Ask HN: Are you afraid to travel to US to tech conferences? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Are you afraid to travel to US to tech conferences?

161 pointsthrowaway98342198 comments

I am not a U.S. citizen, and I have to say that even before this year, I was beginning to have some second thoughts about traveling to the U.S.

I traveled last time to the US in 2014, but in the last 10 years or so, it seems to me that there has been a huge increase in violence, and I have huge fears about guns. I live in Europe and the thought that there are mass shooting is for me too high risk specifically considering traveling with my family. I understand probabilities but still more than 0% is a huge risk just for visiting a country.

Now I also read about non-US citizens being detained on the border.

I was planing this year to travel to some tech conferences in US but it seems that it is not a good year.

PS: Imagine why this is a throwaway account because I read they check the phone, laptops at the boarder. This is 100% more crazy that I am afraid to even speak on the internet about it.

Am I paranoid or are there other people in the same situation?

View on HN

For those wondering, several German nationals have been detained through a process irregular enough to garner comment from the German government.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/germany-inve...

There was also a French scientist traveling to a conference who was refused entry because texts on his phone / social media were critical of Trump’s cuts to science funding. It was deemed terroristic to be hateful of the president.

[0] is the article from LeMonde (in french) for anyone interested.

[0] https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2025/03/19/etat...

Similar story out of Canada. Pretty white Canadian lady (usually an untouchable class of people) with good paperwork thrown in a pit for weeks:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-det...

While her treatment is unjustifiable, her visa was revoked (again, not much justification for this) and then she continued to live in the US for months after it happened. Only after living in the US for months illegally was she detained.

It's like people who insist on using crosswalks without looking for oncoming traffic. You may be right, but you will also be dead. Follow the rules.

Any link to where she lived in the US illegally? The only thing I see is

>She was denied entry into the country while trying to make her way from Mexico to San Diego, California after her work visa was revoked back in November while traveling from Vancouver to Los Angeles.

Presumably she wasn't in the US or she wouldn't have been trying to enter the US from Mexico.

You can piece it together. The article conveniently leaves out exactly where she was staying for the months between visa revocation and re-entering the US.

> Presumably she wasn't in the US or she wouldn't have been trying to enter the US from Mexico.

She was likely doing what many folks do: cross the border briefly for the explicit purpose of getting documents refreshed. This is common and expected in many cases, but she was without a visa for months at this point. And she likely crossed from Mexico because it is close to where she was previously living. Again, this is common.

The fact that she didn't cross back over from her home country of Canada immediately sets off alarm bells.

What are you even trying to say? There’s no point in saying anything past “her treatment was unjustifiable.” The rest doesn’t matter if you care about ethical treatment in the slightest.

If you care about keeping yourself safe, follow the rules. People seem to forget this.

Rule following has not been a safeguard against recent border and immigration actions. (Plus, the rules themselves are being changed arbitrarily, without notice, and illegally.)

> Rule following has not been a safeguard against recent border and immigration actions

Just because it doesn't reduce the chances of harm to zero does not mean it's useless. She was less likely to be detained had she left the country as soon as her visa was revoked. Not really up for debate.

> illegally

And we're back to the "I can cross the street here without looking both ways because I have the right of way by law!!!" argument. I don't know if you experienced the last few US presidential/administration changes, but things that are "illegal" and yet "allowed anyway without consequences" are becoming a hot topic!

"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

If overnight, people suddenly start getting arrested and thrown in a pit for speeding, you shouldn't think "ah, they were breaking the law". If you agree there's not much justification for this, I don't even understand what point you're trying to make. Laws are not simple or black and white. They're often a huge contradictory mess. That's why you need flexibility, precedent, and most importantly humanity. Her family couldn't find her. No access to legal. Her treatment was psychotic. Period.

Again, no idea what point you're trying to make here.

I think deporting someone if they remain for months after their visa is revoked is perfectly acceptable. Ideally the person should be allowed to do it themselves in the few weeks after. By all appearances, she was capable of doing so and simply did not.

Detaining someone indefinitely in inhumane conditions is not acceptable under any circumstances.

It is also true that she could have avoided detention by leaving the country as soon as her visa was revoked. It doesn't matter whether revocation was reasonable at that point, because she is now in a country that is actively hostile toward her.

Her visa was revoked in November. She obviously remained in the US, where she attempted to cross again at the Mexico border, because she was obviously still living and working in California all those months when she should have been back in Canada.

It is not acceptable for the US to detain her; she also could have avoided it by following the rules, and others can avoid it too.

That's my point.

That does not make sense... In November, her visa was revoked at the border, when trying to enter the US. At that point, she was obviously turned around back into Canada. Then later, she was detained when trying to enter the US from Mexico in 2025.

So, how do you suggest she managed to enter the US after November in order to have remained there illegally? Did the CBP, who have just revoked her visa a few days/weeks prior, just let her in on a tourist visa? That does not sound very believable, even for the previous US administration.

And what do you suggest her plan was? Previously she was on TN work visa. You seem to think that after having her TN visa revoked, she managed to get into the US on a 90-day tourist visa instead (thus working there illegally), which is why she needed to run for the border after 3 months, and why she was detained when trying to re-enter. But what kind of plan is that – to run for the border every 90 days after having your TN visa revoked. That is such an obvious recipe for failure, nobody who employs an immigration lawyer – like that lady – would have gone ahead with it.

I've definitely seen other headlines overselling similar detention stories for rage bait, but I don't see much wiggle room in this case.

This is why I won't visit the US anytime soon. Going through US immigration has always been stressful. In the past, a friend of mine was sent back after flying for 14 hours because immigration didn't believe that they were actually a tourist.

Recently, it seems to have gotten even worse.

It's not worth the stress for me personally, even if the real-world probability of getting detained or rejected is still relatively small.

And another news today with a German 25 yo guy. He came back from a side-trip to Mexico and was cuffed at the border from Mexico to US.

"The German government has responded with a warning to travelers to the USA in response to several Germans being placed in detention pending immigration upon entry in recent weeks."

https://www-welt-de.translate.goog/politik/ausland/article25...

THIS

The risk of gun violence is incredibly low, especially in venues like you might find traveling to a conference.

The real risk is the Immigration and Customs people. They are insanely unpredictable right now, and are taking wildly unexpected actions against any targets, usually on a political basis. Visitors from Canada, Britian, France, Germany and others have been detained in unpleasant conditions for days to weeks.

If you come, take at least these steps:

* scrub all social media accounts of political content, especially anything critical of right-wing policies

* Bring a digitally clean phone and laptop, preferably one you can afford to lose. Stare with a clean install, make sure there is no social media history or documents or images related to any kind of protest action. It may be wise to have a sanitized social media account with only work-related posts and likes.

* If your friends or family are involved in any kind of protests or actions (including against Tesla), be sure they are at least not referenced in any of your accounts or content you have on your devices.

It really looks like ICE are trying to make examples of anyone to discourage visitors, especially visitors who might be activists. If you are an activist, do not come, or be sure to scrub well to hide it fully.

If you can make it through the gauntlet, we welcome you and hope you have an enjoyable visit! (and deep apologies for this administration most of us do not want; they did not win by a majority)

This reminds me of the list of steps journalists should perform before travelling to North Korea.

Yes, that is a great reference — I should probably have included that! I'm even expecting to do the same for my next trips abroad a US citizen, to avoid trouble on returning.

My understanding is the French scientist was deported on arrival because he had a text complaining about the new administration's defunding of science. So, an even innocuous complaint about policy is politicized to an insane degree.

