It used to be that Disney Land was one of the reasons to go to America. More and more people I speak to who would have gone now say "meh" to the idea.
As people in the United States wake up on a Sunday morning in their time zones, I guess it falls on me to say that this all depends on whom you talk to. I know lots of people who desire to visit the United States. The United States is still second only to France as the country most visited by tourists from other countries.[1] That's remarkable to me because France has land borders with several other countries, all countries with large populations, while the United States mostly has to be reached by transoceanic air travel.
The original post says, "I have heard that if I have been to some countries I might be refused to enter the US." What it does not say is, "I have checked the United States laws and have checked actual practice of what happens at the United States border, to see how that compares with border control in other countries." And then there are a couple of anecdotes in the few responses. This is basically not a high-quality submission for Hacker News, as it doesn't promote the thoughtful, informed discussion that should characterize our community here.
The typical set of Hacker News comments about the United States from people who have never been to the United States seems to mingle two points of view. On the one hand, the United States is criticized as an undesirable place that no one would want to live in or even visit, given a choice. On the other hand, the United States is criticized as an inhospitable place that doesn't give free, unrestricted entry to anyone who wants to work or visit or settle in the United States. (Criticisms of United States immigration policy on Hacker News mostly take the form of saying that the United States should let in more immigrants like, um, the people who participate on Hacker News.) A fable attributed to the Greek author Aesop[2] may explain how these seemingly contrary opinions of the United States can exist in the mind of the same person.
[1] http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/the-worlds-most-pop...
http://time.com/10296/most-popular-countries-to-visit-map/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings
(Some sources disagree on the exact ranking, but every source I checked puts France first and puts the United States in the top five.)
I don't imagine what people feel like when I can observe what people feel like. What I observe is that a lot more people on Hacker News and elsewhere desire to visit the United States and to settle in the United States[1] than decide never to go to the United States at all. That's a fact of the world that I have to deal with without emotion or name-calling but just by thinking about what policy implications that fact has.
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/14/united-states-i...
http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/u-s-is-top-destinati...
> That's remarkable to me because France has land borders with
> several other countries, all countries with large populations,
> while the United States mostly has to be reached by transoceanic
> air travel.
It certainly has more of an international mix than France[2] due to France's proximity to to other countries though.
1. http://geography.about.com/b/2012/05/02/country-of-origin-of... 2. http://www.dgcis.gouv.fr/files/files/directions_services/etu...
The only exception to this are US immigration officials who I dread dealing with everytime I arrive. All my paperwork is in order and I've never visited any of those 'dodgy' countries but they are just so unfriendly and standoffish that it spoils my arrival. I get the impression they assume every arriving person has no right to enter and should be treated almost like a criminal.
There are countless anecdotes illustrating how immigration rules and officers are ridiculous and racist, but not all of them are about USA. In many respects immigrants are treated worse in Europe that in the states.
To some extent, we are reduced to anecdote, because an opaque and sometimes seemingly capricious (if not malicious) system -- or set of sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing systems -- leaves us no choice.
There also appears to be no effective and consistent gradation in risk management. No ability to elicit further investigation and potential resolution of open questions -- whether they are legitimate or the result of an inept initial evaluation.
A prime example of this, not with respect to visas but with respect to ongoing travel, with plans already made and tickets already purchased, is the "no-fly list" and other apparent, more obscure and hidden lists and qualifications having similar effects upon travel.
Are you on it? We can't tell you. Why are you on it? We can't tell you. I (general "I") have a mountain of evidence I can present demonstrating that I'm not a threat. There's no effective appeal process (never mind any "ostensible" appeal process; much reporting has demonstrated such to apparently be entirely non-functional). I'm willing to submit to search to demonstrate that I am not nor am carrying any immediate threat. Not an option.
That and why you are on the list is a secret. Options to mitigate a perceived risk and allow travel are not an option.
Hardly hallmarks of an "open" society.
I mention the "no-fly list" also in good part because it applies also to U.S. citizens. Such cases are not a matter of a foreign national soliciting the U.S. for a... "privilege". They reflect a government opaquely and apparently extra-judicially limiting free association (via travel).
The U.S. is still the envy of much of the world, and not without some good reasons. And the majority of trips both by foreign nationals and by U.S. citizens take place without undo circumstance. But the trend in travel restrictions worries me, for one. And, as an ostensibly self-governing citizenry, how are we to effectively govern as such policies increasingly cut us off from controversial parts of the world we might do well to actually pay more attention to? Such governance includes foreign policy. Also, foreign examples can serve as useful lessons in guiding our own domestic policy -- if such examples are though of as "bad", then as examples of things to learn from and hopefully avoid.
token, I know you as an open-minded, insightful, and "fair" participant, here, and I don't mean my response to come across as overly "argumentative" or upset. Rather, I take your point, but present my own not so much as a counter-point but as an adjunct that I think also needs to be considered, and so I'm mentioning it in this response.
I appreciate that. (Upvoted, of course.) Thank you. I've noticed before that you devote effort to building up a thoughtful community here.
(I don't find the link now, but there was a news about a European woman, that was raped and when she was going to the police, she was arrested for adultery and threatened with jail (I think) or else she should marry the rapist. I am not sure, if it was Saudi Arabia or a neighboring country, but such a thing just makes me ill!)
†http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecution_of_Marte_Dalelv ‡http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Gali
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/saudi-arabia-th...
Saudi also practises that modern form of slavery where slaves aren't property now, they're merely foreign labourers who have had their identity documents removed so they can't escape and their promised wages withheld. http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2013/december/saudi-arabia-defend...
I'd like to visit the US, but I don't like the idea of having my fingerprints taken and stored for 75 years by US authorities. Of course, it's completely within the right of US authorities to decide the rules for entry into their country and I suspect it deters a very small number of people. Fingerprints are also taken by EU countries that issue biometric passports: http://euobserver.com/news/121816
Ignorance of how they work and how unlikely they are to affect your life. (I'm sure many Americans are similarly ignorant about some "dangerous" group in another geographic location which is in fact dangerous but unlikely to be encountered.)
(India is dangerous, but not for men, and not because of poverty.)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-05/teenages-accused-in-de...