intent thing again.
2. Thunderdome is a much better example for a melee battle than a short tunnel.
3. It's fascinating how my comments in this thread get modded down to 0, or -1 but people keep replying.
(I haven't down-voted you. I do disagree with you, but that's not a reason why I would down vote.)
Your point and my point diverged somewhere upthread.
It's not about 'battle', never was to my mind. It's about intent, will, and capability.
I'm surprised at your surprise. The thing to remember is that terrorist groups has been a real and continuous threat in many European countries since at least the 60's. So airport security is something they've been taking seriously for decades and as such serious men with sub-machines guns have always been part of the scenery in most major European airports.
Metropolitan Police were first permanently stationed at Heathrow in 1974. Boundary and operational conditions meant that most airport police could not carry arms; a law change in 1974 made it possible for them to do so.
But they openly started carrying machine guns in 1986.[1]
The UK had domestic terrorism for a long time before that happened. (Also, after.[3])
(http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-09/news/mn-14156_1_machi...)
(http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19860109&...)
[3] (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ira-bombs-on-runway-as-jet...)
As an off-topic aside, my recent web searches include things like [heathrow mortars] and [machine guns heathrow] and so on. It says something that my totally innocent searching for information has left me with some anxiety.
Has that changed?
No. At least at Munich airport, there are one or two policemen with submachine guns right behind the security checkpoints. I think I have seen one at Heathrow recently, too.
This actually makes me feel safer.
During a recent terrorism scare (you know, elevated danger of an attack and such) those submachine guns really were everywhere in larger train stations but they disappeared after some time. I usually only see police without submachine guns now.
I suspect your mean the IRA?
For me it was JFK airport in New York btw.
As for Germany, yes I suppose you could say they had some "changes" near the end of the 80s ... ;)
And I suppose guns are about as big and scary as how threatened you're feeling. For example, UK police generally also tend to wear funny hats.
I'm not worried that police has them. I'm more worried how trained are they, since they're in a crowded area. Automatic weapons don't go well with crowded areas full of civilians in my mind. They're even worse if there's a possibility of someone going through the security without any issue, taking out the armed guy with a simple blow to the head and then taking his gun...
In the US and Canada, I can't recall ever seeing anything more than a holstered pistol.
I never thought about but ... that is sure a bonus for a TSA agent looking to be on top of a given interaction at the check point.
Sounds like current TSA procedure, amped up a few degrees.
No, I'm not being a smarty-pants. When one's country is compared to Communist Yugo-friggin-slavia it's time to pay attention.
While I agree with what you were trying to say, that was really uncalled for.
When my father tried to escape from the East Bloc, he was arrested by Communist troops in Slovenia. The commander in charge of the local troop deployment interrogated him and decided that he wasn't a threat to the state. He put my father back on the road and told him to walk.
My father said to him: "I know how this works. You'll let me walk for a few steps and then you'll shoot me."
The commander said "No, I'm not going to shoot you. Go."
Sometimes, my father would tear up talking about it. That sort of thing did happen.
Although I doubt that his experience had much to do with the Cold War, but rather the internal pre-breakup tensions, war and the Kosovo/Serbia thing during the time.
You might say it's our own damn fault, you might say my parents' generation and mine are to blame, I won't argue about that.
You may criticize the communism, the backwater mentality, the ingrained sense of entitlement and lots of other things about (ex-)Yugoslavia. A lot of that stuff is the reason why I left.
But please, keep it civil, for the sake of us poor schmucks that loved growing up in that place and then left it, disappointed.
By putting "friggen" into the middle of a word, you're verbally underlining / emphasizing it. Really emphasizing it, as is underlining it multiple times.
For instance, in the movie Pretty Woman, when one of the two friends is trying to figure out someone for whom a relationship worked out, she responds with "Cinder-friggen-rella". ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100405/quotes?qt0466870 )
I know this is an overly-long response to a minor issue, but I just didn't want you thinking that someone was making fun of your country. Instead, I believe the person who originally said it was essentially trying to say "a really, really, really communist country" had a more appealing entry system than today's America.
And I'm off to wikipedia for a while. It's Friday night and I just learned something - the weekend is off to a great start.
Thanks!
Sorry you got your feelings hurt.
BTW a friend of mine actually bought a Yugo. We made fun of it at the time, but in terms of gas mileage and how much he paid for it, it was a big winner.
I worked in a defense industry in 80s/90s and sometimes we had to visit Eastern Europe.
We were carefully briefed about not carrying any company documents or the early laptops because they might be seized or copied at immigration. We should be careful about anything we said on the phone since calls may monitored and we should expect to be grilled on arrival for some imagined paperwork error.
Now I work for a european aerospace/defense company - and the rules on visiting America are MUCH stricter.