(and yes, I fully understand the implications of the North Korea reference. Unfortunately, it does not appear we can take it as a joke or exaggeration. All signs are this administration is doing everything possible to convert the form of govt from a democracy to a dictatorship)

I would be considerably more worried about being incorrectly detained by ICE and getting caught up in that nonsense than gun violence.

Simultaneously, you're getting a lot of Americans in the comments talking about how the risk of gun-violence is near-zero and nothing to be worried about. There have been 58 mass shootings in the U.S. In Europe, there have been 2. Statistically, going from Europe to the U.S, your risk of being caught up in a shooting ARE significantly higher.

Is that still worth not travelling for? In reality, 58 mass shootings in 3.5 months across that number of population centres, the risk is incredibly, incredibly low.

But is it still significantly higher than Europe? Yes, absolutely.

Should you worry about the U.S violence getting "worse"? No. But it is more violent, statistically, than Europe.

As I said though, I'd be more worried about ICE nonsense.

Meanwhile I see this focus on guns as very misleading. For example, Sweden may not have much gun violence, but they've reached having bombings almost every day.

I hadn't heard about Sweden so went and looked it up. In Jan 2025 there were 30 blasts, over 1 a day!!!

Facts are violence is an indication of issues, not the issue itself. Poverty, unhappiness, lack of opportunities, combined with dissatisfaction with the govt increased by the never ending waves of propaganda from both sides.

In that light, the US and Sweden both are facing serious social crises. Solely blaming the tools doesn't even start to understand the causes of the social issues nor gets us anywhere near solving them.

As a U.S. citizen my fear of being involved in gun violence on a day-to-day basis is zero.

Basically all gun violence in America is either confined to very specific economically depressed areas, that are well-known and easy to avoid, or is between two private parties.

Yes the big news headlines are scary, yes I wish the number was zero, but the reality is that the risk is still extremely, extremely, extremely low and is not something the average person needs to even think about unless you live in one of the violence prone neighborhoods.

Don't forget the two-thirds of gun violence that only involves a single private party, and doesn't pose any risk to an unrelated tourist visiting the country.

> Basically all gun violence in America is either confined to very specific economically depressed areas, that are well-known and easy to avoid, or is between two private parties.

Like schools?

These are shameful, and shouldn't happen.

But, if you run the numbers, they're also rare enough that they're not worth worrying about at the individual level. The kind people usually mean by "school shooting" are especially rare.

Just to add, statistically speaking kids are more likely to experience violence, including gun violence, in other settings than at school. That include general public places and even their home.

The number one cause of death for children in America is shootings.

I think drug overdoses are still higher for people under the age of 18.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7150a2.htm

Show us the source

> they're not worth worrying about at the individual level

Just as an anecdote: My company tried to recruit an executive from Britain many years ago. He had young children and was concerned about the high rates of child mortality due to firearms and motor-vehicles deaths (the top two causes of death for children in the US) compared to the negligible risk in the UK.

While his underlying concern wasn't specific to "school shootings", he did point out that our blasé acceptance of them was another example of our comparatively higher risk tolerance.

Well to put it into perspective, run the numbers to see how likely it is per-capita for a Ukrainian civilian to die in the war, compared to how likely it is for a US American to die by being shot.

Maybe, but then you still have the secondary effects. Terrifying lockdown drills and shooter training. Transparent/kevlar backpacks. Armed teachers and/or security everywhere. What a fucked up environment to grow up in.

Sandy hook? Harvest Festival? Not exactly low income.

Your point is somewhat valid. I live in Los Angeles and never think about gun violence. But it’s a stretch to say gun violence is isolated to low income areas. The risk is non-zero for all of us.

> As a U.S. citizen my fear of being involved in gun violence on a day-to-day basis is zero.

As an Australian, my fear of being killed by the local fauna, flora or the country is near 0. Yes, the "common brown" is the worlds 3rd most venomous snake, and they are the snake I mostly see around my house, but I know where they live and their habits. Yes, the funnel web is a relatively common and very aggressive spider found in our backyards. It's also the world's deadliest spider (it killed one girl in 12 minutes). But everyone is hyper aware of them, and almost no one gets bitten. The surf on our magnificent beaches is deadly, but we are all taught to recognise rips and swim only in supervised areas.

So the reality is Australia is a very safe place, for Australians. Please visit. It's a blast.

As a European with a lot of US connections, I've always felt a bit uneasy about going to the US, and it's probably the only liberal democracy where I felt this way. So maybe the rule can be a rule now, that I only feel unfairly treated in non liberal democracies.

With the US, you just get the feeling every time you are at security that they might mistreat you, for no reason. The way the agent looks at you, the way the questioning goes, it's like they suspect you of being a criminal. The only other country where the guy made that atmosphere for me was Cuba.

As for violence when you're in the country, my impression with those statistics is that it's highly localized, wherever you are in the world. There's some neighbourhood that you're not supposed to go to, and if you just stay out, your risk is very low.

Regarding the people you meet, the US is the only place where I get the Jekyll/Hyde vibe. Lots of super friendly people who will be happy to chat with you. But also the feeling that if you get on their wrong side, it will be unpleasant really fast.

If it makes you feel better, I'm now a US citizen and border patrol still does this stuff to us. I think it's part of their training, and it's definitely unwelcoming. That said, as a visa and greencard holder, I just made sure to always be prepared on crossing and never had a single issue.

It does depend on where you enter the country, at least in my experience (UK citizen, have visited a lot both on visa waivers and prior to that on visas, since the 80s).

Every time I've flown into Austin, TX, they've been super-nice. DC likewise. NYC/Newark are brusque but not nasty. San Francisco are scary. Boston on the one time I flew there was just horrendous, though that might have just been one agent who was having a bad day.

>it seems to me that there has been a huge increase in violence, and I have huge fears about guns. I live in Europe and the thought that there are mass shooting is for me too high risk specifically considering traveling with my family. I understand probabilities but still more than 0% is a huge risk just for visiting a country.

I don't think there's evidence to support this and holding the line at 0 risk seems impossible / a real risk of a lot of stress for 0 gain in actual safety, or worse.

Example of the "worse", someone might see reports of a plane crash(s) and chaos at the TSA and choose to drive rather than fly. The result is they've increased their risk or injury or death (even if still very low).

Let alone the endless amount of worry reaching 0 risk would involve, sounds like a mental heath nightmare honestly.

I think people who hear "oh that strange place has this problem we don't have as much" they naturally view it as a far greater risk than it really is.

Humans are not good at measuring risk.

It's your call on travel, but that aspect of your concern seems unfounded and honestly potentially unhealthy.

This page seems to me to have more than 0 deaths from guns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

> A total of 711 people have been killed and 2,375 people have been wounded in 586 shootings

Not sure how to explain this and I don't want to imply anything about US culture cause I don't know it but it is so unimaginable to me that there were 500 shootings in one year.

Were I live we had none (zero) in the last 10 years or even more. Of course a smaller country so probably not comparable.

I'm not sure how to account for / compete with folks measuring risks via say news outlets or even wikipeida pages. The fact that there are that many shootings is terrible.

That "terribleness" doesn't mean you're at a risk that is worth worrying about, or worse, worrying about that and not something that might be far more of a risk.

But nobody can compete with purely an emotional response to bad things.

Yup, in this scenario:

Gun violence risk? Very low. Not as low as western Europe, but way lower than South America.

Risk of being hassled by some overzealous immigration officer? Much higher.

