I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense."
I'm curious as a non American why no one stops this. I mean presumably both political parties have not bothered. Do people in the US think it's ok? I think if that stuff happened in the UK there would be a lot of protests.
> People must understand the depth of what’s happening here: the President of the United States has ordered a halt to deportations. ICE, a federal agency, is refusing to comply.
> There’s no reforming this rogue dept. It’s time for a new, just vision.
https://x.com/AOC/status/1354211627940384768
A month later she was criticizing DHS for still having Patriot act powers, and lumped ICE with the same criticism:
> People have been writing about the deeply concerning issues with the structure of DHS for a long time.
> This is from 3 years before I was even elected.
> It’s not “fringe” to ask why FEMA & ICE are in the same Dept operation. Or question ICE’s operations
https://x.com/AOC/status/1364619004921413633
A day earlier she called for the abolition of ICE:
> It’s only 2 mos into this admin & our fraught, unjust immigration system will not transform in that time.
> That’s why bold reimagination is so impt.
> DHS shouldn’t exist, agencies should be reorganized, ICE gotta go, ban for-profit detention, create climate refugee status & more.
This one is very apt given OP.
https://x.com/AOC/status/1364349732760518657
She continued, this on is in April 2021:
> A lot of people who are just now suddenly horrified at the dehumanizing conditions at our border are the same folks who dehumanize immigrants + helped build these cages in the 1st place.
> When we tried to stop this infrastructure over a year ago,we were overruled by BOTH parties.
> Fact is a lot of the politicians crying right now don’t work to solve either.
> They vote to grow ICE + CBP cages and they do everything to avoid addressing the root: US foreign policy and interventionism that destabilizes regions, the climate crisis, and unjust economic policy.
https://x.com/AOC/status/1377652851191787532
Your statement that Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez stopped protesting these private prisons while Biden was in office is simply factually wrong. And it was not hard to check it.
2) Tweets are even less meaningful when in real life she supported at every step the people who were actively propping up ICE. Including Bernie, who just recently said Biden could have done more on illegal immigration. (Biden deported more people than Trump 1).
AOC actually has a long track record of saying one thing and doing another, like the controversy over her “present” vote on weapons to Israel. This is the major reason why the Squad broke up. The most charitable interpretation of it is that she wants to gain cache within her party. But she doesn’t realize her party hates her.
If you want to continue to champion someone like that, I have no problem with it, at the least she’s effective at bringing people to the left after they are inevitably disillusioned by something her or Bernie does.
It's cheaper, would be my guess.
These conditions though, it reads like the Standford experiment.
This is properly tantamount to prisoner abuse.
never-mind that we've had decades of initiatives using such prisons as a form of soft racism, something so longstanding that is publicly declassified information. And people still don't care.
I.e. - It’s gone from “you are too soft on crime”, to “you are supporting criminals.”
On the contrary. In the US in particular, there is a large and outspoken segment of the voting base that love to see this sort of thing.
A lot worse happened in UK prisons in Northern Ireland and people in Great Britain widely cheered it on. Target the right minorities and there'd be no shortage of supporters in Westminster.
Efforts to reduce the U.S. federal deficit could adversely affect our liquidity, results of operations and financial condition.
We partner with a limited number of governmental customers who account for a significant portion of our revenues. The loss of, or a significant decrease in revenues from, these customers could seriously harm our financial condition and results of operations.
We are subject to the loss of our facility management contracts, due to terminations, non-renewals or competitive re-bids, which could adversely affect our results of operations and liquidity, including our ability to secure new facility management contracts from other government customers.
and also - this amazing level of self-awareness:
Adverse publicity may negatively impact our ability to retain existing contracts and obtain new contracts.
Hence why I'd rather revamp the incentives towards punishing recidivism and completely nailing petty imprisonments.
What is exactly wrong here? They checked your passport and went on their way, that is how it works.
French: laughing and talking, checking everyone's passports
Swiss: eyes scanning the car, papers please
HOW shit goes down is really important. When systems reduce people to cogs in a machine they lose empathy and personal responsibility. This is why we end up with guards who know nothing, treat people like cattle, and are "just doing their job". It does not lead to good results.
Anyway: it’s still moot. What she did, even based on your account, is not illegal.
It’s not illegal to apply for TN, period. If the application is rejected, that doesn’t make the application retroactively illegal.
It’s not even illegal for a Canadian to apply for a TN at the border crossing, have their application rejected, and keep driving right into the US. I know this because it happened to me. As Canadians don’t need work permits to enter the US, entering the country wasn’t the question - only working in it.
Unless she’d previously been given paperwork that had banned her from entry to the US - and she hadn’t been - there was nothing illegal with reapplying. She was told to reapply.
Whether she did anything “wrong” is debatable, but whether she did anything illegal isn’t.
I haven't been on a shopping trip like that in a while though, and I find it hard to believe I'll ever do it again now. I feel bad for Watertown, but with the tariffs and the risk of detention, its not worth it.
Given that I've NEVER had what I would call a great interaction with a US border guard, it warms my heart to hear that at least they could be kind to some one ;-)
Oh being young, stupid and crossing boarders without a clue.
Going from France to UK is like that, and before Shenzen, it was like that from EU country to EU country. When I was young, we had to wait for 2 hours with my parents while they checked everything was in order for a Spain border crossing (we were in a big RV so it makes sense).
People on HN have very soft views of the world, being too idealistic libertarian or some sort of socialist derived ideology. Most people may not be criminal but you have to process everyone crossing the border as if because otherwise it's pointless and you will never catch the criminals...
Interesting, it was the opposite for me, US citizen with CA work permit circa 2016. CBP seemed to not care while CBSA was often irrationally aggressive and suspicious. The closest thing I got to an explanation once after being freed was “We just like you” with a grin.
I was grilled in Vancouver about whether the purpose of my visit was work or pleasure, after I helpfully told the officer that my dad was attending a work conference and I was traveling with him but sightseeing.
"Well which one is it, work or pleasure?!"
I don't know, dude. I just explained the situation: you're supposed to be the expert!
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/sor-2002-227...
For the foreseeable future I will not be travelling to the US for any reason. Canada is safe and there is nothing in the US worth risking my freedom for. I will remain here and I will continue to avoid travel to America as well as spending money on American goods/services.
Instead she flew to Mexico and tried to enter there with new and obviously fake job offer. She was treated like anyone else would, but it’s international news because she’s a pretty white woman.
Would you travel to a country where its leader is constantly making threats against your country, some as serious as repeatedly calling for your annexation? The current US administration has made it very clear how it feels about me and my countrymen.
I don't consider the US safe and I do not need someone to americansplain to me. You aren't exceptional, you're a threat.
The Canadian media and Canadian businesses have been drumming up fear and patriotic rhetoric to drive domestic industries. That’s great - the last 10 years of “Canada is a post-national state with no culture or identity” narrative that Trudeau championed wasn’t doing us any favours anyway.
Trump may be a buffoon and what he’s doing is clearly not acceptable with respect to Canada, but to fear visiting or considering the U.S. unsafe when it’s objectively far safer than visiting any all-inclusive hotspot in the Caribbean that Canadians are still flocking to like they do every winter is, well, removed from reality.
Let's hope you never get unlucky, it only takes one border agent having a bad day after all. I've been to the US many, many times and as I said I no longer consider it safe, but we all have different risk tolerance levels.
> when it’s objectively far safer than visiting any all-inclusive hotspot in the Caribbean
I don't visit those places either.
Cry to someone else about how it's all media based fear while ignoring the very real changes in attitudes, policy, and atmosphere, but I personally see no reason to take the risk when I could...just stay in Canada and be safe.
Then you perhaps aren't looking closely. The US is undergoing one of the fastest democratic backslides (democratic sinkhole?) the world has yet to see [0], deportations and detentions are happening with zero regard to the rule of law [1], and our _sovereignty_ is under attack daily.
If that doesn't make you blink, like most Canadians have [2], then perhaps nothing would.
[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-democracy-report-1.74863...
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-admin-ignores-judges-order-b...
[2] https://www.ctvnews.ca/video/2025/03/18/ctv-national-news-ho...
Thats the attitude of drivers towards laws on streets of bangalore.
When i google "holy water" first few links for me are some sort of THC infused liquid. But i think this person was working for one without thc?
The starting assumption when crossing any[0] international border is that you don't have a right to enter the country, until you prove otherwise.
People from wealthy Western countries are generally used to just waving their passports and passing through, but that is not nor has it ever been some kind of automatic right. People are questioned and denied entry all the time, should they fail to satisfy the border official of their eligibility for entry under the exact terms of their visa (or the relevant visa waiver program).
I'm very sympathetic to the idea that border officials should have less discretion to deny people entry without very solid reasons, but if you start talking about 'innocent until proven guilty' at a border today, you're not going to have a good time.
[0] International agreements can of course modify this default assumption, e.g. Schengen.
you are right, for immigration its your responsibility to prove that you are not coming in to violate terms of entry. Onus is not them to prove that you are coming to work on tourist visa.
1) She was not detained in connection with any crime whatsoever. At no point was her company's use of THC stated as a reason for detainment.
2) You have invented the idea that her second job was fake. If it were, then fraud could have been a crime and reason for detainment- but again, the article makes it clear no crime was charged or cited.
3) You are right that plenty of non-white people are also going through this. I wish that was also enough to motivate people to care.
The point is that removing due process for anyone is a threat to everyone. It could be you next. You might think, "Not if I'm a citizen and not a criminal" - but the whole point of due process is getting the opportunity to prove that you are in fact a citizen and not a criminal. That right is eroding.
After a long interrogation, the officer told me it seemed “shady” and that my visa hadn’t been properly processed. He claimed I also couldn’t work for a company in the US that made use of hemp – one of the beverage ingredients.
