Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwup238 | Hacker News Reader

> From next April, Canadian nationals, along with those from Germany, the US, the UK and 29 other countries, will require a visa for entry.

> These include all “non-reciprocating countries” - meaning the new visa rules will affect citizens from all countries that require Namibian passport holders to have visas.

I’m curious what this is meant to achieve. There is zero chance those western countries would be open to Visa free travel to Namibia. It’d be political suicide with the latest right wing wave and no one cares about the Skeleton coast and deserts of Namibia enough to apply any pressure.

Is this policy just for domestic consumption or a cash grab?

View on HN

I agree, I don’t think this will magically inspire other countries to waive visas for Namibian.

I guess it’s a cash grab - if you already pay thousands for your flight ticket then let’s just ask tourists and businesses traveller's for 90USD.

What worries me is that we will soon see this everywhere with the recent hate over (mass) tourism and the make-money-everywhere attitude.

I actually know a guy who went to Namibia, for photography.

There probably aren't too many like him, of course.

Oh don’t get me wrong, Namibia is relatively safe, beautiful, and the people are wonderful so it’s great place to visit especially if you follow the Okavango into Botswana at the same time.

It’s just not a popular destination.

I don’t know, I think we should have started detaining US citizens for 20 minutes in Australia to reciprocate the delays caused by Trump era USA interview requirements. For reference, before boarding a plane to the USA you had to queue up to answer a bunch of dumb questions “what is your golf handicap” was one I got. Fortunately that ridiculous process stopped.

There is something to having a degree of quid pro quo and not just being a stepping stone to more powerful nations.

> “what is your golf handicap” was one I got.

Did you say you were going to the US to play golf or is this a reference to the debate?

Nope I said I was going to California for a job interview, the golf thing just came up as they peppered me with questions about what I like to do on the weekend.

What a weird question, is there a right or wrong answer to that?

They're probably looking for a breaking facade reaction rather than any specific right or wrong answer.

There's a school of thought that thinks such approaches to questioning works, another that thinks it doesn't - but in general border agents look more for body language and reactions rather than correct answers to trivia questions.

Some say the best way to be forgotton | passed through | overlooked by aircrew and border agents is to rapidly get "bucketed" into a category group .. too many drinks and make a loud pass at staff, for example, and you're in the "drunken bore" group.

That’s a reasonable question for immigration, especially if they think you might try to work illegally (which, as a native English speaker, you could do easily). Canada can be quite hard on Americans for this, and we even have a special arrangement where the eSTAs and eTAs don’t apply between us for US and Canadian citizens. We have nearly complete freedom of movement.

My wife is usually quiet when we do immigration because I carry the passports and know the process (a bit silly, since she’s been through it almost as many times as I, but they need to be in one place and I carry that bag), but at the land border I’ve had to wake her up to get her to talk. She asked why one time. I said, you have a US passport, we have different last names, they have to make sure I’m not a human trafficker with a fake passport for you.

Then she got Global Entry and that issue went away. They know both of us.

The headline is dumb. Getting a visa costs 90 dollars and a form at the airport and youve got a visa.

Right-wing wave? There are full open-immigration supporters, but I would put most of them to the left of Lenin.

Nationalism is not always and everywhere insane, especially in a democracy where demography is destiny. If your country doesn’t have a strong assimilation system, being very protective of borders is a good idea.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com