[aiisahik]

Americans do not understand how much press there is outside the US about tourists from Ireland / Germany / Canada getting locked up in ICE jails for weeks on end.

It's one thing to refuse entry to someone who doesn't have the right documents. The fear goes to a completely different level once people see tourists getting locked up.

As someone who lived in the US for 22 years legally and most of my social and business network there, I an not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is.

[world2vec]

Exactly this. If someone from "high tier" countries like Canada and Germany can get locked up in ICE jails for several weeks imagine someone like me from a peripheral European country. Even worse, my youngest brother that has a more "tanned" appearance. tattoos, and a beard.

I won't be visiting the US for the foreseeable future (used to go several times per year for work), just not worth the risk.

[chimeracoder]

> Exactly this. If someone from "high tier" countries like Canada and Germany can get locked up in ICE jails for several weeks imagine someone like me from a peripheral European country. Even worse, my youngest brother that has a more "tanned" appearance. tattoos, and a beard.

Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport?

[bayindirh]

I constantly travel to EU for work. I see all kinds of people from any part of the world, and they pass through fine.

When I traveled last time, I have witnessed an European denied entry for a reason I don't know, and a white male without any beard has been escorted into the immigration office.

Said office had a giant window. The officers were just chatting with him while checking his documents, and also drinking some coffee and eating some cake. I didn't look that long to see whether they have offered the same to him (because it's rude).

Also, I don't have an EU/UK/US passport, and I just pass fine.

[virtualritz]

It all depends what part of the EU and how you look.

For some EU perspective: last summer we traveled with a group of social dancers from Berlin to Pula in Croatia, going to an event at the coast.

Croatia joined Schengen in January 2023.

We had one couple in the group that where not "white". She is German but her parents are Vietnamese and he is from Syria. They're married, they have German citizenship.

They were the only ones from our group of ~20 people who got singled out and had their papers and luggage (!) checked. She looks Asian, he looks Middle-Eastern (oh, and he has a beard!).

That said, they just took 10mins longer to make it through the arrivals hall. They didn't get incarcerated.

However, the year before they were traveling to a dance event in Belgrade. That was was before they got married so he didn't have a German passport yet. He only had a Syrian passport and a residence permit for Germany/Schengen.

Serbia is not part of the EU. Usually such a mistake means they just send you back on the next flight. Happened to two friends of mine, both "white US citizens, who didn't also know this and were traveling to Belgrade from Switzerland two years before.

My Syrian friend however spent three days in a jail in cell with a dozen criminals before they let him fly back to Germany. Mind you, the event they went to was four days and he had a return ticket that could have been easily changed to the arrival day.

Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g.

[snappieT]

> For some EU perspective

> Serbia is not part of the EU

> Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU.

[virtualritz]

I should have written "for some European perspective". Croatia and Serbia are both part of Europe.

I didn't want to imply this was anyhow tied to Brussels.

[magicalhippo]

Not exactly entirely outside[1] the EU either though, having applied for membership in 2009 and receiving full candidacy status in 2012.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Serbia_to_the_Eur...

[chimeracoder]

> Racial profiling is everywhere. Also in the EU. And some EU countries are more "famous" for it, the Balkans e.g.

Some countries are more "famous" for it, but that's really just a matter of perception and how it fits into an existing narrative, not based on actual evidence.

It's not like there's data showing that racial profiling is lower in France, Germany, and Sweden than it is in Eastern Europe.

[orwin]

I'd say racial profiling is probably around the same everywhere, but rule of law is not, and while you have a lot of corruption at the top level in France, bureaucratic processes makes it hard for low-level public servant to ignore said rule of law, which isn't the case in some Eastern European countries (i've heard that Romania made _huge_ improvement though, so maybe my only first-hand experience wouldn't happen these days anymore)

[navane]

That's Serbia man. There's a reason they're not in the Union. Starting up shit since 1914.

[brookst]

Are you implying there are similar arrests and indefinite detentions going on in Europe? Any data to share? Certainly worth being upset over if that’s a true accusation.

[sofixa]

> Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport?

Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you).

EU Eastern Europe, you might get funny looks but it's still not an extraordinary situation to have various shades of skin colour (e.g. Syrians, various Central Asians are migrant workers in a few of the countries in question; a lot of e.g. the Balkans are on a palette of skin colours).

Non-EU Eastern Europe (referring more to Belarus than Montenegro here), might get casual racism.

Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no human rights because of your skin colour, beard, tattoos or anything of the like. Other than of course the usual suspects of Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and etc. who could for any reason.

[chimeracoder]

> Depends on which part of Europe. In the more diverse parts, nobody would bat an eyelid (even if border police might profile you).

As a person who matches the description above, and has traveled to Europe extensively and frequently, I can tell you that as much as Europeans like to believe this is this case, it is absolutely not true.

> Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no human rights because of your skin colour, beard, tattoos or anything of the like. Other than of course the usual suspects of Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and etc. who could for any reason.

Unless you're making some extremely critical assumptions about how much wear the word "indefinite" can bear, this is unfortunately not true either.

[josephg]

A couple years ago my girlfriend and I spent about 2 months travelling through europe. We visited about 10 countries on our trip. A lot of our travel between countries was by bus. After a few bus trips we started noticing something strange - the busses often pulled over for rest stops just after we'd changed countries. Everyone would all get out of the bus to stretch our legs, and some police would miraculously appear and decide they wanted to talk to some of the people who were on our bus.

Now, officially the shengen zone means there's no need to show your documents between countries. But countries still don't want certain people coming in. And they don't want drugs smuggled in either.

It was really interesting who they decided to pull aside for a chat. It was almost always men who were travelling alone. Almost always men who were in the 25-45 age range. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was some racial profiling going on as well. The police never questioned me - probably because I was with my girlfriend the whole time. If she wasn't there, I bet I would have been pulled aside every time too.

Anyway, I believe your experience in Europe. But if you were a man travelling alone, its possible it was partially or fully due to that. For about a decade, every time I went through security at an airport I was always "randomly selected" to have my bag swabbed for chemicals. It never happens any more, and I'm as white as they come. I assume it was a gender + age + travelling alone thing - but its still a mystery to me.

[Symbiote]

I think a good part of it is 'wealth' profiling.

I'm white, male. I travel to some lower-income countries for work. I can dress like a neat, well-paid software developer with the €2000 laptop and €1000 camera in my bag. I'll sail through security in Europe and at the destination, then have a horde of people hassling me for a taxi, sometimes pretty aggressively, and I feel I stand out as an easy target for robbery.

Instead, I wear some old, faded clothes for the journey. Then I get the "random" drug swab check in Europe, border control at the destination might ask to see my hotel booking, but the taxi drivers and street kids will ignore me as another cheakskate backpacker.

[lukan]

"Now, officially the shengen zone means there's no need to show your documents between countries."

That is not what it means.

Checks became way more frequent.

[DeathArrow]

>Now, officially the shengen zone means there's no need to show your documents between countries.

Since EU has problems with the illegal immigration, there are some checks and they happen more frequently.

[InitialLastName]

How many weeks have you spent detained by EU border officials?

[hartator]

> Nobody will throw you in jail in indefinite detention in another country with no human rights because of your skin colour, beard, tattoos or anything of the like.

Most EU country police don’t need probable cause to detain you. It does happen to be detained for no reason outside of profiling. For example, in France, you can be sent to jail for up to 24h with no probable cause.

[netsharc]

The difference between EU and USA is: "can" vs "is happening".