They can't. And this is entirely her fault for trying to enter through Mexico. Telling them she will return to Canada isn't helpful because what are they supposed to do? Tell her ok, go get an Uber to the Airport and just let her go? Mexico would not issue her a VISA either so her only option is US or Mexican Detention. When the agent said "You aren't a criminal" is when she saw that Mexico had denied her re-entry and she was flagged for detention.
Now, I mean, personally I think it would be fine to just let her go because who really cares, but the point of rules/laws/procedures is for them to be followed.
Why did she go to Mexico first? Because she was denied entry in Canada and thought there would be less scrutiny at the Southern Border for Canadians. She was correct, because it worked the first time when she would have likely been denied at the Canadian border for her second crossing, but her initial denial flagged her.
I feel for her, and the situation sucks, but she 100% knows she's trying to game the system, and that's not even bringing up the issues of her self-sponsored TN visa which is dubious.
She gambled on trying to to game the immigration system and lost. It sucks but 12 days in custody isn't world ending. The most amazing part to me is people with no experience with "the system" find themselves incarcerated and think not eating sounds like a good idea.
How is it OK to treat everyone like that ?
It may not seem right, but enforcing laws is kind of the point of having borders and cops and things like that. I'm amazed how many people are complaining.
This woman is clearly shady and got what she deserved and that's that.
"I don't know Homer Simpson. I never met Homer Simpson or had any contact with him, but-- I'm sorry. I-- I can't go on."
"That's okay. Your tears say more than real evidence ever could."
I never had any problems (outside the horrible behaviour of border officers who show you that you are not welcome). I was stopped once by a policeman when I did an illegal car maneuver (which is tolerated in France), and when he realized I was a tourist with family, he just said, "Be careful, have a nice trip."
Today I am seriously considering never going to the US anymore because it looks like it is not a good destination anymore. I may be wrong though, I hope.
They've always (in my life, which is largely post 9/11) done that to US citizens too. Going into Canada it was "where are you going to? the beach, eh? have a nice day!", coming back seemed to be performed under the suspicion that our passports were fake and our car was made out of drugs. Despite doing nothing wrong, we were always afraid of getting in trouble because a border agent felt like it.
I handed the border agent my US passport and the conversation went like this
"why are you entering the country?"
"I live here"
"do you have legal status in the US?"
"I'm a citizen, you're holding my passport"
"have you ever overstayed a visa in the US in the past?"
"I was born here, so no"
"do you intend to do any work while you're in the US?"
"yes, I'm a US citizen and I have a job"
I didn't get pulled off to the side or anything, it was just standard questioning at entry processing when flying in, but it was just bizarre
the border agent kept looking me up and down suspiciously like I was hiding something, but he had my passport the whole time
even when I got questioned on my way to Canada (I would've stopped me too), they were much nicer about the whole process, it's an air of "we're just double checking cuz making a mistake here would be real bad, but as long as everything's legit, no worries, I hope you have a nice stay in Canada"
entering the US the vibe is "you're a violent criminal and it's my job to ask you questions until you slip up and admit that fact, the US is magnanimous for allowing you to touch our great country's land with your disgusting feet, and you should remember that every day you're here or we'll detain you so you won't forget again"
I'm a little surprised you've only had positive experiences.
I was talking about the experiences within the country. The border is horrendous, exactly like Russia. Same vibe of "we hate you, kneel before stepping into my country"
For a foreigner, even one that knows the US pretty well, there is a background feeling of "if it goes bad, it will go vey bad". This is mostly because of movies and news like this article but the everyday life was more or less friction free. I did not get into anything serious, though.
Spending money in a country that obviously is not happy to see me is not likely to happen. We went for the rest of the world for now.
In 2017, Pew estimated that the EU had peaked around 5 million illegal immigrants: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/11/13/europes-unauth....
IN 2018, a Yale study estimated the U.S. had around 22 million illegal immigrants: https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/yale-study-finds-twic....
France during the same period was estimated to have 300-400k illegal immigrants: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/11/13/four-co....
We have 10 times as many illegal immigrants per capita as France does.
My friend got her visa stripped and given a 10 year ban under Obama because of jokes in her text messages about a GC marriage. She didn’t get thrown in jail but she was refused entry back into the US and had to get someone to sell all her stuff while she flew back to her home country.
Most of you have no idea about how life is because you’re probably citizens but this is the reality at the border. It’s even worse in other countries.
Someone I know is from Australia and she said if you overstay your visa they track you down, arrest you and send you to jails outside of Australia mainland until you are eventually deported. Every country treats their border extremely strictly.
CORRECTION: I pinged my friend and I was wrong. They arrest them but don’t send to offshore jails. Those are for illegal immgrants that arrive on boats.
Honestly, this kind of abusive approach is predominant among certain of the major anglophone countries only, at least within the world of fully developed democratic countries, likely for reasons of shared media ownership/viewership and overlapping cultural/political attitudes but I don’t know for sure.
Yes, several other fully developed democratic countries do of course treat their borders strictly in the sense of who’s allowed in and under what circumstances, but not with these kinds of abusive treatment as a common pattern. And I do frequently read news in three languages plus a fourth occasionally, so I don’t think this is just me being biased toward news from countries that share of my native language of English.
Impressive. Can you speak or understand by listening these languages as well? And if I may ask out of curiosity, which languages are they?
https://www.unsw.edu.au/content/dam/pdfs/law/kaldor/factshee...
It's not. I take you are comparing to western countries. If you have a valid visa and behave even remotely normal to the border agents you will have no issues. Only in the USA some border agents have the attitude of "I'm gonna get you" or making you feel unwelcome for no reason. Hell, even in "authoritarian" countries like UAE or Quatar I never experience anything but pleasant interactions on the border.
Wikipedia seems to indicate I couldn't go to the UAE because I'm transgender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_by_country_or_ter...
Be strong.
Just recently a woman from the UK was denied entry into Canada and because of that was denied entry back into the US and found herself in the same mess as the person in the article.
This happens all the time, you just don’t hear about it until the news decides to make a thing about it.
You are proving my point, she was again detained by USA for 3 weeks when it could have been resolved much better and faster.
This is the crux IMO: it should be an OR not an AND. Having to behave "remotely normal" where this is determined solely at the discretion of the TSA is impossible.
If you just overstay a visa you will just be deported fairly quickly, you aren’t going to go into offshore detention…
That’s not a defence of the practice, offshore detention should absolutely be abolished, it’s just worth being accurate.
CORRECTION: you are right. I got my story mixed up so I was wrong. It’s illegal immigrants who arrived by boat that were sent to offshore jails. My friends friend was sent to a regular jail. He had a student visa and stopped going to uni so he got arrested and deported because his visa got cancelled.
Let this be a lesson to all those who think it's fine to unlock their phone and hand it to cops.
"CBP officers can only search and access data stored on the device’s hard drive or operating system. The search does not include data that is stored remotely in a Cloud format. The officer must ensure that data and network connections are disabled before starting the search, for example, by asking the traveler to turn the device into airplane mode and disabling Wi-Fi."
[https://hselaw.com/news-and-information/legalcurrents/prepar...]
I imagine it would be, if you visited South Sudan.
It is not "even worse" in any of the western countries. The border control people in most western countries are actually friendly. They are polite, sometimes even, gasp, smile at you.
That has also been my experience with the US. YMMV of course.
The reality is that you can be denied entry for pretty dubious reasons, but most people with a valid visa/visa exemption who don't do sketchy shit like the woman in TFA don't get randomly denied or even interrogated beyond the basic purpose of visit questions. All my entries into the US (as well as other countries I have been to) have been pleasant except for the long queues.
> Every country treats their border extremely strictly.
Unfortunately not every country. Much of the EU has gotten used to lax borders.
Strict enforcement of borders is mostly in countries that get lots of people trying to enter illegally or overstay their visa. E.g. those with neighbors that are significantly less well off.
Edit: I had applied for a GC years before this happened, so I think the officer thought I didn't want to leave. This was not the case however. The case had been approved but not processed.
For those of you who go through that, don't agree to the statement if they modified it, like mine. There's no cameras or recording devices so they can be dirty, and they abuse that fact. You have no rights at all at the border, and your assumptions on decency and honesty are not correct.
My assumption to this day is that they thought I was trying to work illegally, but this is not the case.
So you told them that you were there for visiting/tourism, and they alleged you were coming to the US to work, on the basis that you're applying to jobs in the US?
Our current international regime of widespread passports, residency permits, visas, and border checks is barely 100 years old. Even in my lifetime (pre-9/11) the US-Canada border was a passport-free affair: just show the border guard your drivers' license (if you were the driver) and tell them you had nothing to declare -- they knew you were lying but didn't care.
It is not an iron law that international borders have to be dystopian "papers please" civil-liberties-optional free-fire zones. There is little point in the US policing either land border at all, but hassling NAFTA citizens (aka Canadians and Mexicans) traveling on business is especially absurd. A Schengen-style regime in North America (it's only THREE countries, should be pretty easy!) is way beyond overdue, but it seems like we're instead headed in the opposite direction as fast as we possibly can.
Open borders are the default state of the world. Anything interfering with our ability to travel should be in response to a specific, real problem. Instead, we've handed the door keys to our whole country to a handful of cops and private contractors who get paid more when they hassle us more.
There is a lot of unnecessary cruelty and lack of due process in this story.
> The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.
> Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.
> The more detainees, the more money they make. It stands to reason that these companies have no incentive to release people quickly. What I had experienced was finally starting to make sense.
"due process" is what you are due - it is what is afforded to you by the 4th amendment and habeus corpus. Op is correct.
(ECHR is different on this, which has caused a lot of controversy in the UK from people who want to be arbitrarily brutal towards non-citizens)
This isn't true and what I wish more than anything in life is if people would stop repeating unadulterated propaganda because that literally normalizes it.
