There is a considerable group of users outside of the U.S.A. that is very interested in learning and discussing about the current developments when it comes to this kind of treatment of foreigners in the U.S.A.
These kind of threads can be very problematic to moderate and require attention in regard the nature of the discussion. However, whether backpacker or high potential talent, this kind of information is very relevant, and I think it is imperative to bring this to public attention.
It has also come to my attention that these kind of threads get flagged very often on HN. Are you analysing/monitoring the groups of peope that are flagging these threads or whether the conditions for flagging are set to the right treshhold?
There have been a lot of these threads. Usually the bulk of the flags (as far I've seen from checking this) come from users who are tired of the repetition and don't feel like the stories are on topic for HN. With high-indignation, high-intensity hot topics, commenters mostly repeat their intensely held, pre-existing positions. That is already not the curious conversation this place is supposed to be for, and it has a large chance of degenerating into outright flamewar, which is against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
We sometimes turn off flags on these stories - you can find previous explanations about that at these links:
We turned off the flags on a couple major threads about this general topic over the last few days. At some point there has to be a limit, because otherwise the front page would consist of nothing but this, and similar, topics. That would turn HN into a current affairs site, which is not the mandate of this place.
If you (or anyone) will a look at the above links and take in the basic explanations, I'd be happy to answer any question that hasn't already been answered there.
There's a huge amount of moderation going on about repetitive LLM submissions. The fact that you're not seeing it is a separate issue.
HN's frontpage is a composite of the preferences of thousands (if not millions) of people. One consequence is that it doesn't match anyone's preferences precisely (including mine). No one ever feels like their favorite topics are sufficiently represented, and everyone always feels like their less-favorite topics are overrepresented.
If you think about this for a bit, it'll probably become clear that can't possibly be true and have the HN front page look they way it usually does. Beside the many mod comments that talk about other kinds of story moderation. But it's a rare case of a thing you can totally derive from first principles/minimal observation!
My strong suspicion is that mods generally either operate programmatically (that is, adjust site and other weights to favour or deprecate specific sources or stories, tweak flamewar detectors, voting-ring detectors, etc.), follow up on complaints emailed to them, and/or adjust member-based actions (voting, flags, vouches), etc.
That leverages their power far more than individually policing stories, though keeping an eye on the 30-odd stories which are on the front page at any time probably fits in somewhere as well.
I still don't understand your point, sorry. What is the thing I'm supposed to be making up? You said 'dang just unflags things'. This isn't accurate, that's all.
He has said so himself and there are plenty of articles that by your logic would have been flagged. You're the one with the burden of proof of a claim, not me.
I think you must have misunderstood something. You can email hn@ycombinator.com and make the case some article or another does not belong on the front page (not original source, a dupe, linkbait, offtopic, whatever). If you're right, that article will be downranked, sometimes right off the front page. People do this all the time. It's the inverse of emailing to make the case something is misflagged.
What is true is that almost all [flagged] and [flagged][dead] is from user flags. But that doesn't mean that the only story moderation by moderators is just unflagging.
This exact topic and topics like it will fill the front page and (at therisk of going against posting rules) will devolve into a more...standard/popular online forum.
There have been many posts on this exact topic, not flagged, which you could have found using the search function.
Dang cannot control who prompts a flag or not.
ANd lastly, c'mon. If you've been here for any length of time, this is exactly the last place this discussion should be happening., because we are all intelligent enough to know that this conversation is heaviliy biased from all sides. Look at the title.
@dang, thank you for not just preventng an ancho chamber of a certain ideal, but from preventing ALL echo chambers.
Anything perceived as negative towards the current US administration has been getting flagged on HN recently. Maybe bots? It's some kind of obvious campaign.
I would claim that these articles describe "some interesting new phenomenon" that is very relevant to a lot of us. I have colleagues right now cancelling their conference trips to the US either because under new rules they most probably cannot get a visa, or because they do not think it is worth the risk. I am pretty sure they are not the only ones in this kind of situation, and I am pretty sure that this kind of situation is quite relevant to the international audience of HN.