And as you describe in the EU it's "up to 24 hours". And in the lawless authoritarian regime? That Canadian girl was detained for 11 days and was told to prepare to be held for months: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/jasmine-moon...

A friend's family flew into a EU country with a letter, they thought this letter was their visa but it turned out to be a rejection from the EU country's consulate (maybe it was a request for more information for their visa application). They were denied entry, but there was no indefinite detention, they were just told to get on the next plane out of the country and had to wait in the "international area" of the airport until said flight.

[plumarr]

> For example, in France, you can be sent to jail for up to 24h with no probable cause.

There must be a probable cause : https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F14837

[FrinkleFrankle]

Also, a 24 hour detainment in reasonable conditions is very different from an indefinite detention with a possibility of torture (solitary confinement) or being sent off to an El Savadorian prison with no hope of being returned.

[hartator]

This is different.

In the US you need probable cause to get pull over or temporary detain you. In France, you don't need probably cause for temporary detaining you, but if they suspect you of something they can also send you to jail. You can't be sent to jail in the US just on them just suspecting something.

[antman]

There is no definition of “if you are not a citizen you are not a citizen and you are not entitled to a due process” in any EU airport AFAIK.

[johnnyanmac]

That's not the case in the US either. Like, how would that work if a non-citizen isn't bound to law anyway? "Oh you're not American, so you're not bound by our murder laws. Free to go".

But this admin highly disagrees with that notion. Really hope the courts start throwing heads sooner rather than later.

[pseudalopex]

Not protected by laws and not bound by laws are different ideas.

[abenga]

This is like that old adage about conservatism.

[surgical_fire]

> Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport?

I can answer that! It is pretty uneventful. My experience with the border checks in airports was always very pleasant (despite the lines, depending on the airport they can be pretty long)

[jajko]

Normal stuff, millions folks like that come every year. Millions folks like that live here and also have citizenship, I have friends and colleagues working in banking fitting that description (including passports).

Now I am not saying we are uniform half a billion, not at all, wear burka in eastern EU in some small backwardish village and you will raise eyebrows and maybe more. Try that in US and its the same, to put it mildly.

[ta1243]

> Out of curiosity, what do you think it's like to travel to Europe as someone who is dark-skinned, has a beard, and does not have a European passport?

With a Canadian or American passport (until recently)? No problem.

With an Iranian passport? Probably more problems.

[chimeracoder]

> With a Canadian or American passport (until recently)? No problem.

First of all, the folks profiling and detaining you don't ask you where your passport is from first - they'll generally make the decision and then ask for your documentation.

But even then, I have a US passport, and I've had far more issues being detained in European airports than I have in the US - which is really saying something.

[hylaride]

> First of all, the folks profiling and detaining you don't ask you where your passport is from first - they'll generally make the decision and then ask for your documentation.

It depends. Most countries do have certain kinds of extra policies for passports of certain countries. For example, Visa fraud, especially for education visas, is extremely common from India. So extra checks for those that the acceptance letter isn't from some diploma mill and that they're not coming to work illegally tends to to occur more often.

But the same is true for local citizens that make odd, quick trips to certain countries that tend to be sources for drug smuggling - you're going to probably get pulled aside.

Being a border guard is 40% art, 40% science, 10% luck, and 10% other.

> But even then, I have a US passport, and I've had far more issues being detained in European airports than I have in the US - which is really saying something.

You're a citizen, though. Unless they think you're importing something you shouldn't, you're far less likely to be hassled as you have more rights than others.

As a Canadian, I found that Canadian border agents tend to harass their own citizens, especially at land crossings, because the default assumption seems to be we're trying to dodge paying duties.

I've found American border guards mostly tend to act terse and rude (possibly as a strategy to try and trip you up?), though some of the nicest I've ever met were also American. I've found most EU guards with my Canadian passport to be bored and slow, though that may be because most Canadians going to Europe are just vacationing?

[chimeracoder]

> It depends. Most countries do have certain kinds of extra policies for passports of certain countries

That's not relevant when, as I said, they detain you without knowing what passport you even hold.

> You're a citizen, though. Unless they think you're importing something you shouldn't, you're far less likely to be hassled as you have more rights than others.

Being a citizen does not, in fact, exempt you from being profiles and detained at border crossings, either in the US or in Europe.

[przemub]

It’s saying that citizens are more trusted than non-citizens, obviously.

[theshrike79]

Europeans as general don't discriminate based on skin colour or race as much as Americans[0].

We discriminate based on what country you're from. =)

[0] I am well aware there is racism in Europe, it's just ... different here.

[DarkWiiPlayer]

I would hope it doesn't include getting locked up despite having a valid visa and proof of a return flight for several weeks.

[TwoNineA]

> Americans do not understand how much press there is outside the US about tourists from Ireland / Germany / Canada getting locked up in ICE jails for weeks on end.

From my point of view, if POTUS blathers about annexing Canada, then the US doesn't deserve my tourist dollars, neither my Netflix subscription, neither my Amazon prime subscription. I've cut back on purchases/subscriptions from US companies as much as it was possible for me and my family. Also cancelled a trip to south east US. Purely out of spite.

[rekoil]

Same here. There's one or two things I can't bear to cancel, but I've moved all my email from Google Workspaces to Proton, cancelled Netflix, cancelled plans to go to DEF CON, downgraded storage for Apple iCloud to just above what I need instead of way above, cancelled plans to get a new MacBook Pro this year, stopped buying groceries from companies with American owners, etc.

[fragmede]

What I respect most about the European countries' leving tarrifs in response is when they're choosing to issue tarrifs on products that are heavily sourced from red states, and lesserly so from blue states.

[enaaem]

Most stuff on Amazon is made in China anyways. Might as well order directly from Aliexpress or the producer's website. Exactly the same items, but without the American middleman.

[pjc50]

There's definitely going to be some sort of EU-China rapprochement now. Not that China is less oppressive - they remain more oppressive, and I wouldn't like to, say, get caught with weed going into China. But they're much less loudly annoying about it.

(another one to watch out for: opiate painkillers in your hand luggage into Middle Eastern states, including Dubai.)

[Juliate]

And they're much more consistent/predictable than the US, at this point.

[tgv]

It's not spite, or doesn't have to be. Non US-citizens have very few ways of exerting pressure on the current administration, but money happens one of them.

[pjc50]

The threats to Canada aren't attracting nearly as much attention as they should. The problem is people have got too used to just assuming that what Trump says is bullshit: it's just there to sound good on the news, there's no intent to actually do it. Then the tariffs hit.

If there's the slightest possibility that what he says is not bullshit, then Canada needs to take it very seriously and the entire northern hemisphere security architecture needs to permanently change.

[sebazzz]

The annexing is so unhinged that I can't be sincere, yet anything Trump had any power to do he did do. He didn't get peace in Ukraine because he can't control Russia nor Ukraine. He can attempt an Canadian invasion because he is in control of the army.

[AlecSchueler]

Yeah, he wouldn't do anything unhinged, right?

[alxlaz]

^ this. Once (oh, actually twice!) while travelling, I have had entirely benign trouble with paperwork (things like not filling a form correctly on the first attempt). Explaining the circumstances to someone who has to figure out if you're scatter-brained, unlucky, or an actual criminal, isn't particularly fun, but it's been entirely professional and civilised. We resolved it all in about half an hour. Didn't even miss a flight.