Your company's rules for visiting the US today are really stricter than the rules for visiting Eastern Europe in the 80s/90s?
In theory - my knowledge of the problems we had making the obsolete GR2 Tornado's radar work would have been useful to the Russian IF there had been a WWIII, and if they didn't already know. And that the East Germans might have passed it on if I had been silly enough to carry all my technical reports with me to Berlin in the 80s
But my current phone has a list of all the calls/emails to my company's component suppliers and many customers and potential customers along with price and delivery info.
We compete and in some cases also partner with US aerospace companies that the US undoubtedly consider vital for it's national defense.
I am pretty confident that if the TSA copied my phone or laptops's contents - while looking for terrorist plots or MP3s and handed it over to the NSA or whoever. Then if they found info that could be of commercial value to Boeing/Lockheed Martin/Raytheon etc then the NSA are not going to be prevented from passing those on by a sense politeness to a foreign visitor!
That's why I get a clean wiped 'travel' laptop and a dumb phone to take, I use a VPN to check my email and I don't chat on a cell phone about how which US airlines are thinking of not buying Boeing.
In 55 - yes, 70's? Maybe. 88? Sounds more like someplace behind the iron curtain.
China and Ghana for instance require more tedious immigration application processes. In-airport procedure waiting time and hassles are no worse in the US. Hell: have you ever seen the non-EU nationals border control queue at Heathrow?
But the NYT argument is sound in that the States should lead the way in efficiency and technology, but they don't.
It makes me ashamed to be British. We can do better.
I don't even see a point of being part of the "Commonwealth" if there isn't a line for citizens, while EU citizens pass largely freely. Regardless of preferential treatment, I thought it was ridiculous that the EU wait time was 0 minutes (as in, there was clearly not a lineup at all) but the internationals line was incredibly long and they didn't bother adding more officers to deal with it.
My wife (not an American citizen) had a case this past fall where the ICE officer was in a very bad mood and it seemed to stem from the fact that he was living in Canada—and hated it. He absolutely didn't want to experience anything Canadian, because everything American is obviously superior.
ICE is a serious problem for America.
Did he tell you that or are you just talking out of your posterior?
>ICE is a serious problem for America.
No, ICE is a minor problem for rich people with an inflated sense of entitlement.
So, yes: he told my wife that he believes that products available in America are superior to products available in Canada; it's not a far stretch to say that he "absolutely didn't want to experience anything Canadian, because everything American is obviously superior." Further, it's also not a big stretch to suggest that this man should be cycled back to the U.S. because he's an absolutely horrendous ambassador for Americans.
Your other statement ("ICE is a minor problem…") is complete nonsense given the discussion at hand. ICE is often the first American face a foreigner sees coming into the U.S. The arrogance (and other negative attributes) displayed by many ICE officers is absolutely a problem for America, because it's a bad impression.
I don't travel much to the U.S. (at most once or twice a year, and sometimes less despite the fact that most of my extended family is in the U.S.), and as an American citizen I can't be refused entry. Inasmuch as that matters, I don't care how asinine these folks are. However, I care deeply when the first view of Official America that a foreigner gets is someone with a bad attitude and distrust and/or dislike for non-Americans. (I also think that any ICE officer who is stationed in a foreign country needs to act like they like that foreign country and skip the whole America First act that I've seen far too often at Toronto Pearson. It's offensive.)
EDIT: I'm rather offended that your immediate assumption is that someone is making something up when they say something. Maybe you haven't experienced it, but the Ugly American Syndrome is alive and well. It bothered me as a U.S. military brat when my father was stationed in both the Netherlands and in Japan, and it bothers me as an adult expat (and now dual citizen). America's a great place and has great people, but if you work for the government and are stationed in a foreign country, you are America to the people you're around. Act like you're representing your country well and don't be an ass.
Well you could have included the entire story in the first place, but it sounds like sarcasm on the part of the agent.
And there are much bigger problems like poverty and healthcare, so if you need to feel righteous indignance maybe start there.
You're right: America has many problems, some of which will be unsolvable in any reasonable amount of time. Given that America prides itself on being an immigrant nation, I would suggest that ICE attitudes are fairly important. Fortunately, these problems aren't either/or problems, but often both/and. Improve the ICE experience (and other immigration-related problems) and you might find it easier to have someone come in who can meaningfully help solve problems like American poverty and healthcare.
I don't have to deal with America's healthcare insanity—I have quality healthcare here in Canada. I don't have to deal with America's poverty problem—I am more worried about Canada's aboriginal poverty problem. The way that my life intersects with America these days is primarily ICE and related agencies. It's not a surprise that my worries about America would be in the areas where it affects my life directly.