> The Court reasoned that aliens physically present in the United States, regardless of their legal status, are recognized as persons guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C18-8...
And don't try to gotcha me either - yes the same article says they have qualified the extent of those rights but
1. The qualifications are not "you have to be a citizen" but whether you "developed substantial ties to this country."
2. This woman had a work visa - I'd call that pretty substantial ties
Nope, most of the constitutional rights apply to all people under the jurisdiction of the US. It's why the Bush administration set up Guantanamo--to try to evade any hint of constitutional protection, and he still failed that. (Of course, as Guantanamo also shows, the remedies available to people whose constitutional rights have been grossly violated by the government are quite lacking.)
Not within 100 miles of the border unfortunately. https://www.aclu.org/documents/constitution-100-mile-border-...
Taken from your link:
> In practice, Border Patrol agents routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority in the course of individual stops, resulting in violations of the constitutional rights of innocent people. These problems are compounded by inadequate training for Border Patrol agents, a lack of oversight by CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the consistent failure of CBP to hold agents accountable for abuse. No matter what CBP officers and Border Patrol agents think, our Constitution applies throughout the United States, including within this “100-mile border zone.”
It seems that non-US citizen still have rights, but abuse is rampant within the US border patrol.
Although while I'm here, I will note that they still don't discuss the fact that--as far as I can tell--all the regulations and laws means the 100 miles start not from the water's edge, but from the international boundary, which is 12 miles out to sea. And which also means Chicago is not in the 100 mile border zone, since the actual Canadian border is on the side of Michigan, well over 100 miles away.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) may search any electronic devices without probable cause at these points.
see https://informationsecurity.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toru...
and
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/usa-border-phones-search-1.4...
Canada doesn't behave this way - https://www.harrisonpensa.com/new-limits-imposed-on-border-s...
One is the private prison industry being incentivized to hold as many people as possible.
But there's also a bureaucracy (ICE and State) with little to no pressure to perform better for this particular population (because who cares about criminals?).
Consequently, you get an industry that's perfectly happy to warehouse people... coupled with a slow and ineffective government controlling the keys to their release.
Private detention facilities should be banned.
But the government also needs KPIs with consequences tied to them. E.g. average holding time, average response time to filing, etc. And leaders get fired / budgets cut if targets are missed.
But otherwise I agree; even in places where detention facilities are not privatised, bureaucracy can still pose a lot of issues because, as you say, "who cares about criminals", or because certain traits are overrepresented in the group of people who take up these jobs.
To wit, that no one actually cares about doing anything.
And granted, that's long been a consequence of low morale in the prison and ICE employee pool, but now it's coupled with a removal of even the least pressure from above to do the job well.
In short, I don't think "Be cruel to people" needs to be messaged from above: "We don't care about anyone you're holding" is sufficient for low-level employees to be their worst selves.
I’m pretty sure it’s not either.
In situations like this, it’s simply conflict avoidance and sticking to the responsibilities of your pay grade. Any given ICE employee may have a good idea where someone is likely to go or not go, but they almost certainly don’t know enough about any specific case to make a comment about it in a way that may have legal ramifications.
This may sound like punting responsibility, but if an ICE employee says something incorrect to someone being held, that could come back to haunt them via legal consequences. As such, if it’s not their job to answer questions about a detainee’s status, it’s probably prudent for them not to answer.
Let me be clear, I think that this is a racket. I also think that any person with decent morals and ethics should consider not working at these places.
That said, I don’t think it’s necessarily reasonable to criticize the ICE folks for staying in their lane when on the job.
When the incentive is a quota rather than just adjudication, you end up with what's going on now.
I don’t think anyone would have a problem if she was processed promptly and quickly deported or if the confinement accommodations were nicer. That’s purely a resources problem.
In theory and past practice, perhaps.
Currently the USofA is comfortable deporting Venezuelans to El Salvador with no trial or other due process.
I definitely would be screwed in this situation. Time to remember by sibling’s number
Right, people have attorneys. Very common thing ... nowhere?
To read me as somehow condemning the woman in the original story seems pretty willfully bad faith.
in this case, this one did, yes. It seems like this will be more common after this incident.
[Lawyer, Passport, Locksmith, Gun by DeviantOllam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ihrGNGesfI)
By the number of people asserting that this sort of abusive from border patrol agents runs rampant and people just need to be ok with being deported when trying to lawfully enter the US, what leads you to believe that lawyering up in preparation to enter the US is unheard of?
> Dr Alawieh had traveled last month to Lebanon, her home country, to visit relatives.
No, she did not; she attended the funeral of a leader of a US-designated terror organization.
Ironically, it's not focused a lot more on feelz, no realz. People don't seem to want to remember that reality is in fact, often disappointing.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/17/us/brown-university-doctor-de...
> contained hemp
The actual company name is hempandhoneynj? That sells “ HIGH THC IS FOR EXPERIENCED CANNABIS USERS”.
I don’t think weed is legal yet on the federal level. There is some grey ares are on the THC vs weed classification, but note that also harsher laws - like dealing drugs - could have applied here.
> Our Delta 9 THC is legal according to federal law and many state laws. All Delta 9 THC extract being offered is 100% derived from legal hemp and does not contain more than 0.3% ∆9THC.
https://www.hempandhoneynj.com/product/holy-water-euphoric-k...
So no, "harsher laws" couldn't apply here, as there are no scheduled drugs involved in either the process or final product.
How is it different from a local dealer: trust me cops won’t care?
Federal law allowance on that 3% rule is very very narrow. And it’s highly likely that the THC is being re-enrich post haverst which then it is still not legal.
“Harsher laws” are pretty harsh. Even if no violence just “easing distribution”, it’s a max sentence of 10-year.
This doesn’t a crazy out of line interpretation of that 3% THC rule that seems like a legal hoop-hole, but it is just of the lack of enforcement of the law by other branches of the government that makes feel this way. It means to be accidental THC not laboratory enriched THC. Which is obviously the case here.
As far as I can tell, the submission article doesn't mention THC at all, and the only time hemp is mentioned is in this context:
> He claimed I also couldn’t work for a company in the US that made use of hemp – one of the beverage ingredients. He revoked my visa, and told me I could still work for the company from Canada, but if I wanted to return to the US, I would need to reapply.
Seems he was OK with the hemp, he was just not OK with the part where there was a Canadian working with a US company that used hemp.
Where are you getting the part that this individual chose to classify some hemp as cannabis from? Wouldn't he try to alert some of his boss in that case, rather than take back this woman's visa?
This appears to be their site: https://enjoyholywater.com/ - You can see they seem to focus on nootropics, mushrooms, herbs, etc with a little bit of hemp in it. Not so nefarious. This stuff is carried in mainstream stores all over the place.
When I got money and thought of travelling, I quickly realized it's too hard and humiliating to get visa, and preferred EU instead. And visa-free countries afterwards.
Then I planned to have kids and started contemplating what are costs, social security payments, public kindergartens, sick leaves, costs of ambulance (like if you break a spine), or giving a birth... and the US suddenly turned very, very unattractive. Even without these horror stories.
There's some crap going on in France that English is specified as a requirement for many jobs even when it quite obviously isn't needed. So people lie and nobody cares. On the other hand, it seems to me that people in England are overly modest about their language abilities. I think if you handed out written instructions in French or German on how to win £1000 then a lot of people who wouldn't normally claim to know any foreign languages would successfully follow the instructions.
My grasp of French is so monumentally bad, that last time I tried to say "I can't speak French" in French, the French woman next to me didn't understand because I said it wrong.
My German is coming along OK, but only because I've been living in Berlin since late 2018.
Personally, I get it but don't support it. I still appreciate my American brethren, just not their administration. We should hit back at the establishment, not the population. Big point there is reducing weapons import, and adding export tarrifs on F35 parts, perhaps ASML machines aswell.
Hitting the innocent is downright criminal.
Sadly the innocent are always the victims under leadership decisions. The method here involves angering them and hopefully overhtrowing the leaders who caused this. we'll see how it goes here.
What you have stated is that, following your view, "people should impale leaders".
> angering them and hopefully overhtrowing the leaders
And that you would pester John to turn him against Jack. What should happen instead is that John will rightfully react against you (possibly both of you), with justification.
It is very basic lucid plain logic.
These are the types of people who 1) support the policies from TFA and 2) will not notice the loss of visa-free travel.
Perhaps your idea isn't to punish the Trump voters, but to galvanize the non-Trump voters?
Germany:
"""Innenpolitische Lage
Amerikanische Großstädte sind landesweit mit einem Anstieg der Gewaltkriminalität konfrontiert. Es besteht auch weiterhin eine erhöhte Gefahr politisch motivierter Gewalt."""
Translation:
"""Domestic political situation
Major American cities are facing an increase in violent crime nationwide. There is still an increased risk of politically motivated violence."""
- https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/de/reiseundsicherheit/usaver...
The woman in question tried to self-sponsor a TN visa after being denied earlier at the Canadian border. I can understand why USCBP starts to think “this woman is trying to commit fraud” not “innocent mistake”.
I know most countries would detain and deport people attempting to commit immigration fraud.
Not sure why people should hold the US to a higher standard than other countries.
> He revoked my visa, and told me I could still work for the company from Canada, but if I wanted to return to the US, I would need to reapply.
She's Canadian and lives in Canada, so she returned to Canada. But instead of applying for a visa again, she apparently flew to Mexico and tried to get in through the southern border:
> I restarted the visa process and returned to the same immigration office at the San Diego border, since they had processed my visa before and I was familiar with it.
Last I checked San Diego doesn't share a border with Canada. Why is a Canadian with a revoked Visa flying to Mexico to try and enter the U.S. through the southern border?
She had a prior denial for a work visa. Then flew into San Diego to apply the second time and got it. Apparently, she should’ve applied via her consulate instead because of the prior denial ?