Now that it's a political issue, rather than a logistical matter, so it's no longer professional or civilised, no thanks. I have one US customer and thankfully Google Meet is enough, because I'm not getting anywhere near the US for them. I can find other customers if I have to, but I don't think legal fees for navigating the oh-we-totally-had-good-reason-to-think-he-was-a-terrorist-your-honour jail are as easily deductible. As for leisure, haha, no, there are plenty of things to see all over the world where the chances of getting jailed because you said the wrong thing about the wrong president are much smaller. My visa expires this year, I'm not planning to renew it any time soon.

[DeathArrow]

So you genuinely think that if you go to the US you have a high risk of being imprisoned without due process even if you you don't break any US law?

[alxlaz]

> So you genuinely think that if you go to the US you have a high risk of being imprisoned without due process even if you you don't break any US law?

I think that the risk of being imprisoned without due process is very low, but still substantially higher than in any other Western country, and certainly high enough not to justify the risk.

I also think that the risk of being temporarily imprisoned with due process, until they figure out that I haven't broken any law anywhere, is also very low, but still substantially higher than in most Western countries. And certainly high enough that it's not worth the risk.

I don't have an issue with border controls being a thing. I'm not a free travel idealist. I get why border controls exist, I think the premise of not letting people in unless they provably meet the host country's requirement is perfectly reasonable, and I certainly think that, even if someone did nothing wrong and just doesn't have their documentation in order, sending them back home on the first flight is an entirely reasonable thing to do. I just think that, in the current political climate, both the chances of being the victim of good old abuse and the chances of well-meaning ICE personnel screwing up are too high to be worth crossing the Atlantic for.

[ty6853]

Lol there is no due process at the border for a simple imprisonment, it is 'administrative' and I have been held up to a day or so without any sort of hearing. I pulled my FBI record from the last time they tossed me in immigration holding cell, there is no record of it. They don't allow you to have a phone, they do not let you have an attorney, and they do not document they've imprisoned you. They lock you away and that is that, it is your word against theirs and your word from behind a jail cell. You will never prevail in such a situation, and if you complain outside of some place like HN the vast majority of people will angrily ask what you did wrong and that there 'must be more to the story' so you rarely even bring it up.

I do not think most people can conceive just how common and deranged the situation is, and that not only that the documentation is so poor and that most of the people this happens to will not speak up, either because no one will believe them or because they are not a citizen and are afraid it will result in reprisal.

[_DeadFred_]

Just look at the Chinese woman that died while the Border Patrol held her. They didn't release that she commited suicide it only came out because media kept requesting information on her otherwise Border Patrol wouldn't have released anything.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/us/chinese-woman-detained...

[account42]

> and if you complain outside of some place like HN the vast majority of people will angrily ask what you did wrong and that there 'must be more to the story'

That's because in most publicized cases it turns out there is something more to it.

[mike50]

The FBI does not perform immigration enforcement at entry points.

[ty6853]

No shit. They're the one that do arrest histories. If you're arrested by podunk local sheriff or ATF it will show up on FBI report even though it's not an FBI arrest.

[kccqzy]

From what I understand, being arrested at the U.S. border while entering the country is strictly worse than being arrested by regular police while inside the U.S. In the latter case, the police arresting you will at least read you your Miranda rights, will have no right to search your phone unless authorized by a warrant, and will generally offer bail to get out of the jail in exchange for a court appearance. That's what due process, at a minimum, entails.

None of that happens at the border.

At this stage it doesn't even matter whether you have broken any U.S. law or not.

[SpaceNoodled]

ICE is already kidnapping people from inside the US and shipping them to El Salvador without even the barest pretense of due process.

[AlecSchueler]

And referring to people wrongly arrested as "collateral."

[pjc50]

At the border? Well, it's not a high chance in absolute terms, but the risk of being deemed to have broken the law due to visa/ESTA noncompliance is a lot higher.

I would certainly no longer do US travel for a conference on a tourist visa in case that's deemed "work". (pop quiz to Americans: what visa do I need for that situation, and how difficult is it to get?)

[windward]

It doesn't have to be high to be negative EV

[philistine]

We have multiple examples. It happens, because the incarceration has been privatized and they have no incentive to get you out. They want to keep making more money.

[mizzao]

If they happen to look at you on social media / somewhere on the Internet and see that you've spoken out against the current administration's policies, you might be imprisoned (based on what's happened so far). It's the new lese majeste.

[fragmede]

Shit, I'm a US citizen flying domestic while colored and I have that fear. If you don't think that's reasonable, you're not paying attention. It's not hyperbole to say that ICE is the new Gestapo, and because international airports are considered borders and thus they have jurisdiction, they cover most of where I'd want to go to or transit through in the US.

[rsynnott]

It’s probably low enough, but if you go to a proper country it’s essentially zero, so, really, particularly for leisure travel, why take the chance?

[Juliate]

...yes? The risk is now definitely higher (and advertised by your own administration) than in many other destinations on Earth.

[BLKNSLVR]

I think the news feeds within the US may be approximately equal in their delivery of "this is good change" versus "this is catastrophic change", whilst internationally it's almost entirely "this is catastrophic change" with minor pockets of intolerance apologia.

I'd be interested in alternate viewpoints since I may be in a bleeding-heart, empathetic, progressive, consequence-considering news bubble.

My reasoning is that a family member who lives in the US said that they feel protected / insulated because they're in a deep blue state. I don't feel this is representative of reality, or at least they should be more alarmed than they sounded.

[potato3732842]

>I think the news feeds within the US may be approximately equal in their delivery of "this is good change" versus "this is catastrophic change", whilst internationally it's almost entirely "this is catastrophic change" with minor pockets of intolerance apologia.

Exactly.

Americans generally don't understand the degree to which the rest of the world gets the CNN 5min recap of what's going on in the US, and it's very much the CNN recap and not the Fox one.

"Tourists locked up, school children shot, government defunded, California on fire, tune in at 11 for more".

The fact that ~half the country doesn't think ICE should be locking up tourists without good reason and the other ~half doesn't think ICE should be locking up anyone gets skipped.

Edit: Just to head off the nitpickers, by "good reason" I mean stuff that border guards of any nation would lock anyone up for if they found, regardless of visa type, status or nation or origin.

[bondarchuk]

When you are in stuck in a border control jail for 2 weeks it does not particularly matter who does or does not think you should be there.

[ABS]

assuming your point is correct about what almost the entire country thinks about ICE locking up tourists (and I don't think it is) it's irrelevant: ICE does it anyway and that's all I as a potential turist care about

[footy]

exactly. As a Canadian I don't really care that half or more of the country thinks that ICE should not be locking up random Canadians or that the annexation threats aren't real or that the tariffs are a negotiating tactic. It is not relevant to my life how they feel if any of these things affect me.

[mannykannot]

I doubt that seeing the Fox spin on US events would persuade many people that the US is currently a place of rationality and the rule of law.

[DeathArrow]

Doesn't the crime rate go down when Republicans hold the power?

I think the crime rate is a major concern for every tourist.

Doesn't Florida have a much lower crime rate than California? As a tourist, I rather visit Florida than California.

[mcphage]

> Doesn't the crime rate go down when Republicans hold the power?

I don't think that's true—or at least, not a strong correlation. Crime rates were going significantly down since the early 90s, regardless who is in power. There was a smaller spike during COVID years, which has I believe returned to normal.

> I think the crime rate is a major concern for every tourist.

It is, but it isn't the only concern, and ICE sending tourists to prison is by definition not a crime, but is just as relevant to potential tourists.

> As a tourist, I rather visit Florida than California.

I really don't think you really want to look at the state level crime rates, you should look at the crime rate for the place you're going to visit. For instance, the violent crime rate in Florida was 260 per 100k people in 2022 (according to Wikipedia)... but if you're going to Walt Disney World, specifically: it's a whole lot less.