I certainly think the latter is a more valid concern as we really don't know the math on it and the capricious nature of the executive branch / security folks is, but I also wouldn't let it interrupt my life. If they turn you around and send you home at the border, I say let everyone know and do what you can to document it and so on.

Obviously the latter is more of a personal choice too. But you're also not likely to have the same consequences as gun violence.

They can easily arrest you for arbitrary reasons, and then deny you later entry to the US after deporting you - a lifetime ban.

While not as high a risk as ‘dead’, it’s pretty bad, especially if your career is heavily dependent on the US or you have US citizen family/relationships.

The biggest issue is the arbitrary, capricious, and frankly nonsensical nature of a lot of what seems to be going on.

It certainly wouldn't be an ideal outcome.

I would expand that to a general risk of being hassled, physically intimidated, or even threatened. I've personally seen (either as the target or as a bystander) a steady rise over the past decade of total strangers out in public jumping from a minor mistake or a bit of carelessness straight to political accusations, slurs, etc. Occasionally it even happens without any inciting event (e.g. based only on appearance).

> a real risk of a lot of stress for 0 gain in actual safety, or worse.

Couldn't parse this part very well. Do you mean that there is a risk of taking stress but without getting any safety in return?

But if the OP decides not to travel, then they are eliminating stress, aren't they? So they are both benefiting from reduction of stress and the safety is definitely not becoming worse by taking this decision.

What I meant is, I think if 0 risk is your goal you're going to suddenly find non 0 risks everywhere. You won't find a 0 risk safe haven (if it isn't guns it will be a gas leak, accident of some sort), and that's a recipe for endless worry / lost life opportunities and so on.

Now picking a number is a little silly but OP picked 0, but if we did pick a non 0 number and did the math ... they might find the real risks far lower than they expect / find some piece of mind and operate a little more based on reality.

I think this is kind of a tangent - surely we all understand that "I want zero risk" is technically an exaggeration. I think we can talk about the difference between "low" and "virtually zero" without getting into "there's always meteors" territory.

E.g. I'm an American, and I don't want to go anywhere (inside or outside my country) where my risk of being killed by malice or incompetence is "low", for most colloquial definitions of "low". I would like something lower than that. Feeling safe is a really big deal, especially when you have no agency. E.g. I'm happy to go on a, relatively speaking, "dangerous" hike.

I think realistic understanding of the numbers is a potential path for OP to really measure this. 0 being unrealistic ... from there you try to quantify what the other numbers mean for an individual and so on. So I think 0 is less of a tangent and IMO more of a pathway to being a bit more realistic / empowered to make the call.

I don't think 0 is unrealistic because I don't think they meant 0 mathematically, they meant 0 as when humans use the word to describe risk, which is near zero mathematically. I think it's a mistake to try to quantify this, as you suggest. That's not how humans work. I can't tell you what percentage, to two significant places, of risk I am willing to engage in for any given well-defined reward.

> That's not how humans work.

I 100% agree. I mentioned that in my first post.

But then we recognize our emotional responses and even superstitions and we think about it and sometimes by doing so improve our lives.

In the end of course this is OP's call to approach this how they wish.

Risk is all about perception. I traveled in China, and felt completely safe. In Africa, in one place I see more armed guards, and I feel less safe than in another place where there are very few guards. At the same time I follow german news and not a day goes by where I don't read about some attack, people throwing rocks at trains, busy train stations that have a weapon free zone (which is really weird since you generally can't carry weapons anywhere in public) and I get the feeling that traveling in Germany is less safe than here in Africa.

The US doesn't have the best safety record. But I think it was always like that. I don't think it has gotten worse. Only the border controls feel more worrisome now.

> Humans are not good at measuring risk.

True in general, but in the specific case of gun homicides, the data do seem to support their concern. As per [1] and [2] the US gun homicide rate is more than 4 per 100k whereas countries like Switzerland, Sweden, France, Japan, UK, Denmark, and many others seem to have between one and two orders of magnitude fewer gun deaths.

If someone from one of those countries above expressed concern about gun homicides when visiting the United States it would seem no more irrational than a fellow American expressing concern about visiting Jamaica or Honduras because they have an order-of-magnitude higher gun homicide rate compared to the United States.

(I doubt the overall gun homicide numbers tell the whole story with regard to tourist safety, just that there exists a rational basis for this concern.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-r... [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-death...

The fact that violence is higher in A vs B isn't necessarily going to mean OP individually is at a realistic risk of gun violence.

This still seems like a recipe for endless worry with little or no realistic reduction in risk.

In the end if OP is overwhelmed by this that's their call. I'm not going to tell them what they should do, but will offer different ways to think about it.

Agreed. As I said, the overall gun homicide numbers do not tell the whole story with regard to tourist safety -- assuming OP is visiting tourist-y places then the risk of death will be significantly lower than the overall numbers indicate, though possibly still higher than their home country.

But people worry about all sorts of irrational things with zero basis in fact. I'm merely pointing out that there is, in fact, a factual basis for this concern.

Personally I consider the benefits of traveling even to other countries (even those with higher homicide rates than the US) to vastly outweigh the risks. But if someone feels otherwise and avoids traveling to places with higher levels of risk then I think this would technically provide a "realistic reduction in risk".

Gun violence in the US is highly concentrated in places you'll never go as a tourist.

Agreed, that's why I said that while there is a basis for this concern, the overall gun homicide numbers don't tell the whole story with respect to tourist safety.

I couldn't find any specific numbers with regard to US tourist safety, though Australia's travel advisory does mention the high rates of gun crimes and about a month ago a couple Israeli tourists were shot in Miami Beach.

Again, gun violence would not be my primary concern if I were visiting the US as a tourist, I'm just pointing out that there exists a basis for this concern.

It's vanishingly rare for tourists to be murdered in the US. Per FBI data 90+% of US murders are committed by an acquaintance of the victim. A large percentage of the remaining 10% is from altercations that escalate to shootings.

The European preoccupation with American gun violence as it relates to tourism is misplaced in my opinion as tourists are almost never involved. Compare that to the frequent truck/car ramming attacks in Germany which seemingly always kill tourists. Should I avoid visiting German Christmas markets?

> Should I avoid visiting German Christmas markets?

Yes. Glühwein can be enjoyed in more comfortable setups anyway. If that's your thing.

Is there anything else to marketing X-mas?

This really misses the point.

Wasn't meant to be. I almost 'commute' between the .us and .de , so I do know parts of both. Maybe I should have it marked as satire, but again, it just confirms what I cited.

What's the reason to drink that stuff there, for usually insane amounts of money, while not much else noteworthy is on offer there, for similar overblown prices, while feeling tense about all the possible shit which could happen, while doing so?

Right I just meant to contrast the relative danger of the benign sounding markets vs say visiting NYC.

> Compare that to the frequent truck/car ramming attacks in Germany which seemingly always kill tourists. Should I avoid visiting German Christmas markets?

Personally I would find such a risk acceptable just as I find the risk of traveling to countries with a high homicide rate acceptable.

But if a friend or family member expressed concern about visiting a German Christmas market due to prior cases of terrorists murdering tourists there I would not dismiss their concerns as irrational or unfounded as there exists a rational basis for this concern.

I meant to contrast those things, you could be run over by a truck at a German Christmas market because it has happened a lot(relative to the size of Germany) of times but almost no tourists to the US are ever shot by strangers. You only hear about one of these things in the context of travel danger.