If you intend to spend the day at the beach you won't go wrong heading to south beach and the taxi ride is a direct shot (~$20). Don't rely on public transport for anything. October is still hot and humid (hurricane season is still winding down) and the buses are only 10 minutes late if you are lucky.
In any event, ESTA and really everything they put foreigners through is an embarrassment and everyone responsible for it - from Senators and Representatives who voted for these provisions to the people who are working on the border, should be ashamed of how they are treating people who visit our country.
One thing we get used to is the "step aside" treatment. When a border agent sees my Lebanese passport with "arabic gibberish" they usually react the same way. There's a little hesitation, (one time the agent even called her supervisor), then I'm asked to "step aside", go to a special lane, get a full body search from an extremely cold person following protocole to the letter. They will go through all my stuff, literally everything and after making sure I'm "clean" they let me go.
I don't complain much though, it's just a funny ritual. And more often than none, the "step aside" lane is far less crowded than the regular one, which means that despite the intensive search, it's still takes me less time.
On the other hand, one of my closest friends studying at Purdue University had a mandatory two hour stop in an interrogation room, every time he passezd by the airport of Chicago, because he has the mention "born in Beirut" on his French passport. "Randomly selected" they said...
They have to let me in and they know it, so they exercise their power by detaining me for 2-8 hours and going through all of my stuff. It's always a real half-assed search, too.
Watch the linked video. It's a VOLUNTARY interaction. The only legally prudent thing to do is to STFU.
I have to also agree with your statement. I have been to the states 3 times, first in 2006 where I flew into JFK and was "randomly selected" (woooo, I won!) and then detained for additional questionning for 5 hours.
What did they ask me? Name, DoB, place of birth (all info IN MY PASSPORT ALREADY!), fathers/mothers name, address, what job I did, where I was staying. I have no problems them asking me, but it's the way they treat you. I got put in a waiting room, told to sit down and answer these question in an "application" form. Having filled this in they just told me to sit down. When I got up to ask what was taking so long, "Sir, would you please sit unless you are called". As if the sir makes it polite. Eventually they stamped my passport and I was through.
Flash forward to July 2010, first stop Atlanta. Same deal. I'l also been backpacking for 6 months. That raised an eyebrow when he looked through all the stamps. I hadn't gone to any of those "terrorist" countries though. I was born in Bangladesh and have in the UK since I was a year old. I did get asked though - Did you have any military training before you left? - Have you been to country X, Y, Z - Why did you go to X, Y, Z. Do you not have a job? How did you get time off? - I even got asked why I left Bangladesh. Really?!? I was a year old mate, didn't really have a say in the matter!
The last time I went was December 2011. That time was a breeze. Flew into Newark, I was already on the system now (I had a change of passport between first 2 visits). I STILL however got briefly questioned in the queue to the counter, I have no idea why, but colour of skin is the only thing...
My brother went to Peru a few years back, he a his girlfriend had a stopover in Miami for a couple hours. Note they were not "entering" America, this was a compulsory refuel stop I guess. He gets hauled in, his girlfriend is sitting outside WTF is going on. He misses his flight due to the delay, they barely get him on the next flight but now his girlfriend has no fight since she was not hauled in. The airline to their credit were good, swapped their flights and his girlfriend took his flight and they gave him another flight yet several hours later. The most ignorant part of this though, when questioned "where were you born" my brother said "London, UK", "But your passport says Kingston", "Yes, Kingston Upon Thames, near London, UK", "Well the only Kingston I know if Kingston, Jamaica". This delayed things a bit. Yes, the world is bigger than that corner of the earth!
</rant>
But the people their are some of the friendliest and hospitable people I have met, and I've travelled around a fair bit!
They ask because folks using false papers occasionally don't know what their papers say.
Any other transit between two international destinations through a US airport requires entering the US just like any other visit.
I thought transit was different from entering a country for a stay, for example I know that people from most countries need a visa to visit India, but if you are transiting through then you are just waved through. Same with most other countries as far as I am aware...
Regardless, he is now not keen on visiting US in any circumstance and would rather pay more/take a longer flight than transit through the US.
FWIW, I'm not wild about these "righteous indignation" articles on HN. This is one of the better ones I've seen, and I agree with it wholeheartedly, but... I feel that perhaps they're just better left to other sites.
I don't think you quite get my angle; it's a bit subtler than "this stuff isn't important". I think it's extremely important. Far more important than pretty much everything considered 'on topic' on this site: people live or die due to the health care system in their countries, for instance. Therefore, if we start posting this stuff, it could easily crowd out the 'hacker news' content. Problem #2 is that most of these things are either something where 1) pretty much everyone agrees (like this article), or 2) it because episode 3391913947165 of "libertopians vs lefties" on the internet, trotting out the same tired stuff and not resolving anything.