[d3nj4l]

Yeah, tourists like to go to places with low crime rates. In fact, when I’m a tourist, I pick where to go solely based on the crime rates!

[DeathArrow]

I hope that's true. In some places there are high chances to be robbed, killed or kidnapped as a tourist. The more wealthy you seem to the criminals, the higher the danger.

[triceratops]

> Doesn't the crime rate go down when Republicans hold the power?

Federally? There's no reason to think the federal government changing hands would impact local crime rates. Overall violent crime has seen steady decline from the 1970s to the present day. [1] That period has seen both Democratic and Republican administrations.

At the state level it's a different picture. 8 of the top 10, and 17 of the top 25 states for homicide rate are "red" states.[2] I think poverty and per-capita income rates in a state are a better predictor of crime rates than which party is specifically in power.

> Doesn't Florida have a much lower crime rate than California?

If you consume exclusively right-wing news media (or your favorite social media ragebait) you'd have that impression. Depending on your source they're either about equal (FBI stats) over the past 2 decades or Florida's murder rate is higher (CDC).[2] Either way it is not "much lower". For "much" lower I'd go to states like Massachusetts, Utah, or Hawaii which have murder rates closer to Western Europe.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Cri...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

[the_af]

I'm not sure if that's sarcasm or not. I'll answer assuming it's in earnest.

> Doesn't the crime rate go down when Republicans hold the power?

Does it? And what about police brutality? As a tourist, I'd rather go to a country where I'm less likely to be treated badly by the police.

> As a tourist, I rather visit Florida than California.

I think this in general has very little to do with crime rates. There are confounding factors. I'd rather not visit Florida regardless of crime rate.

[DeathArrow]

>Does it? And what about police brutality? As a tourist, I'd rather go to a country where I'm less likely to be treated badly by the police.

Why would the police treat you bad? I you don't commit any crime it's most likely you have nothing to do with the police.

[the_af]

Plus it's false that the rest of the world doesn't get the Fox spin along with the CNN spin. We get both.

[phr4ts]

Really? In my country, CNN is Coca cola and Fox is Dr. Pepper

[neogodless]

I do not understand this analogy!

For me, Coke tastes like acid, and Dr. Pepper is sweet and spicy.

But... uh... that doesn't translate well when applied to sources for "news".

[the_af]

Like the sibling comment, I don't understand the analogy.

Also, I'd like to emphasize what someone said elsewhere in this comments section: the rest of the world doesn't see the US through the "CNN vs Fox" lens, that's almost exclusively an American phenomenon.

[palata]

When the President of the United States threatens to invade ex-allies, I don't think that the threatened people give a shit about what the American people think about it. The fact that this guy is the President means that most Americans were not against it, right?

Of course most Americans don't want random people detained. But still, this is happening in the US.

And one thing that I believe is absolutely clear outside the US (whether it's true or not), is that most Americans are perfectly fine with "America First". Americans don't really care about the impact of Trump on the rest of the world; they care about the impact on themselves. Boycotting US products is a way to impact the American people, in the hope that the American people will eventually realise that what's best for them is also better for the others.

Something that I found interesting: when Canadians started booing the US anthem in NHL games, Americans started booing the Canadian anthem. Why? Canada didn't do anything to the US. Does it sound that most Americans are against what's happening, when they defend it? There is this kind of American patriotism where people seem to be like "Yes, my government, is bullying you, but I won't admit it and I will fight against you if you say it. But I'm a good guy, I don't want my government to bully you. I'll just support it because it's my country".

So yeah... pretty sure that it feels a lot different from the outside than from the inside.

[brookst]

> most Americans are perfectly fine with "America First".

I agree with everything you said, except this. Sub “many” and I’d go with it. But at least here, in blue state / more-sane land, there is widespread horror and outrage. We’re only at the “tens of thousands of people protesting” stage and I’ll be the first to say Americans need to do more, but I think it’s going to far to say most Americans don’t care about the impact elsewhere.

[palata]

I can't edit it, but my point was that this is the perception from the outside. And really I believe that the perception is that most Americans are fine with America First.

[b112]

but I think it’s going to far to say most Americans don’t care about the impact elsewhere.

Indeed.

Recently in Palo Alto for a few months. Saw lots of people protesting Tesla dealerships, lots of interesting and creative anti-Trump and Elon signs.

Not one word of Canada, of Greenland. Trumps stated goal of destroying Canada's economy to force annexation, or to outright just take Greenland seem not protest worthy.

Most people I spoke to seemed barely conscious of the issue.

To be fair, other matters may be higher pri in their minds, so if other events were not happening in parallel, it may be different.

But when 65 billion dollar defence hardware purchases are being dropped (they are), when future military purchases are not going to happen, when police cars, municipal vehicles are not going to be from US companies any more, when natural resources are going to be sold to the EU and China instead (sadly), the US is going to feel this for a very long time.

Because these are choices for decades. And it's not only Canada making them.

[pseudalopex]

The Hands Off protests had signs and chants saying hands off Canada and hands off Greenland. And I think it's understandable current events have higher priorities than possible events.

[DeathArrow]

Why should US citizens deeply care about Canada? It's not their country, they don't live there. Don't tell me Canadians lose sleep thinking about the well being of US.

[ivan_gammel]

> There is this kind of American patriotism

Doesn‘t look much different from Russian, Israeli or Chinese patriotism. When outsiders criticize your tribe for doing bad things, many are standing in support of the tribe, not the values, and they are the most visible.

[palata]

Sure. But when the US threaten to invade an ally militarily, therefore destroying the status of "allies" for the foreseeable future and looking more like enemies, I suppose it's more shocking for those ex-allies than... say... when the US find a bullshit reason to invade Irak.

[DeathArrow]

Isn't it natural to support your people?

[ivan_gammel]

It is false association. Your government != your people. It is not natural to defend your government regardless of their actions.

[palata]

Probably, but if your dad starts beating a kid in the street, I hope you'll do something about it. Also for your dad's sake and for your family reputation.

[thesuitonym]

> The fact that this guy is the President means that most Americans were not against it, right?

I don't know if that's strictly accurate. United States citizens are some of the most heavily disenfranchised in the western world. Our oligarchs have spent decades making it more difficult to vote, especially for people of color, who overwhelmingly disapprove of the current administration. In some urban areas, it can take hours of standing in line to vote, and we don't get time off from work to do so. We've also had a decades long propaganda campaign telling us our vote doesn't matter.

More people didn't vote in the last election than voted for Trump. That's not to say they all would have voted against him, but it's not really the will of the American people.

[mvdtnz]

Stop making excuses for Americans. The American people have spoken.

[mikepurvis]

And yet today's polling still shows a 43% approval rating for this president and administration:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-approval-rating-now-...

As a Canadian who normally travels to the US 3-4 times a year, that tells me everything I need to know about what "most Americans" think.

[neogodless]

I don't blame your sentiment, but as part of the 57% that MASSIVELY DISAPPROVES of that nutjob, I don't like the "most" word being used here ;)

Try to remember our weird Electoral College, and that ultimately the vote came down to ~230,000 votes in swing states. (I'm in one of them, and I voted against the felon.)

Also hate that "mainstream news" like ABC and CBS covered Saturday's protests with the phrase "tens of thousand" while the protest organizations reported MILLIONS of protesters (about 1% of the population.)

[thesuitonym]

I'm curious what your definition of "most" is, when a majority of people disapprove.