Yah. Meanwhile you can be robbed and/or knifed anytime, no matter where, or pushed down stairs from behind your back because pusher felt like you looked wrong at him/denied him a cigarette/your smartphone/some euros, pushed down onto the tracks of mass-transportation from the platform while a train is coming in, sitting in (front of) a cafe/diner, or being intentionally driven over by a car, steered by a madman on a mission, or simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time, while some unrelated madness ensues.

Especially in Germany.

Sure, that’s what I’m referring to in the other comment about truck attacks. Germany on average is less violent but has outbursts of random violence targeting places tourists frequent, yet no one says don’t go to Munich.

I don’t think so. In every interaction with American police there is always a chance you end up face down dead in a pool of your own blood, especially if you’re not a citizen.

Interesting, how do you figure they establish citizenship status in those circumstances?

They could ask for ID.

There really isn’t. The number of unarmed people killed by American police every year is close to 10. This happens across millions of interactions.

Whenever someone feels that travel is risky due to news stories (especially in a generally known to be safer area of the world), I always suggest to imagine that right now as you're reading a news story, hundreds of thousands-to-millions are boarding and onboarding planes at the same time, thousands of planes are in the air, thousands are landing and taking off, hundreds of conferences and events are happening continuously all throughout the country, millions of people are traveling on the roads. Try to paint that visceral picture in your mind. It helps put things in perspective.

everything seems fine until it doesn’t. those jeju air and american airlines passengers thought they were coming in for a routine landing after a fun vacation or business trip. while the odds are in theory in our favor, i can’t handle the possibility of subjecting my family to the horror of that situation anymore

Odds are very strongly in your favor, not in theory, but in practice. If you can't handle "the possibility", I have some bad news about a huge amount of way more likely possibilities of what can happen to someone simply… living.

The only reason you're afraid of some things more than others is because you came across some stories, and not others. We're all wired like this evolutionarily, on purpose. When we see stories, we're supposed to alter our behavior, because all the stories used to be local and relevant. "A bear ate Timmy near the river" is a good warning to be extra careful near there. Now that we have internet, and the entire planet's worth of carefully selected bears eating Timmys is getting fed into everyone's mind, we must learn a new trick: understanding how odds and relevancy works.

> I understand probabilities but still more than 0% is a huge risk just for visiting a country.

This is a logic driven community, but this statement is 100% emotionally driven. (E.g. you understand it's extremely unlikely, but you don't feel comfortable still)

There's nothing wrong with making emotionally-driven decisions, but there's also very little anyone else can say (or at least no stats, no probabilities, no logic based reason) to make you feel differently about the chance of improbable events occurring.

I don't know about you, but most of us are human. Rational or not, we do not routinely do cost-benefit analysis for each of our actions and choices.

In fact, in human matters, relying purely on logic means ignoring the fuzzy, analog decision system called instinct and gut feeling, which has served us very well historically.

Since the benefits of going to the US or not are relative, not purely right or wrong, there is no incorrect choice; gut feeling is good enough and takes much less effort.

that's a disingenuous argument, ignoring emotions is not a rational way to make decisions

if one will be too afraid of gun violence to enjoy a US vacation, the rational choice is to go somewhere else

that said, the rational choice for, say, an agoraphobe is not "never go outside"

> This is a logic driven community

Without evidence, that’s an emotional claim.

American here, and I think your stance is reasonable. Authoritarian regimes are harmful, and a boycott is one approach. I'm skeptical that there's a significant increase in violence, though; maybe that's news amplification? Far too many Black, Indigenous, and other non-white people have been murdered here over the centuries (by the US Army, by cops, by posses, etc), and that continues apace.

this.

although i suspect there has been an increase in like random "mass" violence, but that effects a tiny fraction of the population (but certainly scares the rest). My guess is there has not been an increase in population effected by violence -- but that could be because the USA has always been a very violent place, founded on violence (by Europeans and for the benefit of Europe, so don't get too smug).

The last time I visited the US was in 2017, and I vowed never to go again. All because of the treatment by immigration. Over a number of visits during the years, I have been shouted at multiple times, talked down to, and generally treated like crap. I am travelling on a South African passport (I am white, though, before anyone tries and blames it on racism).

This last incident in 2017, I was standing by the immigration officer, and while he was looking through my documents, I was looking around at the people waiting in the queue. He asked if I was travelling with someone. I said no. He asked why I was looking at the queue. I said I was just looking around. He told me to stop looking around and look in front of me. I said OK. Somewhere during this I put my hands in my pocket, so he told me to take my hands out of my pocket. I was a bit startled at this and trying to figure out what was going on with the guy. I was obviously too slow for him so he shouted loud "take your hands out of your damn pocket". I just zipped my mouth and wanted to get through it.

Once I got past him, I needed to get a connecting flight to Mexico. I walked down a passage following the directions and saw that I was going to end up in the main check-in area. Since I was just connecting, I was confused and I asked two immigration officers whether I am going in the right direction. The lady just told me "keep moving sir". I tried to explain that I was connecting and thought I was going in the wrong direction. She then shouted at me "keep moving!". I told her again "please, just listen to me", and she shouted at me again. Thankfully, the guy with her told her to calm down and took a minute to listen to me and explained that I was going the right way.

Honestly, this trip was the last straw for me and I vowed never to go back. The contrast between the immigration in the US and other countries - especially compared to Asia - was night and day. I decided I would visit countries that are happy to have me visit and treat me with dignity instead.

Another time in the US, I was walking past a construction site. I was walking outside the safety barriers, but on the same side of the street. I guy rushed out at me and started shouting at me to get on the opposite side of the road. Huge guy. Looked like he wanted to attack me and was red in the face of fury and spittle sprayed all over me while he was shouting at me.

Quite honestly, there are too many angry people over there. I have visited many countries and never experienced anything like the angry people in the US.

I wouldn't say I'm afraid. Yes there's mass shootings nearly daily but statistically rare to impact a tech conference. My number one reason not to go is the USA threatening the sovereignty of my country (Canada) daily, as well as the risk of being detained and thrown in a pit for weeks. There's a recent story where that happened to a pretty white Canadian lady with good paperwork - that's usually an untouchable class of people. Many more stories for other countries like Germany too. I've also never seen so much Canadian nationalism and "buy Canadian" sentiment in my life because of this trade war and so I also won't spend my money there like for a conference or hotel. I've already canceled two trip plans and won't go for at least a few years unfortunately.

There really aren’t mass shootings every day, unless you expand the criteria to absurd degrees.

And unless you go to very specific urban areas, or are involved in the drug trade, your risk of getting shot is incredibly low.

The ‘wtf factor’ with US immigration and gov’t behavior is definitely driving everyone crazy though.

My mistake. More than one a day on average: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081

We don't need to debate over "what is a mass shooting" in Canada or Europe.

Also, please don't discount my stated number one reason: daily threats to the sovereignty of my country. Too many Americans don't seem to even notice or care about how serious that is.

> Too many Americans don't seem to even notice or care about how serious that is.

I grew up a short distance from the Canadian border in a little town called Kalispell Montana, so I met quite a few Canadian tourists in my younger years, and I personally find it heinous to treat your nation that way. Every single Canadian tourist I ever met was friendly and polite. Downright decent folk overall. Now, I know there's arseholes in Canada same as anywhere, but I suspect as a nation they're largely pretty un-deserving of Trump's insanity affecting them in any way. Sadly, he's convinced he and Musk are King and Emperor of the world. (I don't think they necessarily agree on which is which.)

Thanks.

I definitely notice and care how serious it is. Knowing what is going on, frankly Canada should be doing conscriptions and switching to a wartime economy. Hope is your enemy with someone like Trump.