Can someone explain in non legal terms why this resulted in a visa revocation and detention?
Prison guard unions universally and almost exclusively oppose any legalization and decriminalization efforts, regardless of the subject.
In the UK you can be detained at the border without being given any reasons why, you don't have the right to a lawyer and you don't have the right to NOT answer the questions of the border agents. You also have to disclose the passwords to your phone and computer.
Then,they usually seize your devices for an arbitrary amount of time before eventually releasing you.
This applies to British citizens or foreigners.
It seems that the world is slowly but surely sliding in the wrong direction.
"I was granted my trade Nafta work visa, which allows Canadian and Mexican citizens to work in the US in specific professional occupations, on my second attempt... I had gone to the San Diego border the second time to apply."
So: she tried to get a work visa, was denied. Hired a San Diego lawyer, entered from Mexico, got her visa granted. Went home, tried to enter the country again, got her visa revoked and told to speak to a consulate. Then tried to enter again from Mexico, at that point she got detained.
Maybe all this could've been avoided if she did the visa paperwork through the consulate, like she was told to do, instead of showing up at a land crossing after her visa was revoked? A land crossing from a country she has no status in (Mexico), especially. Presumably she was detained because they couldn't just turn her around back into Mexico.
> That's extraordinarily unusual and in my experience has only happened when CBP believes that the applicant was lying or has a criminal record so I wouldn't base the decision on where/how to apply on this very low risk. Depending on the TN application, there are better and worse ways to apply for a TN and from an outcome standpoint, sometimes it's better to apply with CBP at the border or with CBP at a U.S. airport by flying directly to the U.S.
My name was marked from that point, so everytime I re-entered US I had to get pulled into secondary.
I don't think I would have survived what the Canadian woman went through.
EDIT: please call your congressperson and your senators. Tell them to stop this cruelty.
>I met a woman who had been on a road trip with her husband. She said they had 10-year work visas. While driving near the San Diego border, they mistakenly got into a lane leading to Mexico. They stopped and told the agent they didn’t have their passports on them, expecting to be redirected. Instead, they were detained. They are both pastors.
That, and a couple of other stories of people stuck there in the ICE concentration camps are crazy! I am scared right now because in a couple of months I have to travel to LA (on a tourist visa) for a connecting flight to Japan ... to think that I can be "disappeared" at immigration just because the immigration agent doesn't like me is chilling.
Where you're staying, for how long, receipts and booking confirmation. Be very careful with any text messages that might sound "shady" to the very paranoid customs people.
Have an exact itinerary showing step by step where, when, who.
Thank you for the heads up.
Is it just that the US is closer to these people than other, saner countries? I can understand if that's the actual reason.
Also: why do border officers have so much power? It seems wrong. They are low level employees, they shouldn't be able to change your life (or trip plans) just because they feel bored and want to spice things up.
The US democratic process is not good at protecting small groups of disenfranchised people: Non-citizens, LGBTQ people, prisoners, etc.
Those people get the burden of making their own allies and fighting their whole lives for rights, while most voters prefer not to think about them.
Hell, black people are 12% of the population and their rights have been on the frontline for over 100 years. So many groups are even smaller.
I'm not sure if any other country does this perfectly. Rawls' veil of ignorance is extremely hard to enforce in practice, no wonder we all live in Omelas.
Lots of people, especially those from third world countries, don’t know what they are getting into. They’ve been brainwashed into believing “the American dream” (that anyone can find good jobs, be homeowners, etc.) by movies, television, social media, and other immigrants making money in the immigration business (many of whom were, ironically, lured in by their predecessors and ended up not able to find the dream jobs they were promised). This is why you hear about people blowing $10-100k on gang trafficking services to get in from Mexico, which is super puzzling otherwise when you consider that kind of money goes a long way in their home countries.
I think there is even a song about it, "land of the free home of the brave" or something like that. I hear it occasionally at sporting events.
New America is absolutely terrifying.
There is a language standards committee meeting that was going to take place in the US that is now not because too many attendees think the US is no longer a safe place to travel to. We're already seeing this damage take place.
And plus we do not need any standards committee for that, just an executive order.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/03/14/us-citiz...
One prominent professor was screamed at, nearly tazed, and had their car torn apart because the CBP thought they were homeless, which would be amusing if this senior researcher had not been obviously traumatized by the experience.
I have heard terrible stories from Canadian academics for years through presidencies of "both sides", and I'm glad this story is getting the traction it deserves but we also need to be mindful we did not arrive at this moment overnight.
I’m not sure what area you work in, but there are still many in computer science and optimization.
I mean there's the law or some executive order but there's also leeway in implementing. I am not qualified to judge but it just seems to be some sort of preemptive obedience.
Yes. It's trivial to tell if you're not a citizen and go through customs.
In my country, some police forces have skulls on their uniforms and vehicles. How twisted is that?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Kershaw#%22Working_Towards...
It's also not just some American or Mexican thing. The same is true in many expat communities (of Americans) around the world. Actually maintaining your visa and other stuff in many places is frequently a massive PITA, expensive, time consuming, and so on. If somebody's there with the claim 'No you see bro, don't you understand I'm just an "undocumented migrant"', he's going to be held in very poor regard by most people there legally.
So even at the most basic level - illegal immigration is deeply unfair to people we want in the country. And that's just one aspect among many. The tales of things gone wrong, or simply of the emotional appeal of somebody trying to make a better life for themselves, can be very appealing - but it's but one dimension of an issue that has affects many, and has many consequences.
The fact is, I've read very similar articles about how US treats any non-US citizens a decade or two ago. Nothing changed dramatically, people just bring these up now due to current admin. In US, if you are not a citizen, you are subhuman and treated as such, directly by government. Why the fuck would anybody with any amount of dignity cause it upon themselves willingly?
Europe can offer you tons of opportunities and treat you with dignity. Good quality of life and happiness is much easier to achieve, much less stress, your health and education of your kids will be taken care of. Or Australia. Heck, almost any other free place but current US, and many places experience much more actual personal freedom currently.
We can certainly do more than just boycott some nazi ev cars.
https://www.euronews.com/2023/06/30/these-people-face-20-yea...
Ironically somewhat corroborated by the photo in the article. What is the solution for Italy and Greece with these massive coast lines and islands? The refugees deliberately lose their passports. If the rescuers dumped them in a random North African country, everything would be fine. But they want to import as many as possible for ideological reasons.
The solution is to once again enable applying for asylum at the embassies and consulates. Then nobody has to drown.
> If the rescuers dumped them in a random North African country, everything would be fine.
Apart from the many people being killed by random North African country, like what is happening currently with migrants in Libya. That's not fine at all.
> But they want to import as many as possible for ideological reasons.
Humanitarian reasons, not ideological.
So you think if those countries don't accept everyone that wants to enter then it's ok for people to try to enter illegally? That's not how borders work.
> Apart from the many people being killed by random North African country, like what is happening currently with migrants in Libya. That's not fine at all.
They can go to a neighboring country without being "stranded" at sea where they need "rescuing".
> Humanitarian reasons, not ideological.
Humanitarian reasons do not require you to pick up people near the coast of Africa and and instead of taking them back back to where they came from bring them to ports much further away. That's purely ideological. One could even call it treasonous.
Right, so let's unpack this. There is no way to apply for asylum at embassies. It was previously possible, but it's not possible anymore. If you want to apply for asylum, you have to be physically present in the country where you want to apply. Since applying for asylum is legal (it's a guaranteed human right and some countries try to respect at least a subset of human rights, wonder for how long), it is also legal to enter a country for the purpose of applying for asylum, no matter what everyone else says.
> countries don't accept everyone
This is not about accepting anyone. Asylum is a totally different legal concept than migration. Asylum is granted (or not), not accepted. People that are drowning in the Med. sea are applying for asylum, if they survive. For most of them, it will not be granted, but they are exercising their rights. People have a right to apply for asylum, countries have a right to grant or refuse at will.
> They can go to a neighboring country without being "stranded" at sea where they need "rescuing".
Everyone has the right not to be killed. Just a basic respect to other human beings would be welcome at this stage.
> Humanitarian reasons do not require you to pick up people near the coast of Africa...
Yes they do, there are again legal reasons for that. The laws can be changed, but until then it is indeed the only legal thing to do. And also some people don't enjoy seeing other people drowning.
(This does not mean that people should be treated brutally at the border.)
if that at least was true, but often it is not
How the plunders are divided domestically is another issue but I’d be damned if my country was altruistic internationally
EU is full of old people and not enough children. The population pyramid looks like a bullet:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/europe/2024/
It's not difficult to see where that leads to, if we stop accepting immigrants.
There are other solutions, e.g. that the wealthy boomers pay with their houses for their retirements or are forced to rent out their huge properties.
The retirement ponzi scheme needs to stop at some point anyway. With automation one might also need fewer workers.
Most importantly, many immigrants receive social security and are not employed.
- A political unwillingness to reign in private capital that's exacerbating resident housing shortages / rent increases (read: AirBnb)
- An infrastructure underinvestment in building sufficient new housing (or motivating current housing owners to densify)
- An underappreciation (Germany) that one can't switch energy mix at nation-scale without first building replacement capacity
- (Europe at least has far more child-rearing-friendly policies than the US)
But all of that is a "maintain demographic shape AND ___" problem.
Countries with inverted demographic pyramids go financially south very quickly.
At best, there are some extremely hard compromises to make (higher taxes on a smaller working base, or decreased social/retirement benefits).
At worst, there are no solutions to balancing a budget and things spiral out of control quickly.
It's underappreciated that "young immigrant labor is funding the country".
Like, it's not a perfect solution, there are growing pains, but an adult someone else paid to give a high school education is an insanely good resource. The US's entire gimmick and history has been getting millions of poor immigrants with different ideas and a shred of hope and putting them to work building our country.