[scottLobster]

"Most" in this case means 49.81% of the vote, with 48.34% voting against. And that's with people largely expecting Trump to behave the same way as last time and a historically unpopular Democratic candidate. Whatever right wing cope you may have read, if the election were held today he'd probably lose.

Granted I don't blame foreigners for not risking ICE abuse. And Hockey fans can just be dumb sometimes. A lot of Americans have severe recency bias, the right is saying "the same people telling you this will be catastrophic were the same ones who locked down schools over a cold and told you inflation would be transitory". These people are going to have to touch the stove to learn it's hot, and then they'll admit that it's hot but deny that it's burning them, and then enough at the margins will start to defect such that they start losing elections, leaving a hard-core to endlessly complain about how if they'd only held on until 3rd degree burns the stove would have turned itself off.

[palata]

> Whatever right wing cope you may have read

I haven't. I am just telling how I believe it is perceived from outside the US. It seems like Americans here find it a bit excessive for tourists to choose not to come to the US "just because of a mistake at the border". I'm trying to say that from the outside, the US is behaving at least like a big bully, sometimes like an enemy. You don't go on vacation in a country that threatens to attack you militarily.

[badgersnake]

There’s no reason to lock tourists up. If you don’t want them put them on the first flight back. Locking people up is expensive and if they’re willing to leave anyway, totally pointless.

You would think that a country with a whole department devoted to government efficiency could work that out.

[ta1243]

10 nights in an ICE jail is very lucrative to the company that runs that jail. Can be funded by the taxes the poorest in America pay.

[exe34]

I'm surprised they don't require the victim or their family to pay to have them released. Make Piracy/Kidnapping Great Again.

[rqtwteye]

There are places where you get charged something like $60 for a day in prison.

[ornornor]

Aren’t a lot of jails private and for profit? Just bill the tourist for the stay and detain until they pay in full (accruing even more debt in the meantime). It makes perfect business sense which is all that seems to matter to the US nowadays.

[potato3732842]

>Aren’t a lot of jails private and for profit?

No, it's a small-ish minority of them. Most are government owned and run.

That said, there's a huge incentive to piss away money holding people so you can justify your budget and use poor conditions to justify increases in budget. And on top of that the contractors that supply government jails are pretty evil too.

So it's really a distinction without a difference at the end of the day, it's all a pretty rotten system.

[johnnyanmac]

ICE sure isn't. That is tax payer money at work, sadly.

But yes, there are incentives that do reward cells and even individuals for number of imprisonments. And no, they do not check nor punish "administrative errors".

[sillywalk]

> ICE sure isn't. That is tax payer money at work, sadly.

Taxpayers are paying the private companies, but they're very much for profit.

About that:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/01/29/billi...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/03/private-prison-...

https://afsc.org/newsroom/ice-signs-massive-contract-profit-...

[account42]

There's no reason to lock criminals up. If you don't want them doing crimes send them home. Locking people up is expensive and if they are willing to stop being bad, totally pointless.

Or maybe in both cases the point is deterrence.

[johnnyanmac]

>There’s no reason to lock tourists up.

As has been a rising sentiment as of late: "The cruelty is the point"

You're right that it isn't efficient in any sense. But the kinds of people who go into and are chosen for "law enforcement" tend to be the very people that should never be given a weapon. It's just a large scale Stanford Experiment in that regard.

[shmel]

Do their opinions matter at all? If you do get locked up, will you find this information helpful?

[ajross]

> ~half the country doesn't think ICE should be locking up tourists without good reason and the other ~half doesn't think ICE should be locking up anyone

That is not remotely a good faith representation of the controversy.

[pearlsontheroad]

I've lived my entire adult life in the USA (international student -> non-immigrant temp worker -> resident -> citizen). People are delusional if they think the USA is split in half about immigration. The anti-immigrant sentiment among whites, blacks and some naturalized immigrants (like Cubans in FL) is truly the only thing that crosses political boundaries here.

[shadowgovt]

For everyone outside the US, the fact that half the country doesn't think ICE should be locking up tourists without good reason is irrelevant since that half isn't barricading detention centers and tearing prison gates open with their cars.

... not that these things would make it safer to travel to the US. In the short run.

The status quo of power is that it is less safe to be a foreigner in the US than it has been in a long time. Possibly at any point in time the US wasn't actively at war with another nation.

[pjmlp]

MSNBC, CNN, folks on instagram and YouTube, currently there is still quite a few sources free of dictorship style media.

Still wishing citzens manage to get control of the country back, before the administration adopts even stronger control mechanisms.

[jajko]

Nobody watches or cares about some CNN, that stuff, or Fox and your bipolar political stuff US very much internal US matter. We care about outwardish things, trump mood swings and so on.

[account42]

Then maybe Europeans should consume more alternative media instead of just state propaganda.

[Juliate]

More alternative like... Fox News which is officially (and self endorsed) an _entertainment_ channel?

As opposed to... a news organisation/channel?

[coliveira]

Feelings of Americans don't matter much in this equation. Most are delusional about what is happening in one way or another. People from other countries will not get even close to the US while there is a chance they will be jailed and sent to a lawless detention center for looking different.

[DeathArrow]

>People from other countries will not get even close to the US while there is a chance they will be jailed and sent to a lawless detention center for looking different.

I am from Europe. I don't think I look different than an American.

[ulfw]

What are you trying to argue though? I am a bit at a loss to follow. Be so kind and explain.

You want foreign readers to read news about how half of the US wants you, the foreign tourist, be locked up in a jail cell? The news is already out there. Everyone assumes it's so wanted, because well... it does actually happen

[potato3732842]

I'm not arguing anything. I'm agreeing. Why do I have to be arguing?

"ICE goes crazy looking for crimes, hapless tourists caught up in the boondoggle"

and

"ICE detaining tourists for no good reason"

Are both 100% true ways to headline the same events. Which framing is Europe getting?

This is something to watch out for on all issues, not just immigration/foreign affairs.

[bondarchuk]

But what does it matter? "Hapless tourists caught up in the boondoggle" is just as bad (and maybe worse) from the POV of said tourists.

If you're worried, though, that "ICE goes crazy" is an underrepresented perspective in the rest of the world, I can reassure you on that count...

[ulfw]

As a potential tourist to the US of A I could not possibly care less if I am detained due to a boondoggle or for no good reason. Both make me not want to ever go there again.

So ...?

[footy]

both framings are equally bad for the potential tourist.

[soco]

Let's face it, this is the "regular" newsflash we are getting everywhere: one part world catastrophes and one part local news. Or almost. And as the US is a big player in the world, or used to be at least, most eyes are on your catastrophes.

[sofixa]

> Americans generally don't understand the degree to which the rest of the world gets the CNN 5min recap of what's going on in the US, and it's very much the CNN recap and not the Fox one.

No, Americans generally don't understand that the rest of the world, and the rest of the world's news, genuinely don't see things in this dual "us vs them", "CNN vs Fox", "Democrats vs Republicans" lens.

When Trump does shit, media from around the world say what he did and why it's bad.

When Biden or Obama before him did shit, media from around the world say what he did and why it's bad.

Fox are genuinely deranged hypocrites who themselves claimed in court that nobody sane would believe them. Very few of the world's media reflect their point of views, because they are absurd. CNN is all over the place, so sometimes their point of view matches with e.g. BBC or Guardian or Süddeutsche Zeitung, sometimes it doesn't.

[Fauntleroy]

Suggesting that giving the rest of the world the "fox news viewpoint" would somehow improve foreigner's views or knowledge of America is spurious at best, and delusional at worst.