But ‘that doesn’t make sense’ (except, if we don’t ignore the obvious truth, it definitely does), so we’re all going to pretend it’s just Sabre rattling and rage baiting. Because no one wants to take the hit for something that ‘should never happen’.

Which it kind of is, but isn’t really. It’s infuriating, as is the inaction, but that’s why it works/happens.

And part of why it works/happens is the escalating ridiculousness for the last 5-10 years overall in the media when it comes to hitting outrage buttons.

For instance, on the mass shooting side, depending on how you count, there were between 103-706 killed in ‘mass shootings’ in the US in 2021 [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting], out of a country of 350 million. 103 per the FBI, 706 per some action group I can’t remember.

You’re roughly as likely to die of a lightning strike (or more likely to die from lightning), as be involved in a mass shooting. Yet, it gets endless airtime - which the media admits even just makes the problem worse. [https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/08/media-contag...]

And endless goal post shifting of even what the definition is, so that the problem grows and grows.

Meanwhile, we ignore actual problems.

We basically stopped holding conferences in the US back in 2018/2019, because so many people at the company had had visas refused and ESTAs revoked (including me). US loss, Europe's gain. It wasn't because of a worry about shootings though, just a very practical problem that people were unable to get to conferences in the US.

How has Canada compared to the US in terms of visa's and conferences? I know there have been a number of successful conferences here, but more scientific than technical from my recollection.

I'd love for us to be a new destination for these conferences and international events, but as a Canadian I'm not sure how easily non-Canadians can enter/exit the country. My understanding its its fairly easy but I've never had the opportunity to find out.

We had one in Toronto pre-pandemic. No problem with entry that I recall back then. Would love to have more in Canada personally.

FWIW, I lived in Chicago (one of the favorite punching bags for gun violence) for over 30 years and heard gunshots twice.

While gun violence here is absolutely far more common compared to Europe, it is still very rare in absolute terms. The only guns I’ve even ever seen were in a police officer’s holster or in the possession of military personnel. Most gun violence is related to domestic disputes or among criminals. If you’re not selling drugs or don’t have an ex-husband with an anger problem and access to a gun, you’re probably going to be fine.

It’s not the guns you should worry about, but the border and entry process.

I lived in Chicago for 3 months and heard them twice a week (minimum), but I lived in the South Side, South of U Chicago.

Gun violence is largely local and contained between people who know each other in the US. City-wide stats obscure the concentration of crime in specific neighborhoods in most American cities

Yup, it will very much depend on where you live or travel. I lived on the Northside. If you avoid localized areas with high gun violence, you will very rarely ever encounter it.

The areas surrounding University of Chicago were historically some of the worst areas in the entire city for gun violence.

Many cities actually have crime heat maps that can show you the most dangerous areas and can be filtered by crime type (murder, assault, property crime, etc).

I lived there for years as a legal resident. During Covid I got a national interest exception allowing me to return to USA from Europe while the border was closed to non-citizens. So I have reason to believe my immigration sheet is clean.

I’m still afraid to go back now. It seems like they’re simply making an example by throwing random people into weeks of detention at the border. A green card holder credibly claims he was tortured over a decade-old marijuana misdemeanor on his record.

Needless to say this perception is pretty bad for American tourism, business travel, conferences, etc.

The woman who had anti-Trump photos on her phone. The woman who had "sympathetic" photos of Hezbollah on the phone. The professor who attended a Pro-Palestinian protest.

I don't get it. I thought we were free speech people. Now we are literal thought police? Since when is it illegal to have a picture on your phone that isn't CSAM?

And before people ask, yes I believe in free speech for everyone, even people I dislike and don't agree with.

>The woman who had "sympathetic" photos of Hezbollah on the phone Although I personally disagree with her, I think you're correct here. They clearly wanted to make an example of her.

>The professor who attended a Pro-Palestinian protest. This is disingenuous, he was the leader of the group that organizes those protests. In Europe, I probably wouldn't be welcome too long if I was the leader of a neo-nazi group while on a visa.

> I thought we were free speech people

The US were never the land of free speech (or of the free). It's all marketing.

Not "afraid," but unwilling to travel there, and have just cancelled some plans to do so.

I'd have been travelling by air from Canada, so the border-crossing is on Canadian soil, which (probably) greatly reduces the risk of landing in detention due to the arbitrary decisions made by a MAGA-addled CBP agent.

Personal risk of harm or imprisonment aside, I have ethical concerns about continuing to behave as if the US is a normal, rational actor on the world stage while its administration threatens the sovereignty of Canada, Denmark and Panama.

As long as this bellicosity continues, the US should be shunned and isolated as much as possible by the global community.

>it seems to me that there has been a huge increase in violence

So you think that there's more violence because you hear about it on the news/social media, or is it informed by actual statistics? The latter shows a slight bump during the pandemic, but is back to pre-pandemic levels.

>Now I also read about non-US citizens being detained on the border.

The two cases I've heard about both involve people with visa issues trying to cross a land border, with neither side wanting to accept. If you're traveling for a conference and don't have obvious work intentions (eg. interviews lined up) you should be fine.

I was comparing it with late 2000-2014 when I visited US a couple of times.

I agree it is an emotional comparison and probably driven by media.

Still I have replied in some other comment the idea that there are 500 shootings in 2024 in US seems to crazy to me. I know US is huge and this does not tell anything if I visit a specific place. Thus my emotional fear

A friend of mine who is german, traveled as a regular tourist through a major airport got detained for 6 hours. No access to the bathroom, got brutally yelled at when she asked for information. She has an hispanic name. This was pre-Trump.

Then more recently in the news, which wasn't a visa issue

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-f...

So I agree that most people will be fine traveling to the US, but I understand some want to reconsider their travel plans. I can only imagine some immigration officers thinking they now have a free pass to harass people

I'm not a USC, but I will be eligible to apply for citizenship next year.

I have made the decision to avoid international travel so that I don't run into any potential issues at the border until I've gone through the citizenship process.

I'm also keeping an eye on the situation with domestic air travel. If we start getting reports of people being detained and stripped of their LPR status while trying to board domestic flights, I'll probably just stick to ground travel.

The rate of violent crime in the US has not increased since 2014[1].

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/191219/reported-violent-...

I wouldn’t be too concerned about gun violence, but the TSA and CBP have become increasingly hostile toward visitors to the United States.

If you're white and traveling from the EU or elsewhere, you’ll likely be fine, though the experience may still be unpleasant.

However, if your passport lists a country of birth deemed undesirable (such as those in the Middle East or Africa), you may face detention, additional questioning, and other issues, regardless of the passport you hold, you will be filtered out based on your skin color and physical features.

Personally, I’ve stopped traveling to the U.S. altogether. These days, I even avoid connecting flights that pass through the country.

It’s unfortunate, but as a Canadian, I no longer see America as an ally, and I fear things may only get worse in the coming years.

> Imagine why this is a throwaway account because I read they check the phone, laptops at the boarder.

They ask for your social media accounts too. "Hey, you left out your HN throwaway account from this list. Come with me (1).".

Well, I guess I'm in someone's list now.

People were worried about donating to Assange defense fund when it was a thing.

To people defending it, imagine if this was happening to someone you care about in some country you think are run are by assholes: 1) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-det...

I had a long response typed up with more personal data but the short of it is that yes, I am more hesitant to visit the US than I was in the past. I was already quite hesitant due to my experiences over the years (I did my undergrad in the US) but now I feel like there is a risk of more than simply being denied entry and swiftly returned to my home country.