Similarly with the DOGE accessing federal servers there would have been no other community I trusted to understand the implications of physical access, the laws surrounding state data storage etc. "These discussions shouldn't be happening here" but where should they be happening? What other community has experience with Move fast and break stuff?
If politics is off-top why are some of the most popular and frequent topics things like: The CHIPS and Science Act, The SLS rocket, California Zoning Laws, Drug policy in the bay area, The Digital Markets Act in the EU?
It seems to me that 'politics' is just used as a euphemism for 'taboo' and there are many unspoken taboos about what is talked and not talked about here.
While it's true that these posts are political, our political climate is in a unique situation. You can no longer avoid politics, regardless of how much you hide. Even we, who are fairly wealthy techies, can no longer turn a blind eye.
Yes, it sucks that even the most mundane aspects of our lives are being fraught with political warfare. The current administration appears to have a desire to burn the world down.
I mean, look around you. Can we talk about EVs without being political? What about LLMs? What about the American tech industry? We used to be able to. It's no longer possible.
I would be overjoyed to go back to thinking about politics as much as I did in the 90s where you could go for ages with no negative changes in your life.
I enjoy discussing/debating politics, but tend to flag things that are framed in a fashion designed to elicit rage-bait rather than discussion, which very much includes this story. In particular I think the immigration question is really quite interesting to debate and discuss (from both sides even!), but this article and consequently this thread is predictably just people kind of spaz raging with minimal concern for facts, data, or broader questions. Low quality topics invariably turn stuff into /r/politics where hyperbole, emotionalism, and broad level misinformation replace any sort of meaningful discourse.
Like if you think about this issue for a minute, what exactly is it that you think should be done differently? People being detained and deporting for violating their visa is not new, but it's typically not covered in the media - it happens thousands times a day around the world everywhere. In fact this issue all started when Canada refused to allow entry to her because they suspected she wanted to illegally work, which led to her detainment and investigation in the US once Canada refused to accept her!
And if one is upset about the fact that she was cuffed then you're implicitly claiming officers should be able to treat people differently based upon their appearance or sex - oh boy the sexism/racism ragebait would be incoming in a heartbeat. So what is the issue that's even to be discussed?
Almost identical news today with a German 25 yo guy.
He came back from a side-trip to Mexico and was cuffed at the border from Mexico to US.
"The German government has responded with a warning to travelers to the USA in response to several Germans being placed in detention pending immigration upon entry in recent weeks."
Yep, the feds will interpret ANY sort of money, goods, services, or other as a form of compensation.
Same way amateur radio people can't take anything, even a can of soda, for radio operations. Or how private pilots can't get paid to take someone from 1 airport to the next. Or more recently, doing drone photography and selling said pictures.
Does it happen? Sure. But I've seen the feds come down hard on people, including citizens, for even a whiff of 'commercial' anything.
And well, I can't recommend anybody coming into the US, especially a non-native citizen. I wouldn't stay, but I don't have that latitude to move countries.
The point is obviously to terrorize people and create fear.
So the question is when will the US be sanctioned for this behavior?
If cannot happen legally then financially?
Are tourists really going to risk coming here because this is not the first story and it is only going to get worse.
Imagine by the Olympics in 2028 - are people REALLY willing to visit here and being subjected to this incredible risk?
Can't say "you'll be fine" because just any one encouter with law enforcement on a power-trip and you'll have no rights to how you are treated and how long you are disappeared.
They are building holding facilities at military bases all over the country and there will be motivation to fill them up.
There will be no lawyer access, no reporter access.
You'll just disappear until they decide what to do with you.
I predict strong Federal resistance to the Los Angeles Olympics taking place without individual incentives. The President making surprise appearances in dressing rooms for gender inspection, etc. Likewise, if the 2028 election is cancelled, I expect the only nations participating will be Russia and a newly-minted Gazan resort team.