[ta1243]

The bigger debate I see is if it's worse for the US or worse for the rest of the world. The consensus is it's awful for everyone, apart from a few environmentalists that are looking forward to the reduce carbon emissions from a great depression.

I think the consensus is that if the rest of the world grows a spine it will emerge far stronger and the US a weaker state to before - akin to change the British Empire post ww2 compared with before, probably with the same glee they saw the British Empire falling.

[BLKNSLVR]

This is off topic, but I've actually found comfort in how it has galvanised Europe.

What worries me is which side the US (government, not people) would choose to support if EU states send troops to Ukraine's front lines, which would absolutely instigate a Russian response.

(Trump wouldn't like that the little EU states are messing with his negotiations for the shrinking and pillaging of Ukraine, and Trump is, if nothing else, vengeful).

[ta1243]

We'll see how quickly the rhetoric turns concrete.

Last time Europe tried to do something to reduce reliance on America in 2019, America threatened Europe with sanctions

https://www.dw.com/en/us-warns-eu-over-13-billion-defense-sp...

> The United States has decried "poison pills" embedded in proposed rules which could shut third country allies such as the United States out of European defense projects.

> US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland emphasized the point in a letter and warned of possible US sanctions: "I hope we can avoid contemplating similar courses of action," he said. The EU has been asked to respond to the letter by June 10.

This is of course despite the fact most EU defence spending has always gone straight into the US economy.

> "The EU is actually at the moment much more open than the US procurement market is for the European Union companies and equipment," Mogherini said in Brussels. "In the EU there is no 'buy European' act and around 81% of international contracts go to the US firms in Europe today."

[jajko]

A defining pillar of a society is either a very strong common goal or enemy. US supplanted both, so yeah actually thank you for that.

My 2 cents - wanted to take family on a trip to western US, parks and maybe SF, not in fucking hell now or in next 2 decades. I know its just some tiny drop in the bucket, but that ~10k spent locally in those few weeks will be spent elsewhere and if enough people will do the same (which they will do), tourism will suffer a bit. Maybe US folks will go there more, who knows (US tourists are still very welcome in Europe, we just hate the people you vote in because they clearly hate us).

[CapricornNoble]

>What worries me is which side the US (government, not people) would choose to support if EU states send troops to Ukraine's front lines, which would absolutely instigate a Russian response.

Even the Biden administration was going out of its way to not push Russia too far. None of The Powers That Be in the US are interested in stumbling into WW3 with Russia, over Ukraine. Stumbling into WW3 with China, over Taiwan? Maybe. So I'd say Europe should approach such a decision from the assumption that you will receive no support from the US if you go down that road. If Europe wants to send its men to the killing fields of the Ostfront, it's on its own.

Assuming Europe, collectively, can even change the balance of power on the ground is also a stretch. Even some of the larger established militaries in Europe don't have the bodies to move the needle in this fight. The British Army, for example, has woefully understrength infantry battalions and is struggling with enlistment.[1][2] France claims they can put a division into the field [3] but I doubt that, probably more like a reinforced brigade (~5,000). I really don't get the impression European civil society is ready for hundreds or thousands of bodies to start coming back home either, but I could be wrong on that.

Meanwhile Russia inducted ~440,000 men last year, beating recruiting goals courtesy of MASSIVE cash enlistment bonuses, and still expects to grow their end strength this year as well.[4]

[1] https://x.com/Mrgunsngear/status/1908330593005322480

[2] https://www.euronews.com/2025/02/27/can-the-british-military...

[3] https://www.ausa.org/articles/french-army-transforms-close-c...

[4] https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-beating-military-recr...

[DeathArrow]

>Assuming Europe, collectively, can even change the balance of power on the ground is also a stretch.

They don't have a meaningful military but they have very big mouths. I don't think they are so stupid to enter a war they will surely lose.

[threeseed]

> whilst internationally it's almost entirely "this is catastrophic change"

Of course it is. Because the chance of a global recession is about 50% now.

Which means millions of people are going to lose their jobs, businesses will collapse, governments will go into deficit and cut services and there will be needless suffering only a few years after COVID.

[pjc50]

I think the recession is already happening, if you look at the markets. The US has suddenly imposed huge sanctions on itself.

[verelo]

Something i like doing from time to time is picking a foreign movie, ie Russian (you know, the standard bad guys) and just pretend it’s a US based movie. Or the reverse, watch something based in the US and turn on Russian dubbing.

It’s funny how quickly you realize the bad guys are both sides.

I say this because often when trying to interpret media i feel the language and accent of the presenter influences me. “They sound like me” therefore i start with an assumption they think like me. Rarely anyone in fox thinks like me.

[pjc50]

Odd media literacy take? Yes of course the propaganda is supposed to influence you, and of course if you're actually trying to analyse media you shouldn't let it.

(I retrospectively put the high point of recent West-China relations some time around the release of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_at_Lake_Changjin , which is an obvious propaganda war film with Americans on the "enemy" side .. that was shown in Western cinemas. Certainly in the UK, I think in America as well. Very odd. BTW, MOSFILM is on Youtube if you need some classic Russian cinema)

[Arubis]

Your family member has reason to feel that way.

They're in a bubble.

Bubbles are great till they pop.

[elric]

Anecdotally: a couple of years after 9/11, when I was a student, some of my friends who travelled to the US mysteriously disappeared for a few days. Turns out someone in the friend group had done some hackery type things (I won't go into more details to preserve their anonymity), and they were basically "detained" and interrogated for several days without being able to notify anyone, including any potential lawyers (not that students have lawyers on speed dial, but whatever). The culprit wasn't even among the people who were detained. No arrests were ever made. Just some good old scare tactics against teenagers.

Basically: behaviour at US borders has been iffy for a lot longer than some folks might think.

[p_l]

Yeah, recent news are essentially raising this from "crossing US border is dangerous, prepare yourself" to "US border guards got a quota of terror to inflict, do you really want to gamble?"

[jmull]

I don't know if you intend this, but you're implying nothing's changed but our awareness. However, there has been a significant change.

[pc86]

I'd like to provide a counterargument that it's not "iffy" to detain and question people who you're not sure sure should be allowed into the country at a point of entry, and that basically every country on the planet does it.

Non-citizens at US points of entry have very limited constitutional protection. SCOTUS has consistently held that the federal government has broad authority over immigration and border control. Basically nobody has a 1st or 2nd amendment protection at a border crossing, and non-citizens have further-restricted 4th and 5th amendment protections among others.

Border agents do not need any level of suspicion or probably cause to search your person or your effects. Failing to answer questions can result in entry being denied. US v. Ramsey held that everyone, citizen or not, has no inherent right to enter the US at a particular point of entry on a particular date and time and that basically any search is "reasonable" due to national security and law enforcement needs. That ruling was half a century ago.

Shaughnessy v. US ex rel. Mezei (1953) held that even a lawful resident who is re-entering the country after an absence can be denied re-entry without a hearing as long as that denial is lawful. Mezei lived in the US as a lawful immigrant from 1923 to 1948 then went back to Hungary for just over a year and a half. A 1924 law classified him as an "excludable alien" when he returned in 1950 he was permanently barred from re-entry. This was before LPR status was codified so I imagine there is more relevant case law to that classification specifically.

