[josephg]

Border guards in the US tend to be more strict than other countries though. I’ve heard plenty of stories of friends being refused entry into the US, and I don’t personally know of anyone who was rejected coming in to any other country.

It’s devastating when this happens because not only are you thrown out of the country on the next flight, but once you’ve been rejected at the border once, you can never apply for a simple online visa permit again. For the rest of your life you need to go to a consulate with your passport like this article describes.

I was almost denied entry once when I visited Hawaii. The immigration officer heard I was on vacation for a month and had no cash on me (who travels with cash?). Turns out he was worried I’d end up homeless. He didn’t realise that as an Australian, I get paid while on vacation and I had plenty of money in a bank account online.

This isn’t (just) a race thing. I’ve heard plenty of rejection stories from white, Australian men.

[zarzavat]

The US also has some quite byzantine rules. For example, let’s imagine I fly from Europe to Canada, with a 3 hour transit in US. I stay four months in Canada because I’m a UK citizen and Canada allows me to stay up to 180 days. I return to Europe using the same route via US.

If I did that I would have overstayed in the US. Because the US only allows a stay of 90 days under the Visa Waiver program, and even though I only spent a few hours in the US, the four months in Canada counts towards the 90 day limit. The US also doesn’t have airside transit like most countries.

The correct thing to do would have been to apply for a US transit visa so that I am not entering on VWP, or to route my flight so that it doesn’t transit in US.