He owns a massive resort/hotel near the Olympics and will want to fill that up and then bring himself to bill taxpayers millions for secret service, etc.
So the event will happen but I simply cannot believe I find myself hoping for a worldwide boycott, it's insanity.
But why would they cancel the election if they "know those vote counting computers" and no-one is going to stop them from putting on a pretend election like Russia does?
People can protest all they want, once they run out of migrants to fill the detention centers they will just move onto protesters since no-one could stop them the first time around.
they won't run out for a while. Not only are there a lot of immigrants in the US which they can arbitrary Label as illegal even if not, they are also already are trying to
- undo citizenship granted in the past, starting with people not born in the US, but there is clear intend to go further then that.
realistically speaking Hitler Germany had an Olympic after they discriminated against yew but before it genocide was publically known and a lot of countries still took part in it
it ended up being grate propaganda for Hitler Germany with a lot of drugged German athletes winning prices, and a lot of make pretend that things aren't as bad as they are
I can't say in which state the US will be by 2028, but if not too dissimilar from today I wouldn't expect things to end up very different.
Through in the current state dragging out until 2028 is ... not very likely. So we will see.
The checks and balance system has been compromised a little bit. Hope has dropped on congress to check the executive. SCOTUS should be checking next, but people believe they cannot be relied on because they are too conservative. Except CJ Roberts is now concerned about the executive branch assault on justice side. His stance is changing due to the need for C&B.
> There will be no lawyer access, no reporter access.
At least foreigners have their consulates/embassies and it's wise for every foreigner being in the US to have a daily check-in with someone who can contact the country of origin to raise alarm.
> The point is obviously to terrorize people and create fear.
This is a perfectly ambiguous point. On the one hand is the practice, which may or may not be novel. On the other is the story, which may or may not be clickbait intended as outrage-engagement.
You know those "gang members" that were kidnapped to Venezuela torture prison without any due process?
And everyone was "fine" with it because hey they said they were "gang members"
Guess what? It's already been discovered one of them is just a professional soccer player with no gang affiliations.
But he's still there in prison with shaved head and will never be seen again because there's no balance of power to stop it, courts are ignored daily.
That university protestor they disappeared? As soon as a New York court ruled he has to get a hearing, they moved him out of the district to the south.
Now remember this is only eight weeks into it and there are TWO HUNDREDS more to go and imagine that atrocity multiplying weekly.
First thing Hitler did when he was given power without their congress (parliament, Enabling Act) was remove the judges opposing him. Sound familiar?
> You know those "gang members" that were kidnapped to Venezuela torture prison without any due process?
Many are not "fine" with it and legal actions are proceeding. The form of the question is definitely an excellent example of outrage bait. And yes, the US definitely has some legal bangers left on the books that gives Gödel more credence. [0]
> Many are not "fine" with it and legal actions are proceeding.
Legal actions won't bring someone back from a Salvadorian gulag. If it were an US camp, a judge and his marshals could have traveled to the camp and demanded the release, but in El Salvador US judges don't have any legal authority. The best they can do is try to hold Trump himself or someone in the chain of command accountable by, say, arresting them - but that would yield an immediate constitutional crisis because there is no way anyone powerful enough doesn't also have Secret Service or other protection under their command.
That is the entire issue: there is no trust that this government will obey a court order any more. They have already shown that they do not give a shit about Congressional funding allotments so what makes you think the current administration will not do just the same with court rulings?
On the other hand there's the president, whose said he's going to go on a mass deportation spree and treating anyone he doesn't like as illegal, but yeah who knows if this is just business as usual!?
I use to read about the power border agents have over foreigners and was amazed at how easily they can destroy me. The only reason this hasn't happened seems to be that they're mostly decent, professional people. And now that's gone.
It's luck of the draw with those guys. The job attracts people with nationalistic/fascist mindsets and if you look a certain way you can expect to be treated worse than others.