I'm ok with talking about things where we all agree, in that it can still deepen understanding and spur people to action. For example, most people here agree about the idiocy of TSA's security theater. But when I took a flight this week, I opted out of what I could partly because I know that some of my fellow nerds are doing the same.
I'm also ok with talking about things that don't seem to get resolved right away. A lot of major issues take decades to get sorted out. But I don't think they get resolved by ignoring them. Well, they often do, but I don't expect they'll get resolved in favor of my position that way.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=242484
The problem is that these kind of articles breed - first it's this, then it's some other thing, then it's Mitt Romney, then it's Ron Paul, and in the end you're saddled with a lot of politics.
And none of it is "intellectually stimulating". When I read the article, it just makes me irritated about the US policies and practices in place, but it's all information I already knew.
Also, to me, the "hacker mindset" works a lot better for things you can just go fix, or avoid altogether. Fixing a large, messy, political problem in a large country is anything but that.
You sound exactly like one of those higher educated Chinese college kids arguing that whole censorship thing really isn't as bad as they make it sound ...
Or, rather someone defending their abusive husband. "It's just a lot of poltics" == "Sometimes, he's just had a really rough day at work, you know?"
This is politics, and there's nothing wrong with that.
http://srlfacile.org/ (lowering the costs of creating a company in Italy).
I'm also passionate about bicycle racing (Milano San Remo tomorrow!) but that doesn't mean I feel a need to talk about it here.
There's also interesting discussion to be had about "hacking large bureaucratic systems - building in incentives for polite but effective behaviours or traffic flow analysis or what not.
Last time I was in Germany for 3 months before flying back to the U.S. Questions I was asked in an unfriendly, brusque manner:
Why were you gone so long? Don't you work? What do you do for a living? Why would your employer let you be gone so long? Why did you pay so much for that?
I wish foreigners would stop visiting the U.S. Maybe then we would change our policies.
Last time, I couldn't tell what the guy behind the glass screen was actually asking me to do, which irritated him immensely. "Lef'and." "Lef'and." "LEF'AND." It took a few tries for me to realise that what he was trying to say was "Can you put your left hand on the scanner, please?"
Maybe it's because I'm British, but I find the British border and security people far more pleasant, which is strange because on the whole, I find British people colder than Americans. Even when something goes wrong, they're apologetic (I was randomly picked for a full pat-down last time I flew out of Manchester, and it was all done with friendliness, good humour, and apologies for delaying me slightly.)
"Please" and "thank you" cost nothing, and would likely be quicker than these repeated barked orders. I like the American people--on the whole, I find them pleasant, polite, good-humoured, decent people. I mean, I am marrying one! So where do they find these people who work on the borders? Every single time I go through, I'm incredibly nervous of doing something slightly wrong, which makes me more nervous because I look nervous and worry they'll think I'm up to something. It's terrifying.
In fact a large part of the reason I left America is because I wanted to be able to participate in globally-networked businesses, and America's border policies were making that increasingly difficult. This doesn't just impact tourists -- it effects business travellers and academics even worse. Britain has always been much more open in that respect, but recent policy changes are sending it in a very American sort of direction, which I find quite distressing.
I don't know what, if anything, America can do to reverse this. The Obama administration doesn't seem to be actively beating the drums of xenophobia the way the last administration did, and yet the growth of these kind of institutions continues unabated. Why?
I find the other UK airports to be much friendlier in general, they even say 'please' and 'thank you' and even have a sense of humour.
Last time I landed there I literally blitzed through immigration and boarded a DLR train like 15 minutes after landing.
A beautiful approach, too.
Even now.
They understand that the border is the public face of a country and likely the only contact with the state a visitor will make.
It was nice to see a human response in such a situation.
Presumably he says the same thing to everyone, and to this day I wonder what must be going through his mind when half of the people passing his desk seem to be ignoring his instructions.
Last time I went to London for work I explained that I was coming over to set up a network. What followed was an extended comedic interaction about how I was pulling the cable, the size of the spool needed, and whether I had flushed one end down the airplane toilet to let it unspool as we went.
Sorry, man. :-(
They can pretty much get away with anything short of criminal activity (and sometimes even that). What incentive do they have for being polite? It sucks but they aren't paid as well as private sector and they don't really care.
That's certainly not the case for me.
At this point "they" have already won. It doesn't really matter who "they" is, but I can tell you that having grown up as a kid in a former East-European communist country the feeling that every sane person had on their back of their heads was: "The Securitate is watching me. Better not do anything fancy" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitate) . Even though, of course, the Securitate was only actively "watching" a small number of persons.
We Americans have been manipulated by our leaders and it's sad for me to see how easily it was done.
I had a good friend who grew up in Romania and his stories scare the crap out of me.
