Tourist in US chained 'like Hannibal Lecter'
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
There is a considerable group of users outside of the U.S.A. that is very interested in learning and discussing about the current developments when it comes to this kind of treatment of foreigners in the U.S.A.
These kind of threads can be very problematic to moderate and require attention in regard the nature of the discussion. However, whether backpacker or high potential talent, this kind of information is very relevant, and I think it is imperative to bring this to public attention.
It has also come to my attention that these kind of threads get flagged very often on HN. Are you analysing/monitoring the groups of peope that are flagging these threads or whether the conditions for flagging are set to the right treshhold?
Thanks!
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.
It seems to me that 'politics' is just used as a euphemism for 'taboo' and there are many unspoken taboos about what is talked and not talked about here.
Political posts which devolve into flame wars are not welcome here. Wether or not it will devolve into a flame war is not even a question.
Dang has avery difficult job, let's use our brains before accusing him of...following the clearly stated rules.
Yes, it sucks that even the most mundane aspects of our lives are being fraught with political warfare. The current administration appears to have a desire to burn the world down.
I mean, look around you. Can we talk about EVs without being political? What about LLMs? What about the American tech industry? We used to be able to. It's no longer possible.
Like if you think about this issue for a minute, what exactly is it that you think should be done differently? People being detained and deporting for violating their visa is not new, but it's typically not covered in the media - it happens thousands times a day around the world everywhere. In fact this issue all started when Canada refused to allow entry to her because they suspected she wanted to illegally work, which led to her detainment and investigation in the US once Canada refused to accept her!
And if one is upset about the fact that she was cuffed then you're implicitly claiming officers should be able to treat people differently based upon their appearance or sex - oh boy the sexism/racism ragebait would be incoming in a heartbeat. So what is the issue that's even to be discussed?
We sometimes turn off flags on these stories - you can find previous explanations about that at these links:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43212835 (Feb 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42978389 (Feb 2025)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42911011 (Feb 2025)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
We turned off the flags on a couple major threads about this general topic over the last few days. At some point there has to be a limit, because otherwise the front page would consist of nothing but this, and similar, topics. That would turn HN into a current affairs site, which is not the mandate of this place.
If you (or anyone) will a look at the above links and take in the basic explanations, I'd be happy to answer any question that hasn't already been answered there.
I would love to see more stimulating conversation about a variety of topics here[1] but these things don't seem to gain traction. Why is that?
If you think about this for a bit, it'll probably become clear that can't possibly be true and have the HN front page look they way it usually does. Beside the many mod comments that talk about other kinds of story moderation. But it's a rare case of a thing you can totally derive from first principles/minimal observation!
Political-adjacent stories today:
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2025/03/17/british-colum...
https://www.axios.com/2025/03/20/tesla-musk-lutnick
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/20/business/tesla-cybertruck-rec...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43422350
https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/19/dutch_parliament_us_t...
Those aren't even all of them.
their associated HN comment pages are filled with political commentary.
What is true is that almost all [flagged] and [flagged][dead] is from user flags. But that doesn't mean that the only story moderation by moderators is just unflagging.
That leverages their power far more than individually policing stories, though keeping an eye on the 30-odd stories which are on the front page at any time probably fits in somewhere as well.
HN's frontpage is a composite of the preferences of thousands (if not millions) of people. One consequence is that it doesn't match anyone's preferences precisely (including mine). No one ever feels like their favorite topics are sufficiently represented, and everyone always feels like their less-favorite topics are overrepresented.
There have been many posts on this exact topic, not flagged, which you could have found using the search function.
Dang cannot control who prompts a flag or not.
ANd lastly, c'mon. If you've been here for any length of time, this is exactly the last place this discussion should be happening., because we are all intelligent enough to know that this conversation is heaviliy biased from all sides. Look at the title. @dang, thank you for not just preventng an ancho chamber of a certain ideal, but from preventing ALL echo chambers.
"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...