I wouldn’t describe them as nationalistic or fascist. There’s no need to bring in any sort of political view… the problem is when little people get a little power. It can get ugly.
It’s the same people. There’s always been an element of luck.
I travel a lot and I’ve interacted with a lot of border agents. I’d say luck is important for a lot of countries. I’ve had great experiences flying in US, Egypt, UK and Turkey I’ve also had terrible experiences with US, and Iceland. Most other places have been somewhere in between.
I know a Canadian who was deported 3 weeks ago, got caught flying back and forth between SF and Vancouver. Same process, put in a holding cell, 17 hours later shackled and escorted to a air canada flight, DHS person waited at the front of the plane till the door was closed.
Not sure the Americans can be much more explicit these days, they want their processes followed and they're not tolerating skirting them, Canadian, British or anyone.
She flew into the states (I'm not sure what city she originated from), got taken into inspection, they pulled up her in and out records and asked why she had been going in and out once a month, who she was visiting, who her fiends are etc, and then presented her with her linkedin profile, said she is going down to the American company to work, and then deported her, she was given zero opportunity to provide explanation etc.
I'd expect the same treatment in any other country. If you break the law and get deported, they are not going to let you walk around freely anymore. Maybe she expected special treatment?
It's an obvious and egregious overreaction to the lack of enforcement we've seen here for decades now. The pendulum has certainly swung. Ostensibly too far. Not sure why it all has to be so dramatic.
Would imagine most sensible people support enforcing immigration policy and would agree that this hasn't been done for a long time now but obviously "shackles" is ridiculous.
The status quo (including lack of enforcement) was good for the country for decades. We look the other way a little to get cheap or highly skilled labor, we get to maintain some soft power as the "land of opportunity", we collect a ton of tax money from people who won't won't nearly take out as much and we get a population who, on the whole, commits less crime than the average American.
Additionally, politicians get to draw some line in the sand to fight over, but do little about.
It has to be dramatic so the administration can scare people into submission and test the waters to see what they can get away. We are failing this test.
I take your point, because violations of the law and constitutional rights did happen then, too.
But I don't think the magnitude or key charactersistics are quite the same. Post-9/11, I mean you had to expect a freak-out. Marginal victory in a peaceful election... there's no external threat here that makes it make sense beyond "democratic country regresses toward fascism".
Perhaps because people can understand the difference between a pat-down and "fondling" and the role that it plays in maintaining physical security of literally every secure location on earth.
They're upset about this because, likewise, they understand the role that "hassle and detain people who disagree with Dear Leader" plays in literally every autocracy on earth.
Due process is what, government systematically searching everyone flying internally (often referring large cash for seizure by DEA etc) in the US without due process describing the alleged offense and the items being searched? Americans are frogs being cooked.
I guess I should be honored someone made a burner account just to reply these sorts of rebuttals to me while smily facing about terrorists on an article about someone who seems much closer to a benign backpacker.
I was chained by malicious CBP officers, and much worse, and not only that I am in debt for it. Maybe it influenced me. The very thought of this happening to benign tourists makes me upset. I don't think anyone should be in a good mood reading this.
and never stopped happening if you only look at the outlines
but the scale at which it happens, the wide use of dehumanizing language (e.g. calling foreigners "aliens") and the violence applied are novel for recent history (not new if you go back far enough in history, I mean the US has a lot of dark spots in history they mostly pretend never happened)
Odd, I thought this administration was all about free speech. I guess there will be additional ESTA questions soon asking whether you have ever criticized Trump or Big Tech.
I can't imagine why anyone would read this and think it's a good idea to come to the US for any reason in this current climate. There's nothing here worth seeing if it means you're going to be tortured for the opportunity.
This is how American immigration has always worked. I know others that experienced it under prior administrations. You have to ask why does the press only care about it now?