1. Your next door neighbor is just gone one day, replaced with another family. Nobody asks why or what happened. You just don't ask.
2. Election ballets are write-ins. One guy wrote "Mickey Mouse" on the ballet and they came looking for him. He was forced to report to the local police station to watch propaganda videos for 8 hours a day for 8 days.
People can complain about how things are going here in the US, but to say it becoming more and more like a dictatorship seems a little disingenuous.
Times were tough in Panama and this includes being tough for the cops. I had to pay bribes. I was once questioned by the police over a matter and was scared I'd be taken to a holding cell in Panama City. If you were put in a holding cell in Panama City and were not considered friendly to the regime you could be placed in a cell were you would be sexually assaulted by transvestites put in the cell for such a purpose.
Some areas - nice areas - were off limits to Americans who knew better. Places were officer of the Panamanian military lived. You didn't want to be caught there. When stopped by cops you considered it a good thing if the only thing that happened was that you lost money.
It was much worse for Panamanians than for Americans. We did have a military presence and until the end Noriega didn't want to push the boundaries of acceptable behavior too much.
The two defining characteristics in my mind of a police state are a feeling of powerlessness when dealing with police forces and the feeling of arbitrariness of how police forces deal with you. We aren't at the point of police statehood yet but I see the U.S. going down this path.
These sorts of things were happening in the Stalinist "dark" '50s, that's for sure, but when I grew up, in the '80s, the regime had become a little bit more "civilized". I think it was mostly because Ceausescu had signed the Helsinki Accords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Accords) and in general because he wanted to detach Romania from Moscow's grip. The regime wasn't technically allowed, so to speak, to imprison people for political reasons, so this is why the authorities were resorting to either fake psychiatric assessments or to made up petty theft charges in order to take away "inconvenient" people.
Anyway, it's a very long and complicated story, 20 years after the facts even us, Romanians, don't have a single view on the whole thing (surprisingly enough, there's a quite big percentage of the population who'd rather relive those times than having to deal with the realities of the present).
In Europe everything is so much simpler. If you are inside UE all you need to show is your ID card and your are set.
Why doesn't US do the same thing with european countries at least ?
Same thing for working VISA, we are the good-old-europe for god sake :P not a quarantine zone
Simpler than that. Inside the Schengen zone, there are no borders at all; you can travel by car from France to Italy or Germany and back without being stopped anywhere.
The Schengen agreements regulate short-term stays only. For long-term stay or work there are specific laws, different for each country.
I wish this were different, but Europe still has a long way to go before it is a single open market.
If you are inside the Schengen area, you only need to show your id card. Go to/from the UK, and you still need your passport.
Traveling between Schengen countries is more comparable to traveling between US states than from Europe to US or reverse, because the whole point of Schengen is a common system for protecting the "outer" borders.
In the USA there seems to be a no laughing rule. In Amercan airports, you're treated as if you're doing something wrong by being there. The guards glare a you - it's very strange.
For some reason, land border crossings are usuall better. So I try and enter by train or car if possible. While i've had 1-2 bad experiences by land, the guards are usually quite nice.
The TSA seems to be the main problem, and their toxic culture has infected other airport personnel.
I like Americans, but I avoid traveling to the country.
By car, however, the experience has almost always been excellent. One border agent told me an extended anecdote about why Andrew Jackson was called 'Old Hickory' when I paid my VISA fees with a $10 bill. Another greeted me with 'you know weezy? good times?'. They seem relaxed, friendly and happy in general.
There definitely seems to be a difference in culture between the airport personnel and the land border personnel.
I think that's a very interesting point you hit. Lots of the comments here on HN talk about border guards asking why US citizens have been gone for so long, and how they got that much time off work, etc.
American authorities frown upon the "go travel for a while" approach - you should be in the motherland, working. It's not OK to explore and understand how the outside world works.
I'm a Canadian who has been living in the US for the past 10 years or so. When I cross back into Canada, I get grilled (Why are you visiting? Family? What family? etc, etc). I crossed the border by land last summer and was accused of trying to smuggle my US car into the country.
Now when I return to the US? The most I've ever gotten was "Welcome home!"
It's my theory that customs and immigration can freely crap all over their own citizens while crapping on a foreigner might cause problems (if the foreigner has some pull).
The one exception is Honduras. Total trainwreck of a country.
I've traveled to the US (always to Boston) a few times over the recent years. While all of the "take your shoes off" stuff is annoying, it's really not that big of a deal.
The ESTA process can be done online and you can pay with your credit card. It takes about 15 minutes and 15 minutes after that you get an email.
It's all a little bit annoying, but I don't feel personally insulted and so far it worked without a hassle. The border security people have always been nice to me and it felt more like a chit-chat rather than an interrogation.
