Nervous international tourists scrap their U.S. travel plans | Hacker News Reader

Nervous international tourists scrap their U.S. travel plans

washingtonpost.com

65 pointsgeox33 comments

Of course foreigners are wary of traveling to the US. If Western European tourists and green card holders are getting arrested and deported after being incarcerated for who knows how long, there is no way I’m going to risk losing money and my family’s personal safety on a vacation trip.

If the US doesn’t want to welcome foreign tourists, I can spend my money elsewhere, no problem.

> If the US doesn’t want to welcome foreign tourists, I can spend my money elsewhere, no problem.

You should take the same stance on all US products (especially Europe’s Meta-addiction to WhatsApp). I say that as an American. Nearly 140m Americans don’t care how much the President insults you or picks fights with you or arrests and vanishes your innocent citizens into 3rd world detention centers with no due process as long as it has no apparent impact on their wallet.

Stop using Meta, Apple, Google, X and the rest. Tell your government to stop buying Lockheed and Halliburton (and US debt in general). Stop visiting Disneyland and NYC. Make the US the international pariah it apparently desperately wants to be.

As an American I second this.

> If Western European tourists and green card holders are getting arrested and deported after being incarcerated for who knows how long

Don't forget, they're starting to deport people to places they have never been, or even speak the language of!

Oh, sorry, even that's outdated this weekend. We are now at the point that people are being sent to an unregulated prison in El Salvador "pending processing".

If I was not a US citizen I would be making plans to leave.

Read what the government is telling the courts in the Alien Enemies Act case. They are saying that the President can declare that transnational crime is an invasion, and arrest, detain, or deport to a prison in a third country, any non-citizen, and that the courts cannot review this decision.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69742127/01208720432/jg...

It’s literally due to violent cartel gangs invading the country, committing crimes, and threatening everyday citizens. We’re talking about terrorists on interpol lists not a visiting student on a visa. The use of this legal approach seems appropriate. The alternative is wasting lots of time and money.

Lots of other countries have hunted down Tren de Agua in more aggresive ways. Venezuela, where they are from, had to literally use over 10000 troops to take over their headquarters in a raid. Obviously such an organization should be dealt with using such laws.

The government is claiming that their decisions are not reviewable by the courts. If the courts accept that argument, then tomorrow the President could proclaim that we are being invaded by, say, the Yakuza, and send any non-citizen Japanese person to a prison in El Salvador and the courts would have no power to question them.

There is nothing stopping the President from using this enormous, unchecked power against his political opponents.

Read the motion I linked above.

> tomorrow the President could proclaim that we are being invaded by, say, the Yakuza, and send any non-citizen Japanese person to a prison in El Salvador

Why would he do that? Manzanar is much closer and successfully tested even against citizens.

I’ve heard that interned Japanese-American did not like to bring the whole thing up afterwards, but it was clearly a mistake trying to memory hole that abomination.

For PR outrage/attention, just like most of the things he does and says.

If you keep trying to apply normal rational expectations to the current administration, you’ll always be ‘surprised’ at what they actually do.

So your argument is a slippery slope argument. The government can do a lot of things. But it doesn’t. This action against violent criminals seems like an obviously good use of the law. I’ll worry about your theoretical slippery slope if and when it becomes an issue.

Also, what do you mean by “political opponents”? Are non citizen Tren de Agua members voting or running for office? If not, how are they political opponents?

The US government is currently doing crazier and crazier things on a daily basis, and is run by a guy who’s pretty much open in saying that, actually, he likes doing crazy things; the courts and legislature have made barely any attempt to stop this. I mean, at this point, I don’t think the slippery slope fallacy really applies; the crazy guy who’s obsessed with vengeance against perceived enemies may well get it. Do not assume that there is a limit.

The President has threatened to deport many people because of their political views, and he has already arrested at least two that I know of, plus one more who left the country before she could be deported. So it's not a "theoretical slippery slope" argument.

The administration’s current actions are already at the bottom of the slope.