The change is that the detention is now privately run and its incentives are to keep you detained for as long as possible. If you go to the US, it's not just the tourist traps trying to make a buck off you. It's also the border protection.
> The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a business. These facilities are privately owned and run for profit.
> You have to ask why does the press only care about it now?
Does it matter? As someone who at points wanted to visit the US for various reasons, I've been watching the results with horror for decades at this point, how people are treated, so obviously it's a no-go country right now for large parts of the world population, even for tourism.
As you say, it's nothing new, and regardless of motives for publishing articles like this, I'm glad more people are finally realizing what could happen if your dumb enough to go there.
I think the press cares about it because each aspect of it is getting worse. People coming into the country no longer have due process and can't see lawyers now.
A "due process" does not guarantee a lawyer. In case of immigration violations, for example, the due process consists of detention and subsequent deportation.
The Due Process clause just states that the government has to follow the law when depriving you of freedom or property. If the law says that the process is to stuff you into a circus cannon and shoot you into the ocean then you are guaranteed that.
>A "due process" does not guarantee a lawyer. In case of immigration violations, for example, the due process consists of detention and subsequent deportation.
Who told you this information? Immigration violations are still supposed to be heard by a court and fair representation is required.
Multiple immigration lawyers. The fact that there is no judicial review and the CBP officer at the port of entry is empowered to deport you immediately and ban you from entry is quite important and I am sure you'd been advised just as well if you had hired a semi-decent immigration lawyer too.
You have to ask why does the press only care about it now?
First, why does the press coverage matter this much? If the press covered the stories of the people you know, would that make the heinous treatment they endured OK? Is detaining people for so long OK if each person affected gets a BBC article? Is leaving their family to guess why OK if the NYT publishes their photo? The current admin will do what they are doing regardless of the press coverage.
Additionally, why do you think the press only cares about it now? The press talked about the Biden era "kids in cages". The press talked about the Trump era family separation policy. The press called Obama "deporter in chief".
If you were honestly concerned about this, you wouldn't be going on about press coverage.
It’s even citizens leaving and returning internationally (though technically it can be domestically.) Most don’t understand that the 5th amendment doesn’t apply to the customs and border patrol; they can go through your phone and computer.
4th amendment ascribes that right to 'the people.'
Non immigrant aliens are not considered people as evidence by their lack of right to bear arms, the other right ascribed to 'the people.'. Courts have held for decades now that they are aliens not people, just not the ones in flying saucers.
Immigration enforcement isn't pretty anywhere, but also happens everywhere. For instance literally every single story of somebody being detained/deported from anywhere for working without a work permit is going to be a sad story because it's obviously somebody just trying to live a decent productive life, but ending up in jail and then deported (perhaps losing their belongings/pets/etc in the process) because they were born in a different country.
Trying to frame this as 'America only' is extremely disingenuous by the media. There will be numerically significantly more events in America because America is a relatively large country and previous lapses in immigration enforcement have created dumb situations like having some 435,000 illegal aliens with criminal records! [1] But there's nothing particularly exceptional. Rather it's just the media fishing for the worst of the worst, and trying to frame it as representative, like usual.
I've been detained in Morocco (while they had issues in the territory they consider "their" south), they've been nothing but polite. I had to wait a night in a cell, but i wasn't chained, i was fed surprisingly good food and they did send me back as soon as possible (my insurance paid for it i think).
The fact that tourists with Visa issues (mine was because of geopolitics and my father's place of birth rather than a bad visa) can and do stay more than a day in cells, with chains? I would expect that in Salvador or some SEA countries, not the US.
Absolutely and that's probably the average case. Now take the hundreds of thousands of other people that have run into issues, and take the 0.1% most extreme cases. This makes up essentially 100% of what you read in the media.
For instance this case actually started when Canada refused entry to her for fear she was attempting to work illegally. [1] The led to a suspension of her "visa waiver" (I assume a visa on arrival scheme) and a subsequent detainment/investigation on the US side which also determined she was working illegally and thus subject to detention and deportation. To say it's an unusual case is an understatement, but all you will read about in the media is unusual cases.