A lot of the process seems useless, but seeing as it doesn't take away all that much time, I'm fine with it.
I've been treated way worse traveling to eastern european countries by car.
As a US passport holder I'm pretty much done using LAX, MIA, and EWR.
That said, it varies a lot between airports. I've flown through many different airports on my way to SFO, and the closer you get to the west-coast, the friendlier the agents (with individual exceptions of course). SFO and Seattle tend to be the most friendly ones in my experience. Yet, you're in a constant fear that you checked the wrong box somewhere, and they'll send you on the next flight home.
For a civilized country, this is simply unacceptable. I wish all politicians would be forced through this process every time they flew, and I'm confident that this would change in no-time.
This is the real problem I think.
As a comparison, in most European countries the passport control does two things, and two things only: a) determine whether you are a citizen (e.g. passport control), b) determine whether you are a criminal that needs to be arrested immediately. There is no other option. If you are a citizen of the country you are entering and they don't arrest you right away, they can't detain you, question you, harass you, or do anything else. There are no questions about where you're heading, where you work, what you do for a living. There would be no point in asking: as a citizen, you have the right to be heading anywhere, working anywhere, or actually not making a living at all.
Land of the free, indeed.
The immigration officer walked in with this disgusted look, sighed heavily, and proceeded to process everyone. It was appalling how he treated people, yelling at them to place their hand properly for fingerprinting, telling people not to talk unless asked to, etc. He proceeded to treat my wife like crap as well, until he looked over her paperwork and noticed she was travelling with me, and asked her where her husband was. She pointed at me and his demeanor changed immediately. He obviously wasn't used to being observed by a fellow American in his day to day work.
I wish I had had the balls to say something to him, but as far as we were concerned, he was holding the keys to the kingdom.
I had read various reports on the state of entering America, but it was far worse than I expected.
I tried to find info about visas, but it said I didn't need one for what was practically a holiday. It was only when I got to the airport that I was told I needed a visa waiver. I fired up the iPhone and spent the best part of 30 minutes trying to fill out what is probably the worst multipart form I've seen since 2003.
On arrival at Houston it seems a couple of other planes turned up. The end result was a 3 hour wait in line to get through passport control (Americans were caught up in this equally). Fingerprints, photos, 3rd degree about my visit - if they don't want me here, they should have said before I booked my ticket.
After checking-in to the US, I had to go back through "security". That was another 1.5 hour queue. I opted out of the scanner, and they were pretty good about it a Houston. However, on the way back at Austin they make you stand in a ridiculous perspex shout it about the place and really make you pay for not going through the scanner.
Over all, the experience I had is summed up pretty well by this article. I felt totally unwelcome, kind of like an 18 year old trying to get into an over capacity nightclub past a couple of bored bouncers who already took a dislike to me...
Don't fuck up your visa application though, a colleague did that (he got a business visa but the wrong one), was refused entry and — because it was during the Eyjafjallajökull event — had the chance to visit the US's penitentiaries for a week before they could put him on a plane back.
On my first visit I was unable to find a working ATM, was insulted by a surly woman running an info desk who was more interested in talking to her boyfriend and was accosted by numerous taxi drivers none of which seemed to be properly licensed.
The experience was no different to arriving in a 3rd world country.
"I know who you are…"
panic. heart in mouth. I'm about to be locked up
(beat)
"Nice to meet you Santa Claus!"
The fact that there are so many negative complaints regarding US border security is more than noteworthy. The TSA and Immigration are just so way out of control.
Overall, I think that this is the result of a lack of consistent and sane policies regarding immigration and border control. On the one hand, we do relatively little to stop illegal immigration on some of our borders for political reasons. Then on the other hand, we flail madly in the authoritarian direction by having this massive and unchecked TSA bureaucracy.
We really have no idea what we're doing on a national level. As ineffective and counterproductive as border security and immigration is here, I can bet even without looking at the numbers that it isn't cheap.
Much quicker.
Which really is a shame, because in general Americans are a friendly bunch of people.
I think it's somehow playing out for Poland good - it makes brain drain a little slower.
I just wanted to point out that painting all your fellow-citizens with the same brush as yourself is perhaps too idealistic. The US may have their reasons for not absolving all Swedes from their customs procedures (silly as the procedures are).
EDIT: made my experience more PC to stop the downvotes
The only foreigners on the flight were me and an elderly women clutching an Israeli passport. But America (or at Least Utah) was kept safe from the threat of a very small UK-Israeli invasion.
Although in SLC - even the TSA are nice polite smiling mormons.
This treatment makes me angry, but you have to be treated like this yourself before you can understand that anger. I won't visit the States as a tourist anymore as long as this ridiculous setup is in place (which includes your TSA madness). I'm afraid of the day my employer asks me to travel to the States. I hope I can decline.