Same way amateur radio people can't take anything, even a can of soda, for radio operations. Or how private pilots can't get paid to take someone from 1 airport to the next. Or more recently, doing drone photography and selling said pictures.
Does it happen? Sure. But I've seen the feds come down hard on people, including citizens, for even a whiff of 'commercial' anything.
And well, I can't recommend anybody coming into the US, especially a non-native citizen. I wouldn't stay, but I don't have that latitude to move countries.
So the question is when will the US be sanctioned for this behavior?
If cannot happen legally then financially?
Are tourists really going to risk coming here because this is not the first story and it is only going to get worse.
Imagine by the Olympics in 2028 - are people REALLY willing to visit here and being subjected to this incredible risk?
Can't say "you'll be fine" because just any one encouter with law enforcement on a power-trip and you'll have no rights to how you are treated and how long you are disappeared.
They are building holding facilities at military bases all over the country and there will be motivation to fill them up.
There will be no lawyer access, no reporter access.
You'll just disappear until they decide what to do with you.
So the event will happen but I simply cannot believe I find myself hoping for a worldwide boycott, it's insanity.
But why would they cancel the election if they "know those vote counting computers" and no-one is going to stop them from putting on a pretend election like Russia does?
People can protest all they want, once they run out of migrants to fill the detention centers they will just move onto protesters since no-one could stop them the first time around.
they won't run out for a while. Not only are there a lot of immigrants in the US which they can arbitrary Label as illegal even if not, they are also already are trying to
- undo citizenship granted in the past, starting with people not born in the US, but there is clear intend to go further then that.
- classify native Americans as not US citizens
Highly unlikely. For the simple reason that countries such as Russia and Türkiye still have elections.
Not that USA elections have ever been perfectly representative. But expect them to be less so.
And, it might go like this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yren8mxp8o
it ended up being grate propaganda for Hitler Germany with a lot of drugged German athletes winning prices, and a lot of make pretend that things aren't as bad as they are
I can't say in which state the US will be by 2028, but if not too dissimilar from today I wouldn't expect things to end up very different.
Through in the current state dragging out until 2028 is ... not very likely. So we will see.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-det...
This is a perfectly ambiguous point. On the one hand is the practice, which may or may not be novel. On the other is the story, which may or may not be clickbait intended as outrage-engagement.
Now it's just with smartphones.
Realize this is not only not the first story but there's another one pending on the front pages of many news sites.
It has Stephen Miller written all over it, it's EXACTLY how he works.
Stop giving them a pass on this, it's only going to get worse and worse.
You know those "gang members" that were kidnapped to Venezuela torture prison without any due process?
And everyone was "fine" with it because hey they said they were "gang members"
Guess what? It's already been discovered one of them is just a professional soccer player with no gang affiliations.
But he's still there in prison with shaved head and will never be seen again because there's no balance of power to stop it, courts are ignored daily.
That university protestor they disappeared? As soon as a New York court ruled he has to get a hearing, they moved him out of the district to the south.
Now remember this is only eight weeks into it and there are TWO HUNDREDS more to go and imagine that atrocity multiplying weekly.
First thing Hitler did when he was given power without their congress (parliament, Enabling Act) was remove the judges opposing him. Sound familiar?
Many are not "fine" with it and legal actions are proceeding. The form of the question is definitely an excellent example of outrage bait. And yes, the US definitely has some legal bangers left on the books that gives Gödel more credence. [0]
Claimed non-governmental organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tren_de_Aragua
Deportation of Venezuelans to El Salvador: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/16/deportation-...
Due process involved: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/alie...
Legal actions won't bring someone back from a Salvadorian gulag. If it were an US camp, a judge and his marshals could have traveled to the camp and demanded the release, but in El Salvador US judges don't have any legal authority. The best they can do is try to hold Trump himself or someone in the chain of command accountable by, say, arresting them - but that would yield an immediate constitutional crisis because there is no way anyone powerful enough doesn't also have Secret Service or other protection under their command.