You mean those few hundred gang bangers that were brutal enough that even their home countries wouldn't accept them back?
It's a common issue in South America where criminal thugs from one country will cross into another, and then their host country will not take them back. I can't find reliable outcomes of what happens to these people in the media for some reason...
According to a new advisory our Foreign Ministry just published, ESTA and visa rules have been changed to mandate that the gender you enter be your assigned-at-birth one. If your current travel documents do not match that, well, tough luck, it's going to be a crapshoot whether you'll be let in.
America, you are in so much trouble. I care only so much, and have been trying, rather unsuccessfully, to not care.
However, it appears your President (both of them, the elected one, and the billionaire non-elected one) wants to directly interfere with our health care system and our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
We in Australia have a small population compared to yours. We have a fantastic (albeit imperfect) public health care system which we have, as a country, enthusiastically and democratically embraced.
Please, if you as a country do desire, by all means fuck up your own countrymen with a draconian private health care system which causes medical bankruptcy, but leave us the fuck alone.
We aren’t causing you any harm and we aren’t interfering with your democracy. We have enthusiastically helped you fight your wars and signed all sorts of friendly agreements. We aren’t net drug smugglers to the U.S.
By and large, we are as a nation watching America destroy itself and we want nothing to do with it. We aren’t even going to retaliate with corresponding tariffs.
Americans question our sometimes spotty privacy legislation. Quite right. But given your Executive Branch doesn’t believe in the rule of law anymore, you can’t even credibly criticise our more lax separation of powers (we are a Common Law country) as all of that has now gone out the window.
the systematic dehumanizing language the US has adopted recently is extremely worrisome
if you go through history nearly any case where a government did systematically adopt dehumanizing language ended up in a lot of violence and not seldom lynchings and/or genocide
Very gross and speaks to Trumpers actual classist motivations rather than his populist rhetoric.
She was traveling the US, getting free accommodations in exchange for house cleaning? Seemed she was here less than 90 days.
How is this different than 1000s of companies that fly employees over from UK on for a few weeks on 90 day ESTAs ?
"The ESTA allows only passive business activities (like attending meetings or conferences), and engaging in work could lead to visa revocation, deportation, and bans from future U.S. entry."
In practice no company actually complies with this. If you bring an SWE over from London for 2 weeks and they write any code they are in technical violation right..
This is standard behavior, nothing special to Trump. Interesting that you immediately think Trumpers, rather than that the government is always sadistic.
It'd be more accurate to say the state is a machine which operates according to procedural rules (laws, dictates, etc.) that aren't amoral in their construction.
This is part of the nature of states -- and any large social institutions which are governed in this manner. It's this proceduralisation of action which allows very large groups of people to operate together collectively -- the downside is "procedural sadism", if you wish to call it that.
If you think it's good, go ahead and just say it. Let's not play the Trumper parlour game of "sure he said it, but it didn't happen, ok maybe if it did happen it always happened.."
I worked with many dozens to 100s of consultants over 20 years whose employers had very loose interpretations of what was allowed under ESTAs. Some of them had re-entry issues, but no one ever ended up in prison or chains like this.
Do you know a lot of software engineers and white collar works this regularly happened to?
I know people that it happened to, white collar, from Germany. I don't know why you think I'm saying this is good, when I've called it sadistic. What's annoying is that people only care about it now because it helps them confirm their bias that Trump is evil. Sad.
Remarkable that it seems to be only white woman victims that reach HN's front page. Implicit cultural acknowledgement that brown men *belong* in cages, chained "like Hannibal Lecter", or whatever the hyperbole of the day is.
For every shocking depravity involving a European tourist, there's a thousand other human stories some media circles will never acknowledge. Read testimonies from people who aren't born into the right ethnicity. (If you want content warnings about suicide attempts, this one has three different methods).