Yes - the recent nightmare scenarios experienced by EU citizens in the US has unnerved me. I've also become far more worried about sending (non-white) members of my team from South East Asia to the US.

In my companies recent town halls people are voicing concerns about US travel, which has never happened before. In comparison, our large events in (far more authoritarian) China, which were attended by large numbers of foreign employees, didn't have any such concerns other than usual IP-sharing ones.

I don't think it's likely I'll be detained if I visit, nor do I think I'd suffer from gun violence. I simply don't want to visit a country where much of the population voted for this current government.

Gun violence is very very rare. I’m in the northeast and there is very little gun culture here. A post doc college who came from Germany said his coworkers thought he was crazy coming to such a dangerous country, but after being here he realized it’s not bad. During the election there was lots of commentary about how bad it’s gotten, when it really hasn’t changed significantly.

There have been increased instances of foreigners being detained and there social media gone through. The results vary from being denied entry to being locked up for a couple weeks.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-f...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/canadian-act...

I have two conferences booked and paid for in the US this year. (I'm Canadian)

I am canceling the one in April.

The other is harder for me to cancel, as its my industry main conference for the year. It will hurt me professionally, and fanatically not to go.

But stories like this, White woman with good paper work, and regular traveler to the USA (similar to myself), No criminal record, No apparent reason, no ability to call a lawyer, getting detained for weeks, is making me very nervous.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-det...

My company is considering starting our own local conference, outside the US, as an alternative. A expensive and distracting exercise that I would prefer not to have to do.

I am not worried about gun violence in the US at the moment.

I am worried about arbitrary detention without representation or recourse.

I was trying to figure what she did wrong and there's not much information but I think incomplete paperwork was mentioned - maybe she didn't declare something she was supposed to? It still seems an over the top reaction though.

What's unnerving to me when I go to the US, is that legal limbo you're in between getting off the plane and going through immigration.

At that point you're the most vulnerable.

The plane is US soil, and it's well covered by international law, but once you get out of it, and before you enter the country, not even constitutional rights are completely clear.

I think at this point you should be more worried about being thrown in a detention centre. But the likelihood of being affected gun violence in be US especially if you stick to the right parts is low as long as you're there for a short while.

Why would a tourist be detained arbitrarily? Are you referring to that one girl from Berlin? It's ironic to see you talking about statistics of gun violence but suggesting that the statistics of being detained as a tourist are high m.

One from Berlin, one from the UK, one from Canada. Not sure how many more.

Let's say it's 1,000x more than your 3.

3,000 out of 66,500,000 visitors per year means you have a 0.004% chance of having this happen to you. You have significantly more chances of dying on your way to work in whatever country you are at.

Math is off. Total number of people detained in 2023 was 270k out of 66million annual visitors. 0.4% chance. Chances of dying in a plane crash are roughly 1 in million (Google tells me so, not sure of the source). The ones I listed are the publicized ones but the story is the same.

I am a U.S. citizen and I wouldn't recommend risking a chance at the border, personally. Although gun violence or other random violence more generically is not something I am worried about, even living in a somewhat impoverished urban core.

As there is a genuine risk my passport could be confiscated at the border for the gender marker not matching that on my birth certificate, it would probably be unwise for me to try and travel to the US

Is it even possible to confiscate passports of other countries citizens? How do they even know what is on your birth certificate.

Ok, apologies, I got some of my facts mixed up. I believe a birth certificate can be part of the documents needed for a visa application, which the government may now deny if the gender marker on the birth certificate doesn't match the one on your passport. It was American citizens that may have their passports confiscated if there is a discrepancy there. Still makes me not want to even attempt to go though, even though I have friends there that I'd really like to see

If it helps, at least two of my relatives were denied US visa when trying to visit relatives in US (who are citizens), as understood on account of being cisgendered females, which US government of the day saw as a risk of staying in the country illegally (not enough attachment to the country of origin). That was neither in 1960ies nor in the fascist clown times. Nobody was detained, just missed a wedding and some amount of time and money, but who cares about that.

As a Canadian I don't really think Americans have really understood how upset we are. Most US-facing talk is about tariffs, but the repeated threats of annexation and taunting (Governor, 51st state, Noem's despicable actions at Haskell Library) are both enraging and terrifying. I have no intention of returning to the US for any type of tourism or business travel indefinitely. People are ensuring their flight paths to other countries do not even cross US airspace.

This audience will likely call me paranoid, or try to downplay/deflect, but we can see clearly what's going on and the gaslighting does not help.

I think it's a very sane behavior. I used to travel regularly to the US for both work and leisure, but I'll think twice before doing it again. On the one hand, I do know lots of Americans didn't vote from Trump. A lot of those who did probably aren't necessarily bad people. But still, this country has become hostile, it's pretty hard to pretend that everything's normal.

> A lot of those who did probably aren't necessarily bad people.

A lot who did are now surprised (for the second time) that Trump is bein' a total ass-hat. Learned nothing from the first time around except that he's an infallible "stable genius" what can never be wrong about anything. They're literal cult-members.

Even the Visa Waiver/ESTA program is silly. You pay a fee to immediately receive a not-a-visa. The marginal cost of this is a tiny row in a database. It's just silly.

The US made it very clear many years ago that they've had all the visitors and immigrants they need. I guess they reached critical mass, and believes they are invincible at least within the lifespan of the current rulers. "Sheer fucking hubris" as the quote from Star Trek goes.

The ESTA sort of makes some sense. If the algo has you at low risk you immediately receive a not-a-visa but if it flags you as iffy they have time to look you up. I see the EU has copied it now.

To slightly counter the horror stories, I've had US border hassle in the past but the last trip to Austin in 2023 I didn't even have to fill a form at the border, it was just check fingerprints and have a nice day.

I would not travel to the US unless my life depends on it.

Don’t go. Your anxiety will make the entire duration you are here very uncomfortable. Although the probabilities are very low like you said, you’d probably want to take baby steps, not jump straight into a conference with many people that can be an easy target for a mass shooting. You’re going from a country where a mass shooting is practically impossible to one where it’s a daily occurrence.

Speaking to the immigration point, as a US citizen who knows several non citizens I still believe you will have no problem and be completely welcomed as long as you enter legally through a port of entry and don’t overstay visa or conduct illegal activity while here. Despite what gets reported, you are welcome and valued to visit tech conferences here.

I’m very much reconsidering attending KubeCon in Atlanta later this year.

Hope you're saying this irrespective of politics. Be afraid of Atlanta for it's violent crime rate, not the extremely low chance of being an educated foreign tourist with a valid visa that gets arrested or something.

I've been working for the Weather and been at their old HQ right next to the new Falcons stadium. I'm reconsidering visiting this year because to the whole idea of being potentially sent to some detention center just because I don't like Trump or Musk.

There are 65M+ annual visitors to the US. I would love to hear what chance you think you have of being accosted in any way by CBP for your opinion of Elon/Trump. Maybe there's a disconnect somewhere that I don't understand.

There have been multiple reports here on this website about exactly this happening to people in recent weeks. I understand that the fear is surreal but it’s happening to some.

Around 1980, in the age of 14, I took part in an US-/German student exchange programme of my school. As a German at that time, I received a supposedly lifelong US-Visum in my passport.

Some years later, as a grown-up, I started to visit the US a couple of times, for business (visiting trade shows, conferences and customers), and as a tourist.

Around the 10th trip, the immigration officer unexpectedly crossed out my visum in the passport upon entry. I was stunned. He explained to me, very friendly, "that the policies had changed, the visum type was not existant anymore and thus cancelled, in the future I would just have to fill a paper in the airplane, welcome to the United States".