It's already likely that some people were shipped to Guantanamo who were not criminals[1][2]. They were kept in horrible conditions without media access and left without legal recourse or any means of communication with the outside world. Is that OK with you? What happens when Trump decides that "Democrats" or "leftists" are the enemy now, as he's been continuously suggesting[2]?

[1]: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/02/13/immigration-flights-...

[2]: https://archive.is/KV3hr

[3]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Let’s start with the fact that regardless of your support or lack of, president’s actions are deeply lawless. The invoked statue is obviously wasn’t created for this, and claimed presidents powers are authoritarian and anti constitutional.

There are already laws to deport terrorists from the US. The thing is, since we live in a land of law, unlike some other countries, you need to prove it in courts first. And the administration is more than welcome to do this (and in fact doing it, just like previous one was).

They are arresting students and green card holders too without due process:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0q1pl1eldno

What do you say on the case of this male white German with a renewed greencard, who first moved over in 2007, has a US citizen wife and an 8 year old girl?

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-03-14/green-card-holder...

The words of Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor who survived the concentration camp the Nazis put him in, seem appropriate at this point:

    First they came for the Communists
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a Communist

    Then they came for the Socialists
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a Socialist

    Then they came for the trade unionists
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a trade unionist

    Then they came for the Jews
    And I did not speak out
    Because I was not a Jew

    Then they came for me
    And there was no one left
    To speak out for me

Sounds like you're ready to give up that liberty for some 'security'

No citizen nor law abiding non citizen is affected. When you commit crimes, you “give up” your own liberty for the security of the public. That’s how all law works - when it is enforced properly, anyways.

You don't actually know whether these people are law-abiding or not, because there has been no due process. The government says they are in this gang, they say they aren't. Without due process we don't actually know if they got picked up for being in a gang, or just for having tattoos (which is what one of them alleges).

The law is blatantly absent if the executive explicitly states it can detain and deport any person it deems a threat without due process and without duty to notify anyone, let alone a court or judge.

It's literally the executive tyranny of a king and absence of balance of power in full action which led to the founding of the United States of America.

Even if you're a criminal, last I checked the law, properly enforced, grants you the right to an attorney to prevent exactly this: unchecked executive power.

"Trump takes birthright citizenship to the Supreme Court": https://www.npr.org/2025/03/14/nx-s1-5327552/trump-takes-bir...

> invading

No, they aren't. "Invasion" means something considerably different. You're using the word Trump is using to justify his actions, but word doesn't actually fit the situation.

Fundamentally, the problem is that the situation does not justify Trump's actions. He's using the "invasion" word to try to paper over that, but as I said, it doesn't actually fit.

Throw some stats out with your statement bro don’t be afraid

Did they come in the migrant caravans? Are they hiding out with the Mexican gangs that have overrun Canada? /s

Why are they suddenly a huge problem to call for this drastic a measure? Cause Trump said so?

Before you know it, we'll have taco trucks on every street corner. Can you imagine?!

I've been trying to get my Aussie friends to come visit for a long time but they're scared of getting shot.

This is actually a separate problem, though it's the same mentality [1] that has produced both.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burrow_(short_story)

That sounds unreasonable, because it is such a rare possibility. If they hold that fear they shouldn’t fly either. After all, there is a chance they could die in a plane crash. They’re probably also a lot more likely to get killed by dangerous Aussie animals by staying there!

Also keep in mind, most gun deaths in America are suicides or accidents. Most of the others are gang violence that almost always targets other criminals. There are very few bystanders deaths or random homicides.

My point being, if you aren’t involved in a life of crime, your odds of being randomly killed by a gun are much smaller than what statistics might suggest.

It's not how rare the possibility is, it's that the possibility only exists because of the people.

I’d like to visit Australia but I’m afraid of getting KO’d by a Kangaroo in boxing gloves.

C’mon, your friends are overreacting.

The US is a strange place for a rich country, though. I've only spent 6 weeks there and I've experienced a direct death threat, an indirect one, and some guy following me into a shop and then pushing me before leaving. That's just the worst of it, but there was lots of low-level "strange behaviour" to add to that from various strangers that Americans presumably don't even notice.

I've told them they're overreacting but with all the shootings in the news it's understandable they feel that way.

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