But nononono we definitely didn't do this bullshit already with chinese, japanese, german, italian, irish, african, jewish, polish, etc etc etc people. Don't you know it's utterly impossible for people from another country to ever get along with locals? They definitely don't consider themselves just "American" after three generations very reliably, no that would be too easy!
God forbid people in ten generations have slightly darker skin I guess.
False equivalence. You don't have to give up your country to fix it.
> than maybe have a few brown people around who casually speak a different language
The state of most larger european cities is already well beyond that, bringing with it tons of problems.
> "work ten times harder than any local for literally anything"
That's literally saying they help companies regress the standard of living that locals have fought for.
Meanwhile overall these economic migrants are a net negative financial impact overall because most of them do not come to work but to benefit from generous social programs that they have never paid into.
You know who's not paying their fair share into social security in any country? It's the rich, yo! It's the rich! By a wide margin!
To be perfectly clear, I don't care one way or the other about more immigration or less immigration.
What I am saying is that compound interest and the ability to purchase assets is going to continue to draw wealth away from everyone except the ultra wealthy, and immigration policy has effectively nothing to do with that.
Calling on everyone to hate each other is going to prevent us from acting together to solve this problem. We could instead work together, unionize, vote for policies and politicians that won't let the ultra wealthy continue to hoard their gold like dragons.
No. The US is still the best place in the world for immigrants. There's no other place in the world (barring maybe Canada) where as many people from as many other countries and ethnicities can feel welcome and a part of society. I have several friends who move to European countries (mostly Germany but also the Netherlands) and they never felt like they belonged, while in the US I feel like everyone else. What's going on right now is a temporary shift in this policy, but hopefully the pendulum will swing back.
Saying that as a European who lived in the US for a few years, now residing in Australia.
Sure, if you immigrate to a random town (population = 1500) in the French Alps from Africa, I grant that you'll never fit in. But the same goes if you immigrate to a small Iowa farming town (population = 1500) from Ecquador.
Presumably because their home country treats them even worse? At least that's the point of the refugee program.
True or not, the important part of why people emigrate is because they believe it to be better. US has been really good at propaganda for a long time, and many outsiders (used to) believe that the US truly is the land of the free, although all the evidence pointed in the other direction.
I personally know multiple non-US citizens who did their PhD at MIT. Most of them faced the requirement to temporarily move to the US as a major but necessary nuisance. I also know others who explicitly opted to skip their MIT application to enroll instead in an European program, with all the hoop jumping required to apply for visas being a major factor.
This was a decade or so ago. I assure you that right now things are not looking at better.
Also, people like you should really try to touch grass and try to learn how things are back in the real world. For a few decades now the US is far from being the top choice. In fact, the US doesn't even feature in the world's top 20 in quality of life, in spite of everything. What exactly do you think is happening?
I was wondering how long it would take for this post to generate comments from the smug "as a European" crowd of people with deluded notions of superiority for the complex European continent.
I detest the screaming orangutan politics of Trump and his hardcore followers but the U.S. as a whole mostly remains a fantastic melting pot destination for immigrants like it's always been. One 4-year presidency (after a largely ineffectual and sometimes laughable previous one) does not have to mold the history or legacy of a country. By that logic, barely a state in Europe would be worth recommending at all given the continent's none too distant history or barbaric mistreatment of immigrants.
Even in modern Europe, no, treatment with dignity is not very guaranteed. The old racism of many European countries is seething just below the surface and if it¿s applied even to other Europeans, you can imagine how it might be felt by immigrants from the many countries that have for decades migrated to the U.S and integrated amazingly well for the most part.
Shitting on the U.S has always been de jure in certain circles, and now more than previously (partly deserved thanks to Trump) but it shouldn't happen at the expense of reality.
Dozen of country are better than US, people point that out, us-american get offended lmao, relax, we didn't even started pointing to oceania and Asian as better alternative than US
My home country and the EU treat me even worse because of the lack of 200k+ USD jobs for my experience level
New? I have advised people to not go to the US ever since they instituted the requirement to provide any and all social media profiles they ever had. Way too many chances for some off-context tweet from a decade or two ago to lead to getting refused at the border by CBP with no recourse.
Additionally, anyone who ever got arrested in their life - and be it a conviction for marijuana smoking as a kid and no matter if you actually got convicted, released or the records expunged/sealed - will either have to lie on their application (which is a bad idea because no one knows if the NSA doesn't have taps on other countries' judiciary systems) or have an additional arbitrary hurdle to pass at the border.
And on top of that you're in a conundrum: you have to book hotels, cars and flights prior to applying for a visa because you need that to prove you're not going to overstay... but if your visa/ESTA application fails, you're out a lot of money for nothing.
It's not just permanent or temporary immigration, tourists have been affected as well for years. But hey, the US seems to be willing to lose thousands of dollars for each tourist they scare off, so if it's worth it for them, I'll gladly spend my money somewhere I feel welcomed instead of like a threat.
All the 45th/47th admin has done is adding even more uncertainty to an already steaming hot pile of dung. At least our government has reacted and updated the hints on travels to the US [1], but shied away for now from issuing an official travel warning.
[1] https://www.spiegel.de/politik/usa-auswaertiges-amt-verschae...
And b) it helps nothing against the host of other issues I raised.
is in the Fifth Amendment.
The United States has always been hostile to outsiders—what’s different now is that they’re not even trying to hide it.
As a naturalized Canadian, crossing the U.S. border has always been a frustrating ordeal. Despite holding a valid Canadian passport, I’m routinely subjected to an extra hour of “security” questioning. Maybe I’m just unlucky. Or maybe it’s because I was born in an "undesirable" Middle Eastern country and have brown skin. One time I was detained for 5 hours and were questioned about "Islam" (ironically, I'm a Christian so I couldn't answer their questions).
My belongings are always searched, and I’m treated as less than human by CBP. I suspect that if you’re white, crossing from EU or elsewhere, you were used to an easier time until now.
The gloves are off.
As expected, I was interrogated by police-looking people about my motivations, yelled at by some other ones to walk faster and use some machine faster, and almost missed my connecting flight because of the "some questions", even though I never actually intended to enter the US, since I was on my way to Mexico.
But still India had the absolute worst border control I've ever experienced. I probably rather sleep on a cold prison floor a couple of days than having to manually reenter all my information eight times!
Scary levels of prejudice and ignorance there. Prejudice against Muslims and I am guessing not knowing about Middle Eastern Christians exist.
Besides a job that just pays more money, what sort of unique opportunities exists in the US that doesn't exist anywhere in Europe? Genuinely curious, as I can't seem to think of any on my own.
Additionally, lots of UK and US universities have huge endowments which definitely helps.
That's not to say that there aren't great Universities there, but really international students go to the US (and some of the EU) so that they have a better chance of working there post study.
You weaken the inmate, but how does the prison make more profit from that?
Layers claim the guards didn't notice because the low light.
Jury finds that is a factor and awards.
Now it is policy in all detention centers to keep light on.
Weakened inmates hopefully will not start a riot.
I could easily drive to the US in less than two hours, but no thanks.
I was controlled countless times, I thought at the time I didn't stand out much but I probably did. I was always unlikely to be detained, but vehicle / luggage searches, questions etc can be a huge waste of time so better show some paperwork that will cut the questioning short and not risk missing your bus/flight/train/meeting etc. It sometimes even helped to get into nightclubs...
If you don't understand the threat of an authoritarian dictatorship for its inhabitants, this is it; a state apparatus that is completely opaque, offers no explanation for its actions (other than jingoistic rhetoric), and provides no recourse and certainly no remedy.
people okay with this (and there are many on hn that are as bas been made evident in the last months) simply do not understand that none of their privilege (education/money/status) has any effect on the implacable "I don't know"; if you get snapped up for whatever reason, whatever small innocuous infraction or perceived grievance (or manipulation of the system by someone that doesn't like you), you will go into the same blackhole. they will be telling your lawyers, your family, the (remaining) press "I don't know" and you will be rotting until some whim sets you free (or not).
Ergo "you aren't a criminal. Come with me. You're being deported."
First gen: 1 person, plus 1 spouse, for 2 people.
Second gen: 4 children of the 1st gen, plus 4 spouses, for 8 additional people.
Third gen: 16 children of the 2nd gen, plus 16 spouses, for 32 additional people.
Fourth gen: 64 young children, no spouses.
Adds up to 106 people in total. For 140-160 people, that would be even more children per couple. Unless I mixed the numbers up somewhere, that sounds like a lot of kids, no?
In my neck of the woods that would only be considered a "family gathering". You will see that group on a fairly regular basis (holidays, birthdays, quiet weekend, etc.) A "family reunion", indicating reuniting of family that doesn't see each other so often, extends further – at least five or even six generations.
But also 4 kids is nothing for a Bin Laden. Maybe if you multiply by 10...!
Many of them are wealthy business owners.
______
† Not simultaneously: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygyny_in_Islam
Learning that, the declaration of "you aren't a criminal " seems welcome since they aren't jailing and trying her for distribution or some other bull.
I am interested in what the actual deportation order says... i.e. the cause for deportation.
But good point, maybe that was the pretense for her deportation. A mini Pablo Escobar no doubt.
America First means America Isolated.
Also, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen “America first” as a political slogan, and, well, Dr Seuss said it best.
https://jimsmash.blogspot.com/2017/02/america-first-2-dr-seu...
The history of “America First”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee
It's a safe bet this girl got out "fast" because of the outside pressure. We need to be hiring a lot more immigration judges/personnel that adjudicate and process these people out of the public/private prison complex.
His view on situations like this are enlightening.
He knows the difference between true dictatorships and political wranglings in the news. No system is perfect, and bad things happen to good people every day.
