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Comment by spiderfarmer | Hacker News Reader

How is this a perception issue? It’s a real issue.

Even if the chances of getting detained on bullshit charges are slim, the behavior of the government is now so erratic and hostile that people who care will actively avoid going to the US. And for what exactly? Does anyone still wonder? Or do they just accept that the government constantly does stupid things for no real reason?

If my country behaved like the US for just one hour, the press would find enough scandals to talk about for a year. But the US manages to make the press move on to the next scandal. And the next. And so on.

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It's both. But the real issue also existed before, they just turned it up to 11 and will likely go much further.

I don't want to downplay this, the point I was trying to make is that the perception will have a much bigger effect now independent of how likely it is for each person to be actually affected. And the perception includes the expected further escalation by the current US government.

There's a lot of issues with how the US handles immigration (and other countries as well). It's essentially a lawless zone where you're completely at the mercy of the US authorities. But even if that isn't new, the rethoric and aggressive actions by the new government will make this a lot worse.

You're both right. It was an issue before. It's an issue now too.

It might even be less of an issue now, practically, because of budget cuts.

But it will be perceived as a bigger issue than whatever the reality is because of the rhetoric.

Incidentally, when the ICE deportations started, the heated rhetoric was an explicit part of the strategy to spook people into "self-deporting".

I have no idea if this worked or not, but I believe the reason was due to not having enough budget or staff to do the scale of deportations that the administration wanted to do.

Next year it will be rated electoral autocracy instead of democracy if nothing changes.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7486317

Can you show these numbers are significantly higher than the previous years' average? If you can't then it's perception

Too early for stats I think. But yeah, keep on denying the light of the sun.

If it was the "light of the sun" you wouldn't have to "think" and there would be stats.

Stats coming from ICE itself would probably be cooked.

https://prismreports.org/2024/10/31/ice-has-been-lying-about...

I’ll wait for stats coming from the EU or my own government.

Even if you cannot prove it doesn't mean it is necessarily perception. Just because one cannot prove something, doesn't mean it's not real. Can you prove the numbers haven't risen? The main issue is the arbitrary detention. Getting turned away at the border and taking the next flight home is one thing, but getting locked up seems scary.

If you cannot prove it and yet you make the claim then it means your claim stems from perception. It doesn't mean what you're claiming is not true.

You claim it’s a perception issue. We say it doesn’t matter if it’s perception. Even one wrongful detention is too much. And people should avoid going to the US in this climate. My past tweets would probably be enough to get me detained.

Am I sure about that? No.

Can anyone be sure nowadays?

Is that just perception? Maybe. Will I avoid going to the US anyway? Yes.

If you’re still looking for a trend, here’s one: We don’t trust the US anymore. And there’s nothing their government does or says to reassure us.

It's rare enough that when it happens it makes the news in the citizen's country, so having several in quick succession like this is immediately noticed and acted upon.

Train derailments were all the rage on the right a couple of years ago even though their numbers were in the norm.

I don't see how that relates to what I said and I don't know why you go political with "on the right". I'm not american, and this conversation is clearly about how non american countries see the situation, and for us being detained that way is not a left or right wing political wish or dream or nightmare, it's just a "does it happen in that country or not".

And as an aside, if you think train crash are not a matter worth talking about, or that they're political, again .. That's a hell of a point of view that I don't share.

>it's just a "does it happen in that country or not".

If your threshold is "it happens > 0 amount of times" then it has happened before to Europeans to face detention by the ICE

>if you think train crash are not a matter worth talking about, or that they're political

that's a big and unwarrented "if"

I'm honestly not sure what or why you are arguing, if you say it happened before then yes no one said the contrary, several countries are now saying the threshold to go from "a bit longer interrogation" to "straight up detention like a criminal" has become much lower and thus we are much more likely to be impacted, and if you disagree with that when then again it doesn't really matter because it's a travel advice by a non US gov to their non US citizen based on their evaluation, feelings and online rhetoric don't matter into that, though you are of course free of having your own opinion

What is your country? Curious to see its border laws to see if I can be denied entry or deported if I break the law, which is clearly erratic and hostile behavior.

People are now targeted for speech, not for breaking the law. Open your eyes. The US is becoming like Russia, China and Turkey.

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