SCOTUS has consistently held multiple distinctions between citizens and non-citizens at the border: Citizens have an absolute right to enter the country, non-citizens (including LPRs) do not. Everyone loses most 4A protections at points of entry, but citizens have a reasonableness bar that non-citizens do not (US v. Montoya de Hernandez 1985, US v. Flores-Montano 2004). Citizens still enjoy due process while non-citizens do not (Shaughnessy again, Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding 1953). Citizenship ensures someone is not in a legal limbo status of being detained unreasonably or indefinitely (Boumediene v. Bush 2008), a non-citizen denied entry without the means to leave is basically stuck there. Citizens are presumed able to enter the country and have faster processing, all non-citizens including LPRs must prove admissibility every time.

So there's a century (or more) of case law supporting what some might call extreme power on the part of the federal government to deny non-citizens entry at any port of entry, for any or no reason. But what it boils down to is whether there are any countries in the world that don't have this policy? There is no country in the world where as a non-citizen I enjoy the same rights and legal recourse as a citizen if I am denied entry, and no country where it is not on me to affirmatively prove to the border agent(s) that I am legally permitted entry. It is always a privilege to enter a country other than your own.

Edit: At the risk of breaking guidelines and making for boring reading, I have to question the odds of someone being able to read this comment in ~30 seconds, process the argument, and decide its worth a downvote vs. "oh I don't like this first sentence."

[tremon]

It's probably more like "your first sentence doesn't address the GP's situation at all, so the rest of the post is just gonna be grandstanding without foundation". Which happens to be a correct assessment of your post.

Specifically, "disappeared for a few days" is not at all what basically every country on the planet does.

[pc86]

I'm very clearly responding to the oversimplifying final sentence and I cited several instances where non-citizens can indeed be held for days without violating US laws.

The GP frames this as the US doing something nobody else does, which is objectively false, and even if his specific example is an egregious violation of someone's rights I'm sure if we looked through the last 25 years of immigration detentions for other countries we could pick out something equally upsetting from each one.

[detaro]

Most of your comment is spent arguing about "can question and deny entry", which is missing the point by a mile.

Also, things can be legal and iffy at the same time (indeed, such wide-ranging powers basically invite that, since they give wide latitude to go overboard in cases that do not deserve it).

[jeffbee]

"Some of my friends, who are criminals, were questioned by border police" is not what we are discussing.

[elric]

That is very much not what I said. Additionally: some of recent people who've been detained are "criminals" as well, a missing document, a tattoo-gun there on a tourist visum, etc. Doesn't make it right to treat them like utter garbage or to make their rights disappear.

[pc86]

Everyone's rights are severely curtailed at border crossings.

[drooopy]

Flying from the EU to the US isn’t cheap, and the thought of potentially being denied entry (or worse) makes me think it's best not to visit again for another four years.

[s_dev]

Ireland or at least Dublin Airport is unique in that it has 'US Preclearance' so when you land you simply pick up your bags at the carousel and leave the airport as you've passed US immigration based in Dublin Airport.

This means if you're going to be denied entry it will probably be in Dublin which will make it a preferred airport of origin within the EU -- this is massively more convenient than getting stuck in JFK.

[tremon]

The most high-profile cases weren't about people/tourists being denied entry. They were about people being detained on their exit from the US.

[DeathArrow]

How can US border police work in a foreign country where they don't have a jurisdiction?

[lolc]

What jurisdiction extends where depends entirely on the agreements some diplomats must have worked out. When I travel between France and England for example the paper checks are at the point of departure and there are no more checks on arrival.

[stevage]

Yep. Last time I went to the US I made a mistake with my visa and was briefly detained. it could totally happen to me again, so I'd need a really good reason to run that risk again.

[bananalychee]

"Detained" as in sent to secondary inspection, or actually arrested?

[ikanreed]

So... immigration services in the US don't use criminal language when discussing how they handle people accused of immigration offenses, because there's a whole legal structure to pretending it's a civil infraction and thus you don't have any rights related to say... trial by jury or the state proving your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

But. The mechanical processes can include indefinite detention in facilities that look and function exactly like jails.

So... what you CALL it is almost certainly something different than what it is.

[stevage]

They used the term detained, but "secondary inspection" would also describe it. I was there maybe 40 minutes.

[bananalychee]

I've been in secondary, but didn't have it described to me that way. I would not call it detainment without clarifying it because I associate that word with incarceration, but I am also reluctant to travel knowing the odds of that happening again are up.

[stevage]

They were quite clear that I wasn't allowed to leave and I wasn't allowed to use my phone. I'm not sure where a debate about semantics would have gotten me.

[the_svd_doctor]

Aren't all immigration "arrests" all "detentions", technically speaking (not that it makes any difference in reality - you're behind bars)? Aren't ICE prisons called "detention centers"?

[Arubis]

There's a pretty sizable proportion of USians that have a hard time accepting that other countries exist.

For what it's worth, we're also starting to have similar (though so far less pronounced) reactions to domestic travel. There's a number of states that are unsafe to travel to if you or someone in your family has a gender identity that's not on the approved list--and that has an outsize effect. I won't go to those places since they don't deserve my tax dollars, and am just jumping on a bandwagon of plenty of other people in making that decision.

[danmaz74]

I'm Italian, my wife is Russian and my sister lives with her family in California. I've always been pretty vocal online about my dislike for Putin, and since the war in Ukraine started, I became very worried about visiting Russia, just in case they needed some random Italian guy to extort concessions from the Italian government. So, I stopped going (we were planning a family trip right in the Summer of 2022).

For this Summer we wanted to visit my sister, so we bought tickets last December. I've always been pretty vocal about my dislike for Trump too. Well, for the first time, I'm worried that, when traveling to the US, some overzealous TSA agent could ask me to get access to my social media accounts, and that I could be refused entry, or even get sent to one of those wonderful privately owned jails; you know, for lèse-majesté. I reckon that the risk is too little to warrant us canceling our trip, but honestly, if I didn't have my tickets already, I would probably not have bought them now.

This is the craziest timeline.

[BLKNSLVR]

I literally do not have any social media accounts (does HN count?), and I'm concerned that would immediately mark me as a suspicious individual (although I can eloquently justify this to the nth degree if required).

Having said that, weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of scrubbing your social media accounts to minimise that particular concern?

I don't have any, so I don't know what I'd be losing, but I can say that I feel sorry for some family members of mine who have been sucked in to the social media dopamine addiction farm. They'd be better off without it and having more time to be their own selves and live their own lives rather than other people's.

/rant (sorry)

[account42]

I have always only listed GitHub as my "social media" for ESTA since I don't use any of the other options. It has never been a problem, including with the current administration.

[XorNot]

Strikes me there's a new AI service in there: aged social media accounts. Run by bots for at least 2 years and available for purchase to give you a plausible looking online footprint when needed.

(A similar service exists for Cayman Island holding companies IIRC)

[danmaz74]

Fact is, I don't want to self-censor. But thank you for your suggestion.

[DeathArrow]

>I've always been pretty vocal about my dislike for Trump too. Well, for the first time, I'm worried that, when traveling to the US, some overzealous TSA agent could ask me to get access to my social media accounts, and that I could be refused entry, or even get sent to one of those wonderful privately owned jails;

I've been a vocal Trump supporter on social media. By this measure they should give me a green card if I'll ever plan to visit US.

[dr__mario]

> I am not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is.

I've turned down a 7-day-all paid-trip my company was offering me to San Francisco for this (and I had in the past a bad experience at Puerto Rico's border).

[threeseed]

It's not even about being locked up in an ICE jail.

In Australia, we just had someone [1] who was detained for 8 hours with their phone/laptop searched all because they stopped over in Hong Kong rather than flying direct to the US.