That is the entire issue: there is no trust that this government will obey a court order any more. They have already shown that they do not give a shit about Congressional funding allotments so what makes you think the current administration will not do just the same with court rulings?
Will be interesting to see how Trump blames that on Biden or left wingers.
At least foreigners have their consulates/embassies and it's wise for every foreigner being in the US to have a daily check-in with someone who can contact the country of origin to raise alarm.
I travel a lot and I’ve interacted with a lot of border agents. I’d say luck is important for a lot of countries. I’ve had great experiences flying in US, Egypt, UK and Turkey I’ve also had terrible experiences with US, and Iceland. Most other places have been somewhere in between.
Not sure the Americans can be much more explicit these days, they want their processes followed and they're not tolerating skirting them, Canadian, British or anyone.
Why would you not expect to be detained? The slap on the wrist was the first deportation.
Would imagine most sensible people support enforcing immigration policy and would agree that this hasn't been done for a long time now but obviously "shackles" is ridiculous.
Additionally, politicians get to draw some line in the sand to fight over, but do little about.
It has to be dramatic so the administration can scare people into submission and test the waters to see what they can get away. We are failing this test.
> The source said the scientist in the space sector underwent a random check on
> arrival, during which his work computer and personal phone were searched, and
> messages referring to Donald Trump's administration's treatment of scientists
> were found. Authorities told him they had found messages "that express hatred
> towards Trump and can be qualified as terrorism," the source said.
> His professional and personal equipment was confiscated and he was sent back
> to Europe the following day.
[0] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/03/20/f...
They're upset about this because, likewise, they understand the role that "hassle and detain people who disagree with Dear Leader" plays in literally every autocracy on earth.
Under the Constitution, it's during due process where the state must prove "the role this plays in maintaining physical security."
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
But I don't think the magnitude or key charactersistics are quite the same. Post-9/11, I mean you had to expect a freak-out. Marginal victory in a peaceful election... there's no external threat here that makes it make sense beyond "democratic country regresses toward fascism".
but the scale at which it happens, the wide use of dehumanizing language (e.g. calling foreigners "aliens") and the violence applied are novel for recent history (not new if you go back far enough in history, I mean the US has a lot of dark spots in history they mostly pretend never happened)
Does it matter? As someone who at points wanted to visit the US for various reasons, I've been watching the results with horror for decades at this point, how people are treated, so obviously it's a no-go country right now for large parts of the world population, even for tourism.
As you say, it's nothing new, and regardless of motives for publishing articles like this, I'm glad more people are finally realizing what could happen if your dumb enough to go there.
The Due Process clause just states that the government has to follow the law when depriving you of freedom or property. If the law says that the process is to stuff you into a circus cannon and shoot you into the ocean then you are guaranteed that.
Who told you this information? Immigration violations are still supposed to be heard by a court and fair representation is required.
Multiple immigration lawyers. The fact that there is no judicial review and the CBP officer at the port of entry is empowered to deport you immediately and ban you from entry is quite important and I am sure you'd been advised just as well if you had hired a semi-decent immigration lawyer too.
> 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.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/canadian-det...
First, why does the press coverage matter this much? If the press covered the stories of the people you know, would that make the heinous treatment they endured OK? Is detaining people for so long OK if each person affected gets a BBC article? Is leaving their family to guess why OK if the NYT publishes their photo? The current admin will do what they are doing regardless of the press coverage.
Additionally, why do you think the press only cares about it now? The press talked about the Biden era "kids in cages". The press talked about the Trump era family separation policy. The press called Obama "deporter in chief".
If you were honestly concerned about this, you wouldn't be going on about press coverage.
Trying to frame this as 'America only' is extremely disingenuous by the media. There will be numerically significantly more events in America because America is a relatively large country and previous lapses in immigration enforcement have created dumb situations like having some 435,000 illegal aliens with criminal records! [1] But there's nothing particularly exceptional. Rather it's just the media fishing for the worst of the worst, and trying to frame it as representative, like usual.
Dog bites man isn't news, man bites dog is.