There is also the (male) French professor's story who attempted to enter US for a conference and was sent back because they searched his phone and found some criticism to trump's policies, not sure how close to the frontpage it made it but it is currently flagged [0]. I think one problem is that there are too many stories on more or less the same topic, but each of them has a bit different angle.
It's not any political story -- the site is definitely biased against certain kinds of political stories.
People voraciously upvote and argue about California zoning laws or San Francisco drug policy here and the moderation staff encourages this. Or AI policies from the US federal government or the DMA from the EU. Or the SLS rocket.
'political' is just used as a euphemism for 'taboo' and there are many unspoken taboos about what is talked and not talked about here.
I think the most likely case is users are less likely to flag those stories. Or, they're less likely to generate discussion that causes those stories to get flagged.
When I use the term 'the site' I mean both the owners, moderators and users as a collective whole.
There's a sort of unspoken symbiosis going on between the users who consistently flag certain kinds of stories for ideological purposes and the owners/moderators who are content to let them do that.
Yeah, there's definitely inequality in reporting, Wikipedia has an article called Missing White Woman Syndrome that I think is exactly the phenomenon you're discussing.
> Missing white woman syndrome is a term used by some social scientists and media commentators to denote perceived disproportionate media coverage, especially on television, of missing-person cases toward white females as compared to males, or females of color. Supporters of the phenomenon posit that it encompasses supposed disproportionate media attention to females who are young, attractive, white, and upper middle class. Although the term was coined in the context of missing-person cases, it is sometimes used of coverage of other violent crimes. The phenomenon has been highlighted in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and other predominantly white countries, as well as South Africa.
Due to that, white women are the canary in the coal mine. If you hear about them being mistreated, it's that there are invisible crowds of people already mistreated you're not seeing.
It's true that this was happening already for less privileged people entering the US (esp non-white, muslim-looking immigrants from poorer, non-western countries), and def not just in the US. Nobody should actually think that the US now is doing sth nobody else did to anybody, and other western democracies are saints in how they have been treating these people. I guess this specific part is "news" because it shows that it is also happening -to an extent- to more privileged people now, which was less of a thing right now. It is not about a shock or whatever, but about learning a shift in certain policies that informs some people (closer to the audience of this site even) of how the current situation shifts in order to be able to make an informed risk assessment over a possibility of traveling to the US. This way, one can in a more informed way decide if traveling to the US right now is worth the whatever risks vs the desired outcome. I assume part of the whole ordeal is exactly about this in the first place, to discourage some groups(?) of people from attempting to enter the US.
I also assume that there is indeed some change in this situation wrt european visitors rather than more coverage, because germany actually updated their travel advisory on the US to inform about entering through a visa becoming more strict and uncertain [0]. So while I agree that there is a strong moral issue here wrt to how immigrants are treated, this does not mean that this piece of news does not warrant its own coverage.
Yet, even those stories were missing from mainstream media. We are at a turning point and even these stories selected with racial bias help us to understand Trumpler's bullshit smokescreen of "deporting only the violent" undocumented immigrants. This at this point is a rouge department largely staffed with the worst of the racist xenophobic misanthropes.
These stories of white English speaking women are of course also flagged off the home page. HN doesn't really want to know about any negative side effects from the current regime.
I think you're quite mistaking nationalism for racism -- the former the most widespread basis for tribal affiliation in the world. In my case, it's more that it's a UK citizen which raises my eyebrows.
While I feel some disappointment and regret over how people of other countries might be treated by US immigration, I feel no sense of "tribal injury" as I do here. In other words, my instinct to say, "how dare a person from my country be treated this way!" is not aroused when it isnt my country.
Skin colour is irrelevant, and I'dve very much the same reaction either way. As would the vast majority of people in the UK who, if racist, are towards people from south-east asia not south america (races for which we have no real experience).