It's that kind of irrational, unpredictable behaviour that makes travellers stay away and instead choose from one of the hundreds of other desirable travel destinations who want you to visit.

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/an-australian-w...

[moolcool]

In the case of Canada I think it has more to do with the tariffs, and the open hostility to our sovereignty.

[xfalcox]

I just got an invite to Google I/O, which I've always dreamed of attending, but as someone from South America I'm having nightmares about ICE.

It's just a 4 days trip, but I have an entire family that needs me to come back and not sent for a decade to a random overseas prison.

[nkozyra]

> Americans do not understand how much press there is outside the US about tourists from Ireland / Germany / Canada getting locked up in ICE jails for weeks on end.

We read about it, too. It just seems absolutely nobody close to power is willing to do anything to even tap the brakes.

[duxup]

Just the trade stuff, Trump's childish threats to allies. All seem baseless and arbitrary.

Trump can't even keep track of who started the war in Ukraine...

People don't realize how much good will is being toss aside.

[mcv]

The fact that Trump is nuts and possibly serving Putin by destroying the West is one thing, but the fact that so many people seem fine with it, corporations and institutions eager to do his bidding, Republicans all voting along with things they used to strongly oppose, that's really an eye opener.

[DeathArrow]

Maybe for many people the democrats were worse and they are happy things are back to what they consider normal.

[mcv]

Not many, it seems. Also, not exactly normal.

[account42]

More normal than what was going on under Biden.

[mbfg]

We realize, just nothing we can do about it.

[BLKNSLVR]

All of it.

All of it is being tossed aside.

[debian3]

If you are from Canada, get Nexus. Much less trouble crossing in USA. Small fee to pay for the peace of mind and the process to cross is so much faster.

[mikepurvis]

Well yes, that would be a thing to do if this was only about personal safety (and one was only worried about the border and not getting vanned on some random street corner).

At this point it's also about standing with our countrymen and spending our tourist dollars at home.

[littlecranky67]

> Americans do not understand how much press there is outside the US about tourists from Ireland / Germany / Canada getting locked up in ICE jails for weeks on end.

And they shouldn't. As far as I know, those cases of German getting locked up media coverage was intense, but the stories didn't check out. Those were cases of Germans entering by foot via Tijuana, making condracting claims to the ICE officer - raising suspicions with those officers. In case of entering the US by plane, I haven't seen and credible articles that resulted in detention.

[realityking]

Fabian Schmidt holds a green card and was detained at Boston Logan airport and held for over two weeks: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna196714

(It’s not clear to me if he has been released. The last media reports are from two weeks ago)

[littlecranky67]

He failed to show up to a hearing about his green card. Not saying his treatment is warranted, but all those cases had at least some kind of merrit where an ICE agent might become suspicious. It is not as random tourists getting detained.

"Schmidt’s green card was allegedly tagged for him failing to attend a hearing because the invitation was sent to his old address, according to the family’s fundraiser to cover Schmidt’s legal costs and loss of earnings.

“To compound this error, he had just recently been provided with a new replacement Green Card since he had lost the original one,” the fundraising page says. “Even then U.S. Immigration failed to let him know that there was an outstanding hearing which he had missed and that his card would be tagged.”"

Source: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/03/21/family-of-...

[realityking]

Good context. But mistakes happen but the response seems widely out of proportion.

A system that demands absolute perfection from me is still not one I’d want to encounter.

[detourdog]

I think foreigners might not realize how freaked out some Americans are.

They appear to be testing the boundaries by going after easy targets.

[yodsanklai]

I don't think this is the main reason. US show hostility to the rest of the world, talking about annexing other countries or trying to ruin their economy. I know Trump doesn't represent all USers, but still, I much rather spend my tourist money somewhere else.

[bchasknga]

Just like a lot of Americans (including the left) that I personally know who still think "51st state" is a light-hearted joke or "Trump doesn't mean it" or they don't think it's a serious threat.

They don't know or don't think canadians takes this seriously and it's not fucking funny.

[johnnyanmac]

I'm not surprised at all. That's North Korea/Russia levels of terror and it's honestly sickening that Trump can just go on TV and say "yeah it's a good deal I'm glad we're working with El Salvador".It's maddening the admin can admit a "mistake" but then fight with a judge that they can't be ordered to fix a blatant obsruction of the constitution they loved waving around the year prior

I wouldn't take any risks either.

[DeathArrow]

>

[DeathArrow]

> I an not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is.

Why would someone end up in a jail if he doesn't break any law?

[gitfan86]

This is the nature of social media. If you see 10 examples of something happening in another country there is a good chance you will alter your behavior.

The reverse scenario is happening too. There are americans that refuse to go to europe because of the examples they seen of immigrants committing crimes and ruining neighborhoods.

As someone who spends a lot of time on both locations, I know that both scenarios are rare, and can logically overcome the emotional response after seeing examples online. But for people who don't travel much I understand.

[piva00]

I travel quite a bit, and there are only 2 places on Earth where I was close to a shooting happening in real time: São Paulo, Brazil, and Oakland, California.

As much as the scenarios can be rare, there is an undeniable sense of everything hanging by a thin thread when traveling around the USA, which I've only experienced in Latin American countries in all my trips.

Giving that I'm originally from Brazil even though with Swedish citizenship, I won't be traveling to the USA anytime in the near future. I have no idea what could happen, might be a completely rare occurrence to be profiled at the border, jailed for no cause, etc., but there's nothing in the USA worth enough to make me even more paranoid at crossing its borders. It's more like the straw that finally broke the camel's back, it's been brewing for a while, I've been stopped by CBP for holding both a B-1/B-2 visa on my Brazilian passport as well as an ESTA on my Swedish one, I do not want the potential issues that another interrogation by CBP at present times could create, like being sent to some jail for 20 days instead of just being refused entry and put on a plane to get back to the EU.

[drstewart]

I travel even more than you and only got robbed twice in 40 years on earth: in Johannesburg, South Africa and Stockholm, Sweden.

You can claim it's rare, but it happened on 100% of my trips to Sweden. Therefore, I will never travel back to Sweden. It's just not worth it and I have no idea what could happen (stabbing? murder?). Nothing in Sweden is worth the absolute fear this country provokes.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> I travel even more than you

How do you know? It doesn't look like OP specified how much they've traveled.

> I only got robbed twice...in Johannesburg, South Africa and Stockholm, Sweden...it happened on 100% of my trips to Sweden

That sucks, I'm sorry that happened. It sounds like it happened once, and so that "100%" is just one trip by one person? Unfortunately, that result is within the realm of randomness, though I'd understand if, to you, it felt bigger than that.

That said, I don't think it compares to arbitrary (or worse, politically- and personally-motivated) government detainment (or otherwise harming) of innocent people.

[piva00]

Please don't come here, it's definitely dangerous and you shouldn't ever step foot here again to avoid any danger to your life, it's a hellhole that no one like you should ever attempt to visit :)

It's not rare, it will happen to you. Do not come.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> This is the nature of social media. If you see 10 examples of something happening in another country there is a good chance you will alter your behavior

That's actually the nature of bayesian probability: if something is happening a higher proportion of the time vs. before, it's more likely to happen now vs. before. If that something is bad, that means higher risk. It's expected that a rational actor would act to minimize risk to them.

> As someone who spends a lot of time on both locations, I know that both scenarios are rare

Precisely how rare is it, over the last couple months, for US immigration officials to detain someone (perhaps "for further questioning", perhaps to a prison) who hasn't violated any laws? Claiming "it's rare" isn't very useful. Remember, the expected probability is ~0.