As others have said, it's an unpleasant lottery. Mostly you wait a long time in line, and then you go through.
But twice I've been asked to step into a back room while some very slow process happens (I wasn't questioned in detail either time, so I don't really know what was going on). That added about an extra hour on each occasion, and is somewhat threatening.
This year I'm not going to the US at all. Mostly that's because there aren't any interesting conferences, but there's also in the back of my mind I'm slightly glad that I don't have to go through this fandango.
Sometimes it is really easy and dealing with bureaucratic burden is really minor issue for me.
For the first couple of years they ran the system in parallel -- ESTA was a legal requirement, but because the systems weren't integrated they kept handing out the old I-94W's. Now they've spliced it all together the paper forms are no longer required.
The white customs declaration is still used, though. And I suspect it'll stick around for a very long time (because the precise details change for any given traveller on any given flight).
I just don't like the whole "oh yeah, we have a visa waiver agreement with your country... you don't have to apply for a visa, but you do have to apply and pay to not have to apply for a visa..."
I'm sure it's not like that in reality, but that's what it feels like to me.
I do, and it's not fun.
I have an application in the works at the moment, started the process with the US Embassy on 28th October 2011, and here I am 4 months and 17 days later not knowing anything and no idea when I might hear.
Ignoring all other points (2-6 hours in secondary being interrogated at the border), the endless process for getting a Visa is a real pain and a massive deterrent.
It's not like this is my first time, I've visited the US more than 10 times and had visit Visas in the past. Nothing has changed, but each application still takes an indeterminately long time.
I was hoping to go to a conference, but it's too late now, it's passed. Perhaps to also try and make some meetings with some potential business partners.
The reality keeps coming home: Just don't bother. It's far more hassle than it's worth. If you get past the Visa (a gamble in itself), then you still have the border to look forward to.
I cannot recall a single trip in which crossing the border was anything less than hellish.
This, of course, is all anecdotal. But behind anecdotes are people, this is my unfortunate reality.
I don't really mind having to fill out some forms to get into a country, it's having to do the same thing 4 times that's annoying.
I read through the whole interesting submitted article, and the one question I have is about actual numbers of tourist visitors to the United States.
After the worldwide recession, tourism to the United States from other countries declined,
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Foreign-Tourism-Drops-in...
but the number of tourists has since recovered. The United Nations World Tourism Barometer
http://mkt.unwto.org/sites/all/files/docpdf/unwtohighlights1...
reports that the United States is second only to France in the number of foreign tourism visits, and that the United States enjoyed growth in visits from the 2010 reporting year compared to the 2009 reporting year. The submitted article didn't mention statistics like this, but reported on anecdotes.
I'm an American who has lived overseas. I haven't crossed an interational border in a bit more than a decade. (All other members of my family have crossed international borders since 9/11/2001.) I hope to travel to Canada by car with my whole family this summer. I fully agree with the author's premise that the United States ought to look as friendly and welcoming as the people in my community when foreign visitors first encounter a United States border official. But I can't help but wonder if this really matters a lot from the "attract tourists" point of view, if the United States has a continued growth in the number of tourists, and it is second only to a Schengen Area country that has a land border and rail connections with other Schengen Area countries in the number of foreign visitors it enjoys every year. Maybe most visitors understand that annoying security measures at the border are part of what make the freedom of movement inside the United States borders a palatable policy for many Americans who are more worried about terrorist attacks than I am.
The "unwelcome mat" may be damping tourism growth by discouraging repeat visitors rather than outright discouraging all visitors.
I agree 100%.
I managed a hostel in Ecuador for 6 months, and most visitors from Europe had a forced stopover in the US on their way to Latin America. The horror stories were amazing, and many people vowed to never again cross into the "land of the free".
How much security could that form be adding if you can apply for it literally minutes before travelling to the US.
How much security could that form be adding if you can apply for it literally minutes before travelling to the US.
I'm not sure how true this is and I'm not a believer in whacky conspiracy theories, but it seemed rather plausible.
If her ESTA application had been denied, she would not have been able to travel and would have to apply for a visa at a US embassy. The pre-board checks for ESTA were performed electronically. I believe there's also a state where an application has to be reviewed, and that can take days to reach a decision.
I don't know anyone who has had that happen though.
All of the staff were extremely friendly and helpful - they seemed as though they were actively trying to create a good impression and reverse this perception.
I'm a Brit, usually travelling via NYC.
It's generally not about the practical implications (there aren't any, most tourists pass through fine) but about the theoretical possibilities and the implication that I'm only visiting so I can blow something up, or that I've strapped C4 to my 4yo daughter who must be xray'd or patted-down.
The whole system seems to be filled with people that are trained to make entering the US an unpleasant experience. Even when everything goes smoothly, rarely are people at the border being nice, polite and helpful as they are in most other countries.