In this circumstance, it looks like this person didn't follow all the appropriate rules related to the entering the US. (visa issues)
My Chinese friend does not understand why people try to break the rules, get caught, and cry foul. Your treatment in his home country would be considerably worse. He is following all the laws to get US citizenship. Should his due diligence be considered a waste of time?
I also had a relative that overstayed her visa in a foreign country and was constantly afraid of being deported. Why should the expectations of foreigners in US be different from every other country in the world?
If you enter PRC on bad VISA you chill at the airport transit area and deported on next available flight. None of this for profit multi week detention to milk ICE contracts.
But instead of sending her back, they put her in jail for 2 weeks. Could have been longer without media attention. There was no process for her, once within the walls, to get herself out.
> Why should the expectations of foreigners in US be different from every other country in the world?
Are you telling me this is common in any other country in the world to be denied entry and then put in jail instead of just be sent back?
She didn't sneak into the US and get caught walking through the desert. She didn't overstay an expired visa. She did what she was legally required to do and presented herself at a lawful border crossing to apply for the necessary visa. And for those who note that she previously had been refused the same visa, by her story the conditions of her visa had changed leading to a new, unrelated application, which again is how it is supposed to work.
And when they refuse that visa, thus denying entry, they say "sorry, you can't come in" and you have to go back to where you came from, which in this case was Mexico. Even if she flew in on an international flight and they refused entry they would make her stay in the international terminal (which is technically not "in" country) until a flight out happens.
That she was quite literally arrested on some unknown pretence is bizarre, and seems like the "feed the private prison" ploy.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/article-canadian-...
Of course police in the US are now demanding that Canadians answer the question "Canada or the United States", so zero Canadians should be travelling in that country. Law has broken down into some bizarre, hyper-partisan charade, and the end result is going to be civil war.
I'm not a fan, because I'm not in favour of State-run services, but they make what seems to me to be a sound point; that where ICE is private, but State funded, processing people takes the longest possible time because the longer the process takes, the more money they earn. This would also be why conditions are brutal and so inhumane; it's cheaper.
Charlie Munger I think wrote something like if you give people stupid incentives, you get stupid outcomes.
On the face of it, this looks like that, with the added complication the lunatics now running place would say this treatment is desirable.
Question then is how do you set up a State-funded privately run system to behave in the ways you do want, with rapid processing and humane treatment of people.
Are those detainment cells privately owned?
Yes; it's a billion dollar business.
>> Companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group receive government funding based on the number of people they detain, which is why they lobby for stricter immigration policies. It’s a lucrative business: CoreCivic made over $560m from Ice contracts in a single year. In 2024, GEO Group made more than $763m from Ice contracts.
They need to (at a minimum) verify her passport, let Canada know they are deporting her, any due process stuff that has to happen in US to deport....
- She worked in LA on a TN that was revoked
- She applied for a TN visa at the Canadian border and was denied
- She then flew to Mexico to try again at the San Diego border (USCBP can see this and explicitly say not to “crossing shop”)
- Her new TN was sponsored by a company she owns for another drinks company she also owns (you can’t self-sponsor a TN visa)
- The company she was consulting for was making THC drinks which are still illegal under USA federal law
My guess is she was questioned and determined to be committing immigration fraud and was detained until she could be deported
Mexico doesn't want that problem dumped on them.
I shudder to think what it would be like in the current climate.
I had overstayed my student visa but that was the extent of my crime. For that I had the pleasure of being shackled and bussed from the inland checkpoint (the one on 5 freeway) to the detention center.
The worst part is the uncertainty, once you are at a detention center - you have no idea what/when is something going to happen.
There is no information flow besides my one phone call.
You have to be happy with your daily burritos and then hope you make some friends and no enemies. Weird thing happens to your brain in these type of uncertain places, you sort of dissociate from what is happening to you. Some sort of defense mechanism I suppose.
I mean how do you respond when the boyfriend of the "main" guy at the facility asks "Don't I know you from somewhere?".
In the end I was incredibly lucky - I actually knew a lawyer to call - and that must have helped me. Most of the people inside had been in detention for weeks with only rough knowledge that at some point they would be deported or possibly set free.
So I had my hearing in front of judge some months later and I agreed for "voluntary departure" and 10 year ban.
Since then I am on some sort of blacklist for life.
Each time I've come back to US, I've have had to spend 2-3 hours at CPB interview room, which if you want to hear human misery from around the world is the place to be. There is some sort of queue but it is rather haphazard.
Again you have this incredible uncertainty when you will get out of this room.
Again, I am extremely lucky, I've had very pleasant CPB officers so far and they are either indifferent or sympathetic to my case.
Last time I was simply given passport without explanation after 2 hour wait with no interview at all!
Then again I've only traveled to US when current administration is not aggressively posturing.
Is this an error or was some of this going on during the previous administration?
There was another similar story reported previously [1].
On that same week, I traveled to Canada. I'm from America but not the US, I have a tourist visa for Canada valid for the next 5 years or so. I've entered Canada many times in the past, zero issues. Zero criminal records, not even traffic violations on my record in any country whatsoever.
Upon scanning my passport I was immediately sent to a different queue for inspection. Similar behavior, when the border officer asked me why I am in Canada I told them I was visiting, when they asked what I do for a living I told them I didn't have a job, I have a healthy dose of savings that allow me to not work for a while and just travel, as I have done several times in the past.
They told me that was "shady", I was interrogated by two officers for about an hour, they asked me about everything, then was sent to a room to wait (it was a comfortable place, to their favor), about half an hour later they come back and tell me I'm allowed to enter but I have to report back to them, physically, in a month and leave the country the same day.
Obviously I didn't have it as bad as these two girls, but in my own timeline, it was definitely the worse border crossing experience I've ever had.
A few weeks before that I was in Mexico, and the border officers where also quite intrusive and thorough with everybody. This almost never happens in Mexico, everyone just goes in, no questions asked.
Since all of this has happened during these past weeks, my conclusion is that, in general, border officials in North America have been told to be very though with all immigrants, perhaps fueled by the demands of the Trump administration. I also think, unfortunately, that this situation will only get worse as borders and international travel will become more and more scrutinized.
Those people are stuck in detention for weeks and months at a time because there's thousands upon thousands of them, and they all get to have a hearing of some sort. Those hearings take time to process.
> I met a family of three who had been living in the US for 11 years with work authorizations.
This is code for 'illegal alien.' Previous administrations were willfully not enforcing the law, granting temporary status to those who weren't actually eligible. The new administration is not playing that game. Catch and release is over. If you're here unlawfully, you're going to be detained until you have a hearing, which is going to send you back to where you came from most likely.
Ergo, they were there legally.
Why is it so hard to write "ICE" ? It is an acronym.
Setting acronyms in all-caps is a common American stylistic choice, but far from universal in English language writing; initial-cap for acronyms and all-caps for non-acronym initialisms is also a common style, globally, in written English.
Thanks!
Now the burden is on the reader.
"If she stays so kind and accepts what she's been told without protesting, she must be hiding something. That's criminal enough for us."
Okay so, not legal then?
These articles are always like this. "omg I just overstayed a little bit!!! uwu"
Btw, I am European and will never hopefully have to visit the USA again.
They took responsibility for their actions so they should't have been put there.
punishing ppl even after they take responsibility is not what ppl voted for.
Trump made his intentions very clear. This is exactly what people want.
Do you seriously believe that because this student technically violated the law before rectifying her paperwork, that throwing her in an overcrowded detainment center is good practice?
I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Observing how Americans function, it's very common for them to just let someone higher-up in the system take the responsibility, until the decision reaches a person who is so far removed from the human element they cannot possibly care. Case in point: once I messaged on a public Slack channel "hey I did this thing X, not sure if that's what I was supposed to do". Nobody said anything to me, two weeks later I got scheduled "just a quick sync" with HR. The HR employee was obviously on a different continent.
It seems dumb to travel to a country that has explicitly revoked your visa without being granted a new one!
Nobody stopped her from getting on a plane because nobody checks if Canadians have a visa or not since they don't need one for short visits or stays. In this case her visa was revoked, so she was probably flagged in the system as temporarily not allowed in.
This is speculation, but maybe somebody here can weigh on the technicalities of the situation.
This is not to excuse the inhumane treatment, which if true is disgusting. Dealing with the CBP is always negative, even as a citizen (when returning from abroad).
Edit:
This really stretches credulity:
> I was taken to the nurse’s office for a medical check. She asked what had happened to me. She had never seen a Canadian there before. When I told her my story, she grabbed my hand and said: “Do you believe in God?”
Edit2 (more dumb):
> There were around 140 of us in our unit. Many women had lived and worked in the US legally for years but had overstayed their visas – often after reapplying and being denied. They had all been detained without warning
>Another woman from Canada had been living in the US with her husband who was detained after a traffic stop. She admitted she had overstayed her visa and accepted that she would be deported. But she had been stuck in the system for almost six weeks because she hadn’t had her passport. Who runs casual errands with their passport?
Really? Not having your passport on you is the big mistake here?
Edit 3 (Even more dumb):
> One woman had been offered asylum in Mexico within two weeks but had been encouraged to keep going to the US. Now, she was stuck, living in a nightmare, separated from her young children for months. She sobbed, telling me how she felt like the worst mother in the world.
> Many of these women were highly educated and spoke multiple languages. Yet, they had been advised to pretend they didn’t speak English because it would supposedly increase their chances of asylum.
Trying to game the asylum system by lying to immigration authorities.
I'm not sure how all these cases are supposed to sustain the main thrust of the article, which is that all these people are innocent victims of some Kafkaesque nightmare for which they bear no responsibility. They clearly do.
We shouldn't be treating people like this period, but this is just really stupid behavior.
Oh man you must be lucky to not live around these types of people.