[1] - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-dep...
It's a common issue in South America where criminal thugs from one country will cross into another, and then their host country will not take them back. I can't find reliable outcomes of what happens to these people in the media for some reason...
The fact that tourists with Visa issues (mine was because of geopolitics and my father's place of birth rather than a bad visa) can and do stay more than a day in cells, with chains? I would expect that in Salvador or some SEA countries, not the US.
For instance this case actually started when Canada refused entry to her for fear she was attempting to work illegally. [1] The led to a suspension of her "visa waiver" (I assume a visa on arrival scheme) and a subsequent detainment/investigation on the US side which also determined she was working illegally and thus subject to detention and deportation. To say it's an unusual case is an understatement, but all you will read about in the media is unusual cases.
Non immigrant aliens are not considered people as evidence by their lack of right to bear arms, the other right ascribed to 'the people.'. Courts have held for decades now that they are aliens not people, just not the ones in flying saucers.
Oh wait I'm an actual human.
This is disgraceful. The fear and punishment is the point though, I guess to prevent all but certain people from even visiting the US temporarily.
However, it appears your President (both of them, the elected one, and the billionaire non-elected one) wants to directly interfere with our health care system and our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
We in Australia have a small population compared to yours. We have a fantastic (albeit imperfect) public health care system which we have, as a country, enthusiastically and democratically embraced.
Please, if you as a country do desire, by all means fuck up your own countrymen with a draconian private health care system which causes medical bankruptcy, but leave us the fuck alone.
We aren’t causing you any harm and we aren’t interfering with your democracy. We have enthusiastically helped you fight your wars and signed all sorts of friendly agreements. We aren’t net drug smugglers to the U.S.
By and large, we are as a nation watching America destroy itself and we want nothing to do with it. We aren’t even going to retaliate with corresponding tariffs.
Americans question our sometimes spotty privacy legislation. Quite right. But given your Executive Branch doesn’t believe in the rule of law anymore, you can’t even credibly criticise our more lax separation of powers (we are a Common Law country) as all of that has now gone out the window.
Good luck, America! You are going to need it.
Not that we shouldn't be talking about atrocities, but what changed?
if you go through history nearly any case where a government did systematically adopt dehumanizing language ended up in a lot of violence and not seldom lynchings and/or genocide
She was traveling the US, getting free accommodations in exchange for house cleaning? Seemed she was here less than 90 days.
How is this different than 1000s of companies that fly employees over from UK on for a few weeks on 90 day ESTAs ?
"The ESTA allows only passive business activities (like attending meetings or conferences), and engaging in work could lead to visa revocation, deportation, and bans from future U.S. entry."
In practice no company actually complies with this. If you bring an SWE over from London for 2 weeks and they write any code they are in technical violation right..
BUT.. One guy ran on doing this explicitly, and his administration gleefully posts deportation shame p*rn videos on social media.
This isn't a "both sides are totally the same, nothing changed" thing.
The system was always evil, but Trump seems to have dialled it up 10x…
The other side says "this is not bad enough, I am running on making this worse, and going to loudly broadcast how happy I am that I've made it worse".
Seems quite different.
I worked with many dozens to 100s of consultants over 20 years whose employers had very loose interpretations of what was allowed under ESTAs. Some of them had re-entry issues, but no one ever ended up in prison or chains like this.
Do you know a lot of software engineers and white collar works this regularly happened to?
This is part of the nature of states -- and any large social institutions which are governed in this manner. It's this proceduralisation of action which allows very large groups of people to operate together collectively -- the downside is "procedural sadism", if you wish to call it that.