This is all the more remarkable since it is so distinctively un-American. Americans are probably the most friendly and open people in the Western world. Once you get past the border, it's a breath of fresh air compared to most European countries.
So regardless whether or not the entire process is really justified, my main question is: what the fuck is wrong with these people?
There are several times when I've been absolutely amazed at how horribly I was treated while going through boarder control, and I'm an American. --They even treat us like criminals, so the bullshit foreigners have to go through with ESTA, getting their fingerprints and photos taken and whatnot is beyond embarrassing. I live in Norway now, and when people I know are headed to the US, I actually feel the need to apologize about the treatment I know they'll receive, even though I wrote to my senators protesting a lot of these policies that our government voted in. I can only hope that one day they'll realize the injustice of what they've done.
I'm thankful that most countries - especially countries in Europe, haven't been vindictive and forced the same treatment on Americans, although I wouldn't blame them if they did.
I would see this as an investment in culture and not necessarily a subsidy. Maybe it's something you can use once every few years and not every year.
This would do wonders for both the average US citizen's view of the world as well as the world's view of the US citizens.
My hope is that something like this might just lead to more sensible behavior towards other cultures and peoples. What happens when entering the country is but one small example of the problem.
I think that goes against everything "the government" in America is currently about. Do they want you to know that many European countries mandate a minimum of 6 weeks leave a year? or that the murder rate in America is 10 times any other Developed country, or that the American school system is a train-wreck, or that..... etc. etc.
I feel strongly that the whole point right now to is discourage Americans from learning about the outside world, lest they want to improve a few things at home.
Of course, sarcasm on my part, but I'm pretty sure that would be the kind of reaction you'd get. You think of "investment in culture" as a good thing, many others see a liberal conspiracy.
Traveling really opens your mind in ways that can't be quantified. I really think that our countrymen can be very egocentric to the point of bordering on ignorance. Understanding and knowing about other cultures is very important. I'd gladly support such a tax incentive because I am sure that it would pay dividends many times over in amazing ways.
Meanwhile, under no circumstances would I even consider visiting or transiting the US.
Side note: All google servers are reachable for free over the wifi. (you can e.g. set up an app engine proxy)
I'll never forget my return from Mexico on the day before 9/11 where I was greeted by a border patrol agent with piercing blue eyes, leather gloves with cut-off tips and a big nasty snot bubble protruding from his right nostril.
They do that in every gov't office in China and every (gov't owned) bank. All have these little things with buttons, where you can rate the service with one to five stars. I highly doubt that anybody ever looks at those numbers. More likely that a very well-connected dude has a company producing these machines.
There are obvious problems with that. Interestingly, the (much mocked) TSA blog lists some items they find each week. Very roughly, about 20 guns per week are taken as carry on onto planes.
(http://blog.tsa.gov/search/label/Week%20In%20Review)
I have no idea how many people go through TSA each week. Nor how many guns (loaded or otherwise) they miss. I have no idea if any of the weapons they stopped would have been used for violence. But that feels like a very small number, when compared to the direct and indirect costs of the system.
Note also the mission creep - they're very happy to list any drugs they find. (They do say that they're not looking for drugs, but if they happen to find them they have to report it.)
One of the requirements is to document everywhere you have lived for the past 16 years, including home addresses. With all the places they have lived in Canada, it's taken them weeks to Columbo up the information.
Myself, I've lived five places in 6 months about 10 years ago (another long story). Recollecting those times and places is something I'd rather not do.
Voters should be voting to encourage this.
But, for example, I recently smuggled a packet of Spanish Jamon into a Latin American country which completely bans bringing that kind of thing in. But I only found out on the plane, and there's no way I was going to flush 400gr of prime Iberico (which on top of it was a gift) on arrival.
I went to a conference in Orlando and was planning to fly through LA to SYD.
However, the DHS told me I had to report to the LA office before I leave during office hours, so I had to change my flights to one day earlier and spend the night in LA just to check in at the DHS.
Surely it can't get that bad, but it did before.
Along with the fee and abusive questionnaire at this site https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/ we've also got this lovely informational site http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1262.html and tons of other fees http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1263.html . Then of course after you've paid all your fees and told the US government all about your diseases, mental illness, and intention to spy on them, you still have to give them your fingerprints, photo, submit to a search, wait in line for 2 hours, and answer many more questions about the same stuff.
It's not xenophobia. It's full on we think we're better than you and you pathetic humans get to deal with us 'cos we said so. The whole system wreaks of 'cos we said so. Every citizen and border patrol agent knows it's excessive and ineffective, but we keep on truckin' cos hey, they're all just doing their, trained to be overly aggressive, jobs.
Not a good start!