I remember the first time I was told I was going to burn in hell for eternity. At my first job at 16 by some coworkers in their 20s and 30s because I wasn't participating in their constant religion talk so it made it clear I wasn't part of "the group".
The story is pretty incredible on its face, so I don't see why some skepticism on the way it's being reported isn't justified, especially in the face of reflexive hysteria over a descent into fascism we're supposedly facing.
Again, if true, it is disgusting, and I'm negatively disposed towards ICE and the CPB in general. But I'd like to know whether this is a case of a really odd situation paired with bad judgement and/or bad advice, or something much worse.
In Italy, would it be in 1919 when Mussolini founded his party? Or 1922 when he marched on Rome? Maybe 1924 when opposition leader Matteotti was murdered? Or 1926 when all other parties were banned?
For Nazi Germany, was January 1933 when Hitler became Chancellor too early to worry? March 1933 when he got emergency powers? 1935 with the Nuremberg Laws? 1938 with Kristallnacht?
By the time it's obvious enough to satisfy skeptics like you, it's usually too late. What we're seeing now...invoking the Alien Enemies Act, mass detention, ideological purges of government workers, demonizing immigrants, these aren't random events. They're recognizable patterns. History doesn't announce itself with a banner saying "THIS IS FASCISM NOW." It creeps in while people like you call concerns "hysteria."
History didn't start in 1918, and if you think the political situation in the US right now is anything like interwar Europe, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
History provides frameworks for recognizing dangerous patterns. If you prefer earlier examples: Consider the Roman Republic's fall where Sulla targeted political enemies, Caesar dismantled institutional checks, or Augustus centralized power while maintaining democratic facades. Or Napoleon's transformation from revolutionary to emperor using emergency powers and populist appeals.
The point isn't perfect historical parallels, it's recognizing warning signs before it's too late. Dismissing valid concerns with sighs and bridge-selling metaphors adds nothing substantive.
They're currently transporting people to slave labor camps in El Salvador.. the analogy seems apt.
We know about the horrors of the Third Reich and the Holocaust in large part a) because of the survivors and their accounts of what they lived through and because b) the Nazis kept meticulous records of everything they were doing.
I find it in very bad taste to reduce this to "propaganda by the victors", apart from the fact that it just reduces to the (incorrect) trope of history being written by the victors: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5597/is-history-...
That's for a court to determine, and I'm sure it takes several weeks at least for something like this to make its way through the court system.
This is an important story of US decline. This woman was here to do business. To work with Americans.
If you're flagging this because you're a part of the tech right, who thinks these policies are somehow good for you, maybe hold off on that flag button and let the discussion play out here. Think about what happens if people from the rest of the world are terrified of working within this country.
And it is very likely being condoned right from the top. Garry Tan is a big DOGE fan on Twitter, as is PG.
It's embarrassing that to get to the content that technofascists don't want you to see, you need to visit a secret URL.
There's a substantive article here, and a substantive discussion, and it's user shadow-banned off HN because someone didn't like the political tilt.
HN is going to start shedding exactly the sort of quality users that make it great if this isn't addressed at scale.
Well, if it's all spam/off-topic, I guess flag it all. But unlikely it's all spam, this story certainly isn't, so not sure how it got flagged. Feels extremely relevant to various people who go to conferences, events and even just want to vacation.
> Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
Edit: Since someone commented the "If they'd cover it on TV news it's offtopic" line from the rules but promptly deleted their comment, this is the section that might relevant too:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
I'd personally consider lawful residents getting sent to detention-centers for no good reasons being "they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon", but we all think differently I suppose.
First of all, it's about an entrepreneur traveling to the US for a startup, which is directly relevant to a significant proportion of YCombinator founders themselves.
Beyond its direct relevance to the core founding audience of HN, it is not clickbait or wantonly inflammatory, and is clearly of interest to many based on the comment activity and votes.
I guess you can conclude that a few percent here likes Trump etc, but far from a majority
The best part of it all is that you can post like the above with no clear side chosen and the people whom it applies to will react to it negatively as well.
Humans are humans. Some humans are dumb and emotion-prone. Some humans who are dumb and emotion-prone think their bad behavior is justified because they're on the side of justice/righteousness.
It's not enough, in our current climate, to look the other way because someone is on a similar team...
Reinvigorating honest, fair discussion requires everyone interact more positively.
I think what's happening is that a lot of his constituents like him due to his personality, but they don't necessarily believe he is honest. So, they're betting on his dishonesty and using that as a justification for their support. Meaning, supporting Trump is really not so bad if you assume Trump isn't going to do half the things he says he is. Then, it's like you're supporting an almost normal candidate.
Could we at least elect someone likeable like Bill Nye if we're voting based on "personality"?
They want someone a bit stupid, who says stupid things. They want someone who’s an asshole because asshole is basically synonymous with badass protagonist.
https://bsky.app/profile/willhaycardiff.bsky.social/post/3lk...
Given this, we can reasonably expect hostile bots here, flagging according to agenda.
(I'm not one of them, but I believe many are. I appreciate where they are coming from.)
Despite that there has been a general interest in "tech" and clever things and intelligent discussion here that appeals to a reasonably broad community so the place works.
The massive wealth concentration and power amongst a very few, the Paypal mafia, Andreeson etc has led them down a path that puts them at odds with the rest of us. Regardless of our diverse politics regular engineers aren't going to have more individual or economic freedom in a world controlled by a small group of oligarchs. They care about us about as much as we care about ants.
I wouldn't say the tech world has blessed the regime but many unquestionably revere the financiers of the tech world. We (techies) for all our talk of individual liberties have a problem with cult like thinking. Most of us aren't stupid and we can justify our positions, any position. And while some flagging of discussions might be sock puppets or bots, the truth is a lot of people still thoroughly believe the hype.
>always promoted crypto and AI scams
is very accurate. In my experience it is pretty cynical about those
Another commenter (now deleted) made the claim that, saying an issue shouldn't be partisan is “just saying ‘everyone should believe what I do’ but in the lexicon of people who look down their nose at the general public.” They added, “The only nonpartisan issues are the most basic of things that all societies have like ‘don't murder people’ (but even then the minutia become debatable).” Although the comment has been deleted, I think this merits a little further exploration, because it's a widely held viewpoint, and there is some truth to it, though I disagree more than I agree.
There are definitely people who mean, "Shouldn't be a partisan issue," that way, but what I mean when I say it is that from the clash of opposing opinions comes the spark of insight, and partisan struggles in which arguments are soldiers do not permit that process to happen: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/02/23/in-favor-of-niceness-c...
I have frequently observed variants of the following exchange in mathematics classrooms:
Professor [writing on blackboard]: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student sitting in the third row of the audience: No, it's x³ + a.
Professor: Hmm. [pauses]
Student: Because the x from substituting f doesn't cancel.
Professor: Yes, you're right. So you see that this just reduces down to x³ + a.
Sometimes it goes the other way, and the student is the mistaken one. Neither participant goes into the discussion on the premise that "everyone should believe what they do"; rather, they believe that by discussing the issue they can arrive at an agreement, which may involve changing their own mind. Converting the discussion into partisan struggle prevents that from happening. Imagine what would have happened in my example if the discussion had instead gone as follows:
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: No, it's x³ + a.
Professor: I don't remember paying tuition to come and see you lecture.
Or, alternatively:
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: You didn't even do a modicum of research. It's x³ + a.
Or, how about this?
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: No, it's x³ + a.
Professor: You're being manipulated into thinking that this factor is being canceled incorrectly by the horrible evil professor.
Or, how about this?
Professor: So you see that this just reduces down to x² + a.
Student: "x²" ? Êtes-vous fou ? Restez avec x³ !
This difference comes out in its purest form in mathematics, but it's also possible for discussion and consultation to reach agreement on empirical and even moral issues. But partisanship is an obstacle in that process.
For example, that time when English people in England didn't count: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englishry
Sure, but you have to draw a line somewhere. Even on HN, there are opinions that you can't express (repeatedly) without being banned, even though there are clearly people with such opinions. Otherwise it's the Nazi bar problem - everyone who's not a Nazi will eventually leave.
Where exactly to draw the line is left as an exercise to the reader, but I suspect that some people just don't like where the line is currently being drawn.
Your comment begins by signaling partial disagreement ("Sure, but") but then makes no argument tending to show that the issue is not highly polarized or that HN is a good place to discuss highly polarized issues. Instead, it discusses other topics relating to social group dynamics, but not in a way that is relevant to the comment you were replying to.
That's what I mean by the Nazi bar problem[0]: you can't solve it by just not allowing certain topics to be discussed, because eventually in some completely tangential situation, a nasty flamewar is going to erupt and people who are not Nazis will be appalled that there are Nazis here.
[0]: I'm explicitly not saying that certain opinions expressed on HN are literal Nazi opinions, the Nazi bar problem is just a convenient analogy for the situation when one group of people holds opinions that are utterly appalling to many other people that frequent the same space.
It sounds like you think the problem is the wrong sort of people. But almost everybody retreats into ego defense and partisan struggle under sufficiently threatening circumstances, even though some people are habitually more prone to that kind of thing than others. It's more about minimizing the frequency of the wrong sort of circumstances.
Additionally, though I think everyone is happy that I'm not the one running the site, I have observed elsewhere that your favored "ruthless silencing" approach has some side effects you may not be anticipating.
Have you read this discussion? It was already heated, although the comments posted recently have been better.
Before greggyb asked why it was flagged, the top comments were about "the dumbest bully from their grade school" and "team grade school bullies". Does that not sound like flag-worthy discussion to you?
Name calling like that buries legitimate discussion, like the claim that she was not in fact eligible for a TN visa because she "worked for" a startup she co-founded (Holy! Water).
"NAFTA specifically prohibits self-employment for TN visa holders. This restriction poses challenges for entrepreneurs who wish to start a business in the United States."
https://www.visapro.com/resources/article/tn-visa-to-green-c...
