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US / Canada immigration

ANOTHER European has been sent to a US detention centre because the border officials decided that she was trying to enter the USA illegally from Canada despite the fact this person was a UK citizen with the appropriate documents.

This poor young woman is trapped for almost two weeks in a detention centre, which is LONGER than her entire trip to North America.

If the US is treating the citizens of its allies like this, despite the fact that they have the right documents, then I would consider it a place unsafe for tourists at all. There is no reason to visit the USA if tourists on a tourist visa are being indefinitely detained on a whim.

The USA wants to be hostile to any person who is vaguely foreign in their territories, whatever they define that to be. If tourists are getting sent to camps, then you bet that the US is now hungry to lock up anyone they seem “wrong”.

re: US / Canada immigration
@lain @yassie_j I’m curious too

re: US / Canada immigration

@lain @arcana no problem. This month alone has had two other cases of Europeans being detained indefinitely without cause, so there is some kind of thing happening or whatevs

re: US / Canada immigration
@yassie_j @lain looks like it was the Canadians who originally caught her out on it and this interrogation is nothing new. I’d traveled to the US a bunch during the Biden years and the border control were extremely intense and the slightest thing that could be interpreted as work would lead to issues

Certainly the recent changes have likely emboldened the border agents in these matters but this kind of thing has happened over the years. My lawyer recently informed me of a British citizen client he had a year ago who got detained and deported in the US because he was a musician and took his banjo on the flight with him. They asked about it, he said he wanted to jam with some bluegrass musicians, and they interpreted that as work and he was detained.

This kind of thing has been happening for a while honestly

re: US / Canada immigration
@lain @yassie_j there’s a really horrible border agent in the Dublin preclearance who grilled me extremely intensely back in 2023

I almost had her again in January but she was so intense with the person in front of me that they got taken to the back room with her and I got moved to another line with a much nicer person

re: US / Canada immigration
@lain @yassie_j yeah that’s part of the reason I always go through Dublin, so once I’m on the plane I know it’s all done, and so if they do reject me, I’m a 30 minute flight from home and not stuck

Given realities about borders, crossing borders should be the thing you're most concerned about at all times ever, because at borders all bets are our the window and it doesn't matter who's in charge at the time.

It's been the case for at least 20 years that constitutional rights simply don't exist when you are crossing a border in the US. Obviously that's the case for Canada too since it's the same border.
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