Next trip I received the questionnaire in the airplane, with one of the questions being "has there ever been an US visum cancelled for you?". That seemed a difficult question to answer. Would I say "no", that seemed like lying, because a visum had - as a matter of fact - been cancelled for me. Would I say "yes", I probably could just keep sitting in the plane seat for an immediate return. I decided to clear this up with the friendly immigration officer.

Who turned out not to be friendly, at all. Before I could even open my mouth, he noticed the unanswered question on the form, yelled at me like crazy, made me get back to the end of the line (I had spent already almost an hour in the line), told me to better not come back with unanswered questions on the form (I chose "no" on the second attempt) and then kept me interrogating for 20 minutes, all the time giving me the feeling that I would go right home. I was finally allowed to enter and spent another hour with customs.

Didn't feel the urge to ever come back to the US. That was long before ESTA. And long before I started to collect exotic stamps in my passport, some of them showing arabic typefaces. And long before Europe became an enemy of the US.

I have been to African countries (which the current POTUS would describe as shithole countries), whose administrations were less erratic and unpredictable than the US currently are.

I'm a US citizen who has been detained at the border in the past because facial recognition systems seemed to think that I didn't look like my passport photo. Agents could have just looked at me and seen that I am in fact the person in my passport photo, but no, they detained me instead and treated me like a criminal on two separate occasions. I've also been critical of Trump on social media. US border agents do not care about common sense or decency, they haven't for at least a decade. They're just following orders, and their orders are to look for any possible reason to detain you, and then treat you as guilty until proven innocent.

All that to say, even as a US citizen, I'm hoping to avoid traveling to the US until this fascist government is removed.

As someone who just returned from the US for a family wedding, its the last time I'm stepping foot in the US until the administration and direction changes.

The odds of getting an 'emboldened nationalistic fuckhead', or ENF's as I call them, at the border, or a LEO officer has gone up considerably. Scientists blocked at the border due to social media posts, Citizens/legal green card holders are being deported for simply criticizing or protesting the administration. Legal visitors and musicians are being followed and harassed by LEO's demanding their country of preference and treating them like drug smugglers. Legal visa seekers are being detained for weeks in horrible conditions. This is only a short list of the many things visitors need to be aware of and concerned about.

This administration is showing every indication of refusing to follow multiple judges orders and attacking the judicial system people would typically expect to curb and/or stop such abuses.

If you have any sort of public profile or social media presence that isn't pro-Trump/US you are at risk.

Attend remotely or not at all, and make it known to the conference organizers that the US is not a safe place anymore to host international conferences. It will only take a year or two of people refusing and these conferences will stop being organized in the US.

Hopefully a new administration comes along sooner rather than later and makes significant inroads into restoring democracy and freedom in the US, for now its an autocratic regime with a very thin skin and massive ego.

I wouldn't be at all worried about the guns; realistically while your chances of being shot or otherwise murdered are substantially higher in the US than in most of Europe, they are still, in the scheme of things, very low, and you're at greater practical risk of death in the taxi from the airport.

FWIW there has _not_ been an increase in violent crime in the US since 2014; it's down a bit since then. The media does seem far more fixated on it, granted.

However, the increasing border nonsense would put me off. Particularly because, if I decide now to go to something in, say, June, well, who knows _how_ bad it'll be by June. I'll likely try to avoid going over for the foreseeable future.

The gun violence fear seems over the top, but I'd prefer to have my freedom of speech to call any politician "an idiot" without the need to explain myself to a gang member with a badge.

Currently, Trump is so surreal that it is hard to decide what is thought out policy and what is pure idiotism, but getting caught in the crossfire is rather unnecessary and I'd prefer to wait for things to calm down before committing to any US travel.

The mental cost of going there is just too high. For the first time in twenty+ years, I won't be attending any of the regular conferences in the US this year. Funny note: we just hired two Americans (unrelated) back to back, they will be moving here with their family. Reason given: "had to go live somewhere else".

For the first time in nearly 20 years, I chose not to go to SXSW this year - not out of fear of violence or border detentions, but I just don't want to give my tourist dollars to the current administration.

> throwaway account because I read they check the phone, laptops at the boarder

You should be aware that it has been an official recommendation for e.g. athletes participating in international events in, erm, some countries, to get themselves 'burner' (throwaway) phones just for the purpose so there's nothing much to glean from the device. If you're considering to travel internationally with a laptop well here are my condolences, why spend so much time, money and effort just to shlep around that silly thing.

There are specific groups of people for whom travel to the US is a serious, clear risk right now, and for everyone else it is a much harder to assess danger because policy and practices are changing rapidly, in ways adverse to travellers, with little to no public notice, and also because the targeted groups are being targeted using arbitrary process which has a jigh false positive rate and may be difficult, at best, to correct errors.

Your fears are unfounded and the traditional media and social media may be to blame. However, even as an American, I wouldn’t visit here unless absolutely necessary.

The orange man and his kleptocracy cabinet are dismantling the federal government to make way for a corporation run country or “nation states.”

Take your tourism dollars and please spend them elsewhere. America in its current state does not deserve your patronage. Encourage conference leaders to move their venue out of the United States.

People saying "This is crazy and emotional" - you don't realize how bizare your country has become: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-f...

In short: French scientist denied access to the US based on the contents on his phone (critical messages).

People are in denial/frog boiled. It’s going to get worse too.

You're not wrong. I've been called "paranoid" for literal decades now for warning folks to always be vigilant lest exactly what's happening now comes to pass. Nothin' to be done for it now but ride it out I guess...

Not because of guns. Crime exists everywhere; TripAdvisor will tell you how to stay safe.

But when non brown people are getting sent to ICE, and when criticism of political figures is terrorism, then this is definitely not America you are going to. It’s a country that has popped up in the geographic region previously occupied by America. This new country isn’t a place for conferences in fields that are all about upsetting the status quo.

I'm curious about your probabilities and violence comment. Where do you live?

I believe that in general people tend to overestimate the threats in places they do not live because the news reports on the worst stuff. There is also not an even distribution across the country, or even the state or city for that matter. If I was to visit your country, I wonder what concerns I would have about it that you would find unusual.

Not so much afraid, but not planning because they will probly not let me in anyways. There are better places to visit anyways

At least the Western countries, and some selective Asian nations, are allowed to enter US with ESTA. For the majority of the population in the world (whole continent of Africa, the continent of Asia except Japan, S. Korea, Singapore) needs a US visa to enter US; 90% of tourist visa applications are denied, anyway.

Think of the risk of getting caught in gun violence like the risk of mass stabbings or vehicles being driven into crowds. It can and has happened, but the odds are staggeringly low.

Most gun violence is between people who are known to each other (gangs, suicide, domestic violence). As a random person, you are very unlikely to have problems.

What is the purpose of your visit? "Эта... конференция по новым компьютерным технологиям и защите компьютерных программ"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Q0RPooaHw - the best way to visit tech conferences in US

Compare the statistics of murders per capita in your city and the US city you plan to visit.

I think your fear is unreasonzble.

But it's a good thing to avoid travel. By fying across ocean you would contribute to environment damage by the airplane emission and potentially transmit infections.

Participate remotely, stay home, save time, money and the planet.

As an American that goes to academic/tech conferences, this situation is also pretty negative, because it certainly is going to lead to many organizers moving their conferences to other places.

If I were running the convention center in Vancouver/Toronto/Montreal I'd be feeling pretty good right now.

Yes Americans are fairly unhinged and there are definitely lots of shootings but I’ve lived in this land my whole life and haven’t been shot at.