See my connect from a few comments ago where I mention how interesting it is we can discuss authoritarian slides everywhere else except when it happens in America. It’s almost a conspiracy, IMO.
Also, I can understand demonizing the current admin, they’re flaunting the most important laws that protect us, and for some here the USA is poised to upend their lives or worse.
In any case, this discussion isn’t interesting, and constant complaints of bad behavior are stifling the actual discussion more than those flagged, dead comments that started shit.
This is not true, at least according to dang if I recall correctly. There was a change in moderation strategy since the pg days. The way I remember dang's own explanation was that pg was more hands off in his moderation of political topics. Sure, you can say that it wasn't the same community back then, less flamewars etc, but the fact of the matter is the creator of this site moderated things slightly differently.
Maybe you won't find it ironic, but the creator of HN is often sharing posts on twitter that would be flagged to oblivion if someone other than him posted it on here. Regardless of all the reasonable explanations (this is a tech site, journalists/politicians are on twitter), it's still an interesting datapoint that the creator of this forum in this day and age thinks it's more important spending his own time talking politics on twitter more than talking tech on this forum. I'm going to go out on limb and bet that he does this not because he enjoys or prefers talking politics but because he feels compelled to do so more due to the unprecendented nature of certain events.
I think people who say "do it on twitter like pg, instead of HN" forget that pg's positive twitter experience is largely due to the fact that he has a million plus followers on twitter and people in other fields know who he is so he is able to get high value engagement that counteracts the trolls. Your average HN user is not going to have pg's twitter experience, and so they'd rather try their luck posting in the best forum that's hospitable to them, HN.
But that greatly predates the changes in moderation strategies or hiring dang and sctb.
Surely the understanding of the site's social dynamics has evolved over time, though, and so the reasons for the same guideline are different now.
dang explicitly states they do it differently than pg it:
when a thread turns into a political flamewar, we moderate it more than pg used to. There were many past submissions that neither users nor moderators would allow today [0]
```
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you—it's been a crazy last few days!
Users flagged that one. We can only guess why users flag things, but there have been so many posts about the current political goings-on that I think there's a lot of fatigue about it. In this case the article was more of an opinion piece than a factual report, so it's probably not one that we'd override the flags on.
Daniel (dang)
```
So the system is setup to allow this abuse. It's weaponizing the flag system. I'm sure this type of flagging is already automated by how fast some posts disappear on /new.
What's to stop someone from buying enough old accounts and mass flagging other topics to chill discussion / dissent? This could easily be done for a few grand. Rotate accounts doing the flagging and make sure they engage in some "high quality" discussion from time to time to avoid detection. Make sure the same groups of accounts aren't flagging the same posts, etc.
E.g. "I never want to see a freaking post about Rust again"...
Note: I had to wait hours to post this comment because my account was rate limited. I'm assuming because I'm involved in this discussion at all: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35157524 Now by the time I can actually post, this thread is well off the front page. This site is really good at effectively silencing people.
Dang, I'd like to know the specific comments where I am going over the line, or are too "low-quality". I have been called out once or twice over the last decade by you, and have agreed that I could have conducted myself better in those instances and tried not to fall back into those patterns.
receipts:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43413634
There is if you want to do this systematically rather than adhoc.
> there are hundreds of millions of people worldwide who have extremely strong anti-immigration beliefs
Totally understood, and know they are here and will flag things they disagree with while still being a real human.
I wasn't saying that is specifically what's happening with this post. I assume that's more what's happening when posts in /newest are flagged within a few min.
That part was just saying "this really wouldn't be hard to do if anyone put in just a little bit of effort, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was happening".
I find this line particularly weak:
> We can only guess why users flag things
It’s not that hard to do some clustering analysis to see if bad-faith actors are repeatedly flagging posts in a coordinated manner. Maybe he’s trying to avoid giving away anti-spam secret sauce, but that doesn’t seem likely given the language of the copypasta. Speaking for myself, I would like any sort of assurance that anything other than a 100% laissez-faire approach to flag abuse is happening.
Until that's reality, the system mostly works. Let us know if you ever figure out the perfect flagging system where someone can't "buy old accounts en masse" or something
And while it's a non story it's framed as a scandal because it resonate with the current political climate and the character is sympathetic to the narrative (productive and upstanding character compared to the ones dominating the previous news cycle on the topic)
I would advise readers to read the article.
She is one of many, many people who have had a success visa after prior failed attempts.
2) It's too political in nature, and violates the HN guideline that political topics are likely off-topic.
3) It violates the HN guideline that the content should be things that good hackers would find intellectually satisfying. Raging partisan hate at each other about the latest political/social snafu is not intellectually satisfying. It has nothing to do with engineering, science, technology, etc., it's purely a social/political issue.
4) Such a submission only draws a mass amount of hate and partisan flamebait which, once again, does not belong on HN. You have every other site on the internet available to discuss political issues.
5) Your appeal to popularity, saying it has lots of engagement and therefore belongs here, has zero connection to the HN guidelines for what belongs here. I don't care if 1 person or 1 billion people engage with it. It doesn't change the fact that it's off-topic and decreases the quality of the site.
>“I believe God brought you here for a reason,” she said. “I know it feels like your life is in a million pieces, but you will be OK. Through this, I think you are going to find a way to help others.”
You've got to be fucked in the head to think this is an appropriate thing to do as an agent that's part of a federal process. Keep your god out of work!
Edit: Hah, I just realized that congressional sessions open with prayer as well. Not sure what other countries does this?
Likewise, the US prayer is non-denominational (it typically is monotheistic though). Ireland, Canada, South Africa, and the UK also have parliamentary prayers.
UK currency often features the letters "D.G.", which are the initials to a latin phrase meaning "by the grace of God", but other European currency references to God have ended with the switch to the Euro.
The US certainly has above average entanglement of religiosity and governance, but hardly in a sense that makes it a theocracy. Politicians talking about faith and God is a very different thing from, eg, the country being run by the pope.
Describes every govt out there.
That person was apparently trying to be humane, in her own personal way. Possibly ingenuous, probably in good faith and intention.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I got confused on some words in my memory during the rush, sorry.
Did you understand any different reference?
That term you used is very slippery (actually, you used it as the opposite of a "superstition" - you gave it only the interpretation typical of later uses).
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/04/26/in-america-d...
There are also other reasons why you see different behaviours in doctors and nurses: already linguistically, the "nurse" "nourishes", the "doctor" remains the "learned" - one has a direct rapport, the other detached, out of the basic role construed. It just follows that the nurse more probably consoles and the doctor more probably communicates flatly.
That is very easy to type from the comfort of your home on your mobile phone.
After several days of deprivations and hardships, including sleeping in a fully-lighted cold cell without even a blanket, you will get any help and support that you can get.
The so-called "logical" thing to tell them in this hypothetical scenario is not the optimal thing, so maybe it's not the most logical thing to say/do.
This is the sort of thing that makes a lot of sense if you have an imaginary friend but sounds a little deranged if you don't.
I am an atheist. I do think that what the nurse did is wrong and unprofessional.
My point is: I would still have absolutely clinged to it, if I was in the same situation as this woman. I would have talked with this nurse, and would have told her that yes, maybe God had something to do with it. And you would have too, probably.
If you are drowning in the ocean, you don't discard a piece of floating wood because it has growing fungi. Claiming virtue is very easy ... until you experience real hardship.
See also, good cop vs bad cop.
In the end, we don't know the motivation of the nurse. Could be that the nurse isn't even religious herself, which is why she asked if Mooney believed in god first, and since Mooney said she does, the nurse tried to help her mentally in a way that spoke to her. If Mooney said she didn't believe in god, the nurse might have said something else.
I say this because as an atheist who used to work in elder-care, I've had many conversations with very religious old people, where I "play their game" because they respond better to it, and seemed happy about it. Even if I don't believe in god, talking with people as if I did, just makes sense in situations where people seemed to have lost all hope.
There were already 190+ comments when I wrote mine. I don't write comments if there's already one that expressed the same thought
If it's the latter, I think I'd prefer to have more people like her involved with immigration in the United States - not less.
Christianity is a popular religion in Mexico, and most of the people that nurse has dealt with recently are probably facing potential deportation back to Mexico. There isn't much you can say to comfort a person in that situation. Appeals to faith could reasonably be one of the few methods the nurse has to offer comfort. That's certainly better than the nurse being cold and uncaring.
Or maybe I'm just "fucked in the head".
Missing context from Mooney's account:
> I told her I had only recently found God, but that I now believed in God more than anything.
> At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. She asked if she could pray for me. I held her hands and wept. I felt like I had been sent an angel.
Here you have 124 sources (and counting), from all sides of the political spectrum: https://ground.news/article/canadian-woman-says-she-was-wrap...
Which makes me wonder of the "124 sources", most from repetition: https://bradonomics.com/trust-me-im-lying-summary/
Cross-border trips to the U.S. reach COVID lows with nearly 500,000 fewer travellers in February https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cross-border-trips-decline-...
Is her incompetent attorney committing some violation here?
Or is it just a trash PR to grab some likes and subscribers?
Yet they chose to feature this white person from a white country.
This article reminds of beginning of ukraine war when US press was showing white ppl and saying "we need to stand with them because they are like us".
I believe a lot of resentment Canadians currently feel towards Americans boils down to being treated the way they treat any other undesirable country.
I’d be worried about that in your place. I’m worried about that as a Norwegian.
why are you worried about someone who doesn't give a fuck about norway.
Why can't Norwegians mind their own business why is this so offensive to them that americans don't want to be friends with norway. totally entitled . " how dare you don't want to be friends, we are white too"
yeah you nailed it perfectly. "how dare you deny us white status"
The ones who are still being tortured aren’t available to be interviewed.