It is quite common that people from one nation take issue with their nationals being mistreated --- the reason this is on the front page of HN is that it's an english-speaking country (this is an english site), a european one with some common cultural affiliation, and a reasonably powerful one (one whose voice on the matter has an outsized impact vs. population size, sauy).
Yep. I'm a white boy citizen and they've shackled and chained ( and strip searched) me before for funzies, no one gives a shit unless you're a well off European tourist or white lady. People think it's new, happened to me under Bidens administration.
This will hurt US tourism and economy (on top of tariffs) like crazy.
In the end Trump won't be seriously attacked by their opposite political, radicalized left-leaning men, but their own ones watching the economy collapse down.
Can confirm. My son wanted to visit Texas (and other places) for his 10th birthday present, we've told him we're not welcome there, and trying to explain the US political situation to a kind under 10 is not easy. But there is no way I would want to put our family in any kind of situation like this, basically at the whim of the border person we happen to get.
Does anyone actually believe this is the full story? It has one primary source: her parents.
It says clearly in the article that she violated the terms of her visa according to ICE. Her parents never mention what the violation was. The idea she was deported for doing some chores around the house is laughable.
They'll terrorize someone who does the chores typical of a houseguest (doing one's own bedding, taking part in the chore rotation), but they never seem to give this treatment to tech bro "digital nomads" who enter on tourist visas in impoverished countries like Thailand or Vietnam and do remote work in the exact same fields that could enrich the populace.
Nobody was going to do that housework except the household, wheras someone coding from a cafe in Bangkok is arguably absolutely stealing local jobs.
The "digital nomad" is typically employed, pays taxes etc in their home country. Locals don't have access to those jobs. They are accepted because they are economically just like tourists: they come and enjoy the ambience and spend their money, which comes from abroad.
How is me using my companies generous WFH rules and working from, say, Bangkok for a month a problem for Bangkok? How am I stealing a local job? What are you talking about?
I am living there for a month, paying taxes for lodging, food, transport...
If they'd crack down on digital nomads like me I simply will not come and they won't get any money from me. I don't need to be in Bangkok, if they decide to be hostile instead of friendly.
> How is me using my companies generous WFH rules and working from, say, Bangkok for a month a problem for Bangkok?
You price out locals from the housing market. The fact that you're not aware of this and you think that Thais should be eternally grateful for the generous gift of seeing your face proves how ignorant you are, Mr White Savior.
Thanks, I think people forget about the market distorting effects of people with a high wage taking an extended holiday, often staying in AirBnBs rather than licensed hotels/hostels and thus further distorting the rental market.
We need to create a type of visa that has some kind of court-enforceable rights attached to it. Currently there seems to be no middle ground between citizen-with-full-rights and foreign-scum-with-no-rights. Travel for legitimate business and tourism just isn’t worth the risk right now.
We do, that's what the 14th amendment is about. Republicans don't care about this though, and they don't care about the courts. The law is can't fix anything when the people breaking it are also in charge of enforcing it.
It's not even that. Under the US Constitution everyone, citizen or not, illegal or not, desirable or not, has at least 1st Amendment and Due Process rights.
To be clear, I don't mean "fuck you if you don't like it", I mean literally nobody should go to the USA (I'm a citizen) unless it's absolutely necessary.
I've been avoiding traveling to the US, and even doing stop-overs, at least since Trump first became president. You guys are a bit too enthusiastic about the whole police state / fascism thing, and have been ever since 9/11.
You're right to do so, but I think the urgency has changed. Since Bush and 9/11 we had some dubious, secret lists like the "no-fly list" — but we also had a bunch of other secret lists, too.
The difference is now you get a Customs agent named CatFart69 and it's all up to him.
That is hugely important, and differentiating, because until this current administration, the incompetence (or willful white supremacism / pro-wrestling hero-worship) was at least centralized. Now it is outsourced to the lowest common moron/incel functionary.
Which is a truly fundamental difference.
Do not come. If you truly must, take similar precautions as you would when visiting Iran or North Korea.
