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Comment by htormey | Hacker News Reader

While it sucks that the author was verbally mistreated by the CBP officers it’s kind of difficult to feel a lot of sympathy for her without knowing the details of her case. I feel the article would have been more instructive if she had provided information like:

What exactly was the technicality that prevented her from getting a visa? How has she been living in the states for the last seven years? What visa was she traveling on?

I'm an Irish guy living in SF, everytime I leave the country I always make sure I have my paperwork in order. The article would have been much more valuable to people like me if she had answered the above questions. Anyway, I hope things work out for her.

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With these stories, it is usually pretty obvious to me what the person did wrong. It is not always clear that they should have been denied, but it is often clear why they were denied (and my sympathy is therefore tempered).

In this case, the lack of details makes it hard to say. However, as you pointed out, she mentioned a "visa technicality."

She also says, "I further explained that my current work visa application had been complicated due to a filing mistake and that I had been waiting on a decision."

Generally, if you leave the country with an application outstanding, that application is considered abandoned. So, if I had to guess, it looks like she was attempting to enter the U.S. to live and work without a visa. Anybody surprised at the result?

+1 this. I've been on a student visa and several work visa's during my time in the USA, on each occasion it was made clear to me when I could and could not travel without risk of not being readmitted. It really feels like this person got into trouble due to something like this. Of course we can't say for sure because she provides no details in her account of what happened.

Not necessarily, she could have been applying to extend a H1B visa and still have a valid one to travel under. I'm sure there are other cases too, e.g. I was travelling with H1B while my green card was processing (and had two separate sets of re-entry paperwork).

Take a step back and look at all the arbitrary requirements that some people make up in order to keep other people from being able to work within some arbitrary bounds.

The article is not supposed to be a guide for foreigners on how to be able to exit and enter the US. This is what the writing is about:

>I hope that my story can help fuel the need for positive immigration reform in a country that has given me so much to be thankful for.

"Take a step back and look at all the arbitrary requirements that some people make up in order to keep other people from being able to work within some arbitrary bounds."

I've been going through the US immigration system for the last 7 years. I am unfortunately intimately familiar with arbitrary requirements and have obeyed the law to the letter as I am a guest in a foreign country.

"The article is not supposed to be a guide for foreigners on how to be able to exit and enter the US. This is what the writing is about: >I hope that my story can help fuel the need for positive immigration reform in a country that has given me so much to be thankful for."

While I sympathize with her plight, I think the lack of details really hurts her case and does nothing for the cause of immigration reform (which I am 100% in favor of).

Even if the US immigration process was reformed tomorrow their would still be rules, regulations and paperwork surrounding working here. Details allow us to sympathize and relate to her situation, they can provide a case for why laws should be changed. They can also help prevent others getting into a similar situation.

I understand the point you are making, and I could agree that more details wouldn't hurt. However, the problem is probably something like she wrote her birthday as DD/MM/YYYY instead of MM/DD/YYYY, or any other little detail like that. I don't think that she would have been allowed to reenter if there was something big.

>I am unfortunately intimately familiar with arbitrary requirements and have obeyed the law to the letter as I am guest in a foreign country.

But there are so many rules that obeying the law may become impossible. They could use a parking ticket as an excuse to deny you a visa, there is too much left up to your visa application reviewrs' discretion.

"But there are so many rules that obeying the law may become impossible. They could use a parking ticket as an excuse to deny you a visa, there is too much left up to your visa application reviewrs' discretion."

Sure but in her case we don't know because she provides no details as to what the nature of her technicality was. Plenty of people leave and enter the USA everyday on work visa's. If you're on a work or student visa its made clear to you when you can and can not travel. If she decided to leave the country despite knowing that she had issues with her visa paperwork thats a pretty different situation from someone being arbitrarily refused admittance because she was a "hacker".

I agree on the details bit. When simple details are omitted I feel like the "technicality" is going to turn out to be something like "is a convicted felon with a warrant out for her arrest".

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