Other countries with updated warnings and asking people to double check paperwork, valid visa might not work, etc.: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland and China. And I probably missed several.
to be fair though, that says it’s for increased risk of terrorism
they also list the detention and strict entry requirement stuff along with gun crime and violence etc (same as aus), but doesn’t look like the actual advisory is for that (although it really really should be)
My mom is flying back to America tomorrow. I guess I'm about to find out how cool she is on Facebook whether I like it or not. And I tried so hard not to know...
My wife's grandma passed away in her homeland and she can't even attend the funeral over this shit. She's got a green card and doesn't even have socials, but these assholes have ruined travel.
Except prices, interesting side effect when demand is so low, it's cheaper than it's been in a decade during peak season. Still don't recommend, but thought it a funny but sad observation.
Be advised: going through this is a high-stakes form of bullying, plain and simple.
This is about exercising a power dynamic, with the thin-veil of legitimacy that security operations provide. Your suffering is how the very worst get their rocks off.
Do exercise a strong self-defense and be prepared for these scenarios.
Do be prepared for retaliation when your preparedness suddenly makes an agent's job hard.
Do have a contingency plan that involves action by outsiders.
Don't rely on the ability to exercise your autonomy when in captivity; they will make sure that's rendered moot.
As a law abiding citizen, I honestly wouldn't know what to do in this situation. I would probably provide whatever was asked and have my rights exploited by the customs officer.
Guess I should look this up before traveling abroad again.
So far, how many people have been held up by ICE? What's the percentage? it would be hilarious if they were having more issues entering USA than China or NK
I WOULD say "call the police and report him missing" as this is absolutely the scenario for it, but.... well, that ain't actually gonna help for shit, is it?
That is what she should've done as soon as he wasn't answering for an extended period of time. I'm not victim blaming, I'm just making sure everyone understands how important time is on missing persons. People get abducted at airports. It happens. There has been a lot of propaganda over the last few years (moreso back in 2020) about how we need to save our children that really over dramatized a lot of aspects of human trafficking, but it is still a very real thing that does happen and it does happen at airports as well. But even if it that wasn't the concern, when someone is missing report them as missing.
In the Netherlands someone can only go missing if there has been no contact for 24h or there is a sign/some evidence of something bad happening. Police could easily say "well, maybe his phone died, try again tomorrow" but I don't if the protocol is similar in the US.
It is my promise that if I every have standing to sue for violation of my constitutional rights, any agents of law enforcement or the government involved will be married to my case for years. I will not let it go. I will not settle. I will be a fucking problem. You'll think of my name when you're lying in bed at night. If you're reading this right now on my phone that you confiscated for no justifiable legal cause, you've been warned.
"Ohhhhhh, you actually believed all that freedom crap? Lol. Lmao. We've got about three thousand asterisks and terms and conditions apply on every part of the bill of rights."
They've so thoroughly built in so many shitty little backdoors into the constitution that it's basically just a joke that only rich people are in on at this point.
And unfortunately I might be in the same boat soon. I'm planning to visit family outside the country, and for the return flight I'm gonna be taking an old phone that I've cleaned of anything remotely useful for them as an excuse for their fascist bullshit. But I've left all the mundane bullshit that would be on a normal phone, text messages from siblings saying "food", cat pictures, random games, etc. So it won't look like a burner phone for the most part. So I can just give them the phone if they ask and it won't matter.
But I still need access to my shit, so I've set up my desktop at home for ssh with termux. I can see them using this an excuse as well, but it's probably the best I can get it without giving them potentially direct access to my password vault, messages, etc. I'm still debating if it is worth trying to remember my IP and port so there's even less for them to see.
If anybody's got better suggestions I'm open to them.
Is generating a long password that you can't remember and set it as a password for your device then save it inside some cloud service that you can login to later plausible?
And this is why standard practice now should be to have all devices turned completely off with all FaceID/ fingerprint unlocking features turned off before you enter any US customs hall. They cannot compel you to tell them your password, but they can use faceID to open your phone.
Also, after being detained, you only know one word and that word is “lawyer.”
Yup. They can detain you, take your phone, and just break into it. At best you leave without your electronics. At worst you don't get to leave. At extra worst, you leave to El Salvador.
See, for example, this case from Louisiana where the defendant said, "Why don't you just give me a lawyer, dawg," and the state Supreme Court found this to be an ambiguous request as there is no such thing as a "lawyer dog."
Its nothing new tbh. C.K Chesterton is quoted about his entry into the US:
I have stood on the other side of Jordan, in the land ruled by a rude Arab chief, where the police looked so like brigands that one wondered what the brigands looked like. But they did not ask me whether I had come to subvert the power of the Shereef; and they did not exhibit the faintest curiosity about my personal views on the ethical basis of civil authority.