For every shocking depravity involving a European tourist, there's a thousand other human stories some media circles will never acknowledge. Read testimonies from people who aren't born into the right ethnicity. (If you want content warnings about suicide attempts, this one has three different methods).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/02/25/guanta... ("Three migrants describe Guantánamo detention")
These people have families too. Countless stories on other sites of families pleading for the disappeared, pleading their innocence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome
> Missing white woman syndrome is a term used by some social scientists and media commentators to denote perceived disproportionate media coverage, especially on television, of missing-person cases toward white females as compared to males, or females of color. Supporters of the phenomenon posit that it encompasses supposed disproportionate media attention to females who are young, attractive, white, and upper middle class. Although the term was coined in the context of missing-person cases, it is sometimes used of coverage of other violent crimes. The phenomenon has been highlighted in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and other predominantly white countries, as well as South Africa.
While I feel some disappointment and regret over how people of other countries might be treated by US immigration, I feel no sense of "tribal injury" as I do here. In other words, my instinct to say, "how dare a person from my country be treated this way!" is not aroused when it isnt my country.
Skin colour is irrelevant, and I'dve very much the same reaction either way. As would the vast majority of people in the UK who, if racist, are towards people from south-east asia not south america (races for which we have no real experience).
It is quite common that people from one nation take issue with their nationals being mistreated --- the reason this is on the front page of HN is that it's an english-speaking country (this is an english site), a european one with some common cultural affiliation, and a reasonably powerful one (one whose voice on the matter has an outsized impact vs. population size, sauy).
This one about deportations to veneuzuela got flagged, but was on the frontpage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43381043
Same with this story about a Lebanese professor from Brown who was deported: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43384730
They all reached the front page.
The top comment on the story about the canadian woman detained suggests the article was ALSO flagged, and must have been unflagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43411777
It is a reasonable expectation that this article will also be flagged. If any political story gets popular and heated enough some people flag it.
Update: This thread itself has been flagged off the front page
Clearly we are all just supposed to keep our heads down, be quiet, and work on LLMs for VC to get rich off of.
People voraciously upvote and argue about California zoning laws or San Francisco drug policy here and the moderation staff encourages this. Or AI policies from the US federal government or the DMA from the EU. Or the SLS rocket.
'political' is just used as a euphemism for 'taboo' and there are many unspoken taboos about what is talked and not talked about here.
There's a sort of unspoken symbiosis going on between the users who consistently flag certain kinds of stories for ideological purposes and the owners/moderators who are content to let them do that.
I also assume that there is indeed some change in this situation wrt european visitors rather than more coverage, because germany actually updated their travel advisory on the US to inform about entering through a visa becoming more strict and uncertain [0]. So while I agree that there is a strong moral issue here wrt to how immigrants are treated, this does not mean that this piece of news does not warrant its own coverage.
[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-updates-us-trav...
I don't think this is (necessarily) true. There are people who flag these stories. That's all. They might be a minority.
In the end Trump won't be seriously attacked by their opposite political, radicalized left-leaning men, but their own ones watching the economy collapse down.
It says clearly in the article that she violated the terms of her visa according to ICE. Her parents never mention what the violation was. The idea she was deported for doing some chores around the house is laughable.
Nobody was going to do that housework except the household, wheras someone coding from a cafe in Bangkok is arguably absolutely stealing local jobs.
I am living there for a month, paying taxes for lodging, food, transport...
If they'd crack down on digital nomads like me I simply will not come and they won't get any money from me. I don't need to be in Bangkok, if they decide to be hostile instead of friendly.
You price out locals from the housing market. The fact that you're not aware of this and you think that Thais should be eternally grateful for the generous gift of seeing your face proves how ignorant you are, Mr White Savior.
Thanks, I think people forget about the market distorting effects of people with a high wage taking an extended holiday, often staying in AirBnBs rather than licensed hotels/hostels and thus further distorting the rental market.
The difference is now you get a Customs agent named CatFart69 and it's all up to him.
That is hugely important, and differentiating, because until this current administration, the incompetence (or willful white supremacism / pro-wrestling hero-worship) was at least centralized. Now it is outsourced to the lowest common moron/incel functionary.
Which is a truly fundamental difference.
Do not come. If you truly must, take similar precautions as you would when visiting Iran or North Korea.
It’s not like current administration cares about it.
[1] https://theconversation.com/can-the-trump-administration-leg...