I think you’ll be fine. Shootings here get a lot of media coverage which makes it seem more common than it actually is.

My concern is more about being questioned or unnecessarily held at the border.

Well yes that will probably happen.

I'm an EU citizen and I have been to US and Canada once in 2019, for business trip visiting a company that does business with the company I work for. The trip was without issues.

I wouldn't go US again, it's nothing like in the movies.

I will no longer travel to or through the USA. I'm a white New Zealander, nearly seventy, have no criminal convictions, but will not even contemplate putting myself at the mercy of American border officials.

I will not visit the US, for any reason (work or pleasure) while Trump is president (or indeed any Republican is president).

Same.

Yep. I skipped a tech conference in Feb where we announced a major partnership with a Canadian company (I’m from South Africa). I do not want to travel to the US in the current climate.

I wouldn’t fear guns but the political climate. If you have said anything critical about the Trump government or of about a tiny country’s conduct in the ME, your fears are not baseless. In the past there were reports about having to hand out laptop / other electronic devices and handing over your pin/password, if you refused, you wouldn’t be allowed to enter the US. I also know a christian arab who regularly was taken to the secondary by tsa agents. And was interrogated.

I was not aware of an increase in gun violence since the trump adm. Any sources?

definitely more burning li-ion

Where are you getting "since the trump adm." from? This is what OP wrote:

> but in the last 10 years or so, it seems to me that there has been a huge increase in violence, and I have huge fears about guns.

They do not mention Trump at all, and don't even vaguely hint at this being a problem of the last two months.

You can’t even guarantee the safety of your family where you live 100%. Why the fear of guns specifically? Have you ever fired one? Best way to get over the fear is just get some training. I view guns as just a slingshot 2.0. Take a class and get over your Hollywood and fear mongering news led view of them.

Literally the only guarantee you have is that on a long enough timeline, you will die.

This is what happens when you get your information from entertainment media masquerading as news. Sure, there are shootings. What is the distribution? Shootings are not randomly distributed.

Some quick stats from Pew Research in 2023 there were 46,728 gun deaths. Sounds like a lot, right? Remember though the US is BIG. A full 58% were suicides. That’s 6/10!

A distribution map is available at https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...

And finer maps are available too.

I have lived here over 40 years and never such as heard a gunshot outside of the range. I have lived in New Jersey, Illinois, and California. I have never been threatened with any kind of weapon.

I spent six months in England though and was threatened with a knife.

If you are afraid to travel to the US, I’d ask if you’re also afraid to travel to Asia, South America and Africa where risks are comparable regardless of gun ownership.

It seems that you would be cutting yourself off from a large portion of the world.

Don't take personal safety advice from an ivory tower.

I'm a US citizen, have been living in Cuenca, Ecuador for almost all of the last 12 years. I was last in the US June-August 2024, intending to do some backpacking in my old haunts in Washington state, plus a bit of sightseeing.

Too hot, for one thing, even in western WA, home of wet, gray winters and (formerly) gorgeous mild summers. Now you can't even go for a hike without registering on recreation.gov, and then also having to drive possibly hundreds of miles out of your way to show up in-person at a national park headquarters anyway. For what, I don't know -- maybe to be fingerprinted. Roads and trails have also seriously deteriorated since I lived there. Infrastructure maintenance seems to be regarded as an unaffordable luxury these days, something to be needed only by freeloaders, never the rich overlords.

The US also felt really creepy, even compared to my last visit in late 2019. These days, in Ecuador, I'm used to going everywhere on foot and dealing with people in a low-key, individual, informal way, but being in the US is more and more like finding oneself in a bad dystopian science-fiction movie.

People there are isolated from one another, it's all about driving around or standing in long lines for self-checkout at stores, or getting into a confrontation with store policy when just trying to (as a 76-year-old) prove that (1) I exist and (2) am really truly old enough to buy beer (via scanning my driver's license for the appropriate data). Yeeps.

The US is now just a crazy, lonely, assembly-line place full of discouragement and homeless people. And I'm not talking about some urban slum -- this is Olympia, WA, which used to be really pleasant.

And guns. If you look, you notice them. Back in 2019 I fended off three aggressive dogs illegally running loose on a suburban trail in advance of a horse-riding couple, then had the guy say he had a gun and had him threaten to kill me for pepper-spraying his dogs, then had him ram his horse into me, then threaten to kill me a second time. Life these days. Nope.

And even I (little old quiet invisible no-criminal-history me) worry about being hassled or even detained coming into the country, just because. I was already questioned around 10 years ago at the Atlanta airport about what I had been doing in Ecuador. None of your business, dipshit.

So, the US was my home country but, ah, no. Not any more. I'm glad to be where I am now, free of that, all of it. I'll probably never go back, definitely never for anything I can just safely read about at a distance, like a tech conference.

>I was already questioned around 10 years ago at the Atlanta airport about what I had been doing in Ecuador. None of your business, dipshit.

Oh, it's my favorite, not when coming to US as a noncitizen, but being asked this by my country's border agents. "What have you been doing in $country?" -- I know they have no way to deny me entry and will be to lazy to do paperwork to delay me for more than 5 minutes, so I smile and give a non-answer, like "chilling" or "eating kebabs". Not their business indeed.

Yes. As someone publicly critical of the Trump administration, I don't want my entire social media presence crawled by immigration officers, just to end up in some detention centre for weeks or months. I'd rather just stay at home or travel to safer countries like Canada or Mexico.

There's like 1.2 guns per person in America. The country is basically a giant shooting range.

I'm mid-40s, and I've yet to actually see a firearm discharged outside of a range or skeet shoot, and I've never personally known anyone to be shot. And I live in a major US metro area.

I mean ... it could be pretty easily. Just try to invade the U.S.A. See what happens. :shrug: :grin:

Yes, you will be detained if you are using illegal means

illegal means of... conference-going?

if you crossing border without immigration yes, illegal alien is the term current administration describe it

edit: why people downvote me lmao, out of touch with reality???

So, nobody sneaks into the country for a conference without a visa. Like, you're imagining engineers are crossing the rio grande with a coyote in the middle of the night to go to a tech conference? Really?

This post was asking if professional technology people were nervous about coming to tech conferences in the US. They all come with visas or from places with visa-waivers. They are not coming "illegally". But some people are nonetheless scared about being detained by US authorities, is what the OP was asking about. (Because it has happened).

That's why people think it's you who are seeming out of touch with reality in your response, suggesting that tech engineers are considering sneaking into the country without a visa somehow to attend tech conferences.

don't shoot the messenger, I just reverberating current US government stance on this matter

For me it's the opposite, I do not travel to places where I can't carry a gun on me, this usually means staying in the USA full time.

I personally would not feel comfortable in a country with restrictive gun laws, if my phone is stolen, I could lose valuable customer data which I'm entrusted to keep secure - it's not right to offload my security to others.

Do you mean that you always carry a loaded gun with you and that you would shoot someone who tries to steal your phone?

I'm curious what data you have that shows carrying a gun decreases your risk, as opposed to increasing it.

Unless you're Snowden, nobody's interested in physically hacking your phone. If the customer data is that important, you shouldn't have it on your phone regardless.

Common thieves might steal your phone, but they're just going to erase it and sell it for parts.

robbers demanding phone pin and draining bank accounts via zelle and/or stealing identity via unlocked email access is literally a thing, don't misinform people thx

Ya, one of the most common crimes nowadays. Thanks for clarifying! I was too lazy to explain where there seemed to be a gray understanding of reality.

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