Welcome to America, where we read your private mail, track all your movements online, shoot your dogs, abuse you at the borders, put antibiotics in your food, bankrupt you when you get sick, throw you in jail with hardened criminals if you smoke a spliff, and drone-execute you with no warrant if the president doesn't like you. Would you like fries with that?
I suspect soon enough (unless it's already a trend) Americans may be afraid to even speak of this in public as with mass surveillance you never know how and when your unfavorable words of the regime may affect you.
It is one of the bright spots of this: Americans are stubbornly stupid enough to be completely willing to damn the consequences.
(That is, in some respect, how we got into the social media surveillance state: brazen willingness to damn the consequences of oversharing, for quite superficial reasons.)
Ya, because the banksters are the ones invading my privacy. Last time I checked it was the current and previous president.
Meet the new boss same as the old boss.
While I agree that this person was probably treated very poorly, I also want to point out that they were traveling for work purposes.
In the United States, non-US citizens entering the country for work purposes are generally required to get a visa. There are a few (and very few at that) business exceptions to this process, as listed here: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html
He stated that he was: Trying to work several unpaid shows, he would receive meals and tips as compensation at one or more shows, and then he was going to write articles for Noisey (http://noisey.vice.com/) about it.
Bringing musical instruments with you (and admitting you are a musician - even if just as a 'hobby') on a supposed tourism visit and going to one or more cities where you did not have relatives or explicit non-business reasons to be there probably immediately triggered an investigation as to why he did not have a visa / whether he required a visa for his visit.
Yes - our border control system is horrible. I totally grant that. But this person was also explicitly not playing by the work visa rules either.
I don't have knowledge about the US border and visa requirements and procedures.
But even if he did made a mistake wouldn't it be easier to inform him before he enters the plane? And avoid interrogating him without letting him know what the problem was? The process he got ranks pretty high on the crazy paranoid side. I'm sure there are ways to solve the security and visa issues in a way that does not leave traumatic memories in every casual traveller that maybe or maybe not misunderstood the rules.
It's obvious that the border control knew what the problem was. Why not tell him the problem in a polite way? Or why is there no process that avoids that the person has to fly overseas in order to be scared and not allowed entry? I'm sure there are legitimate security related cases where such a behaviour would not catch a few illegal immigrants but all these stories read like they tuned their ROC curve to maximize the true positives and forget about false positives at all. It's the same idea behind the NSA spying an the no fly lists. A huge false positive rate no matter what the costs are.
Looks like this decisions are not the result reason and careful consideration but instead full paranoia mode. But it's easy to say that from the outside. We don't know.
No, if they suspect you of lying, then of course they're not going to coach you on what's allowed so you can say the right thing. That makes no sense.
Their overall reaction seems way out of proportion here, I agree. But the general tactic of questioning someone seems sorta like the entire point of having these agents in the first place.
Maybe I'm naive but I'd thought along the line that they could issue a warning that he needs a visa to enter and will unlikely be granted access without it. If he gives false information in the visa that process is probably the only option left - but in my opinion this still does not justify the treatment.
Perhaps I don't understand what you're proposing? What would they warn people? He had to go through ESTA and within 2 clicks from the US Embassy Germany's page on that, it says if you're being paid for performing you're not applicable.
But even if he did made a mistake wouldn't it be easier to inform him before he enters the plane?
Some airports in EU countries (eg Shannon in Ireland) have pre-clearance for passengers to the US at the departure end, ie you go through US passport control first and when you get on the plane it is legally a domestic US flight. This is unusual however, just as Americans typically deal with EU passport control at the EU end rather than before leaving the US.
If you want to avoid dealing with these problems in the airport, the solution is to apply for a visa from the US embassy before departure.
There is a big thing with US travel: ESTA, advanced passenger information, and the airline thing whose name I don't know (when you check in, they already ask nosy questions about your travel and your girlfriend). So they had a lot of opportunities to stop him before he got in the plane without putting up with the burden of a US visa. They chose to let him come knowing they would refuse him.
When you try to go to the US, you have to get in some kind of trap (there are those stupid questions which I guess are a framework to make you a liar to a federal agent if you get caught later), drop all your privacy (that was probably gone anyways with facebook and gmail), and they have ample means to close it on you without being an asshole.
I haven't looked at the ESTA thing in a long time, but from what I remember it does ask explicitly whether you plan to work in the US etc. etc. If you tell a border inspector that you're planning to play at a music festival then naturally he's going to assume you mean ot engage in commercial activity. It is up to the individual to read up on the requirements and exercise some basic common sense (ie customs/immigration officials tend to be pedantic bureaucrats wherever you go, so be circumspect).
Sorry, but I think you're projecting your biases here with comments like 'they chose to let him come, knowing they would refuse him.' My reading is that he probably answered 'no' to all the ESTA questions and then confused the CBP agent by giving contradictory answers to his questions. I'm European myself so I'm not carrying a particular torch for US border agents here.
I don't think this is true. He explained that we would write a travelogue (that would be published), explore the music scene, visit his aunt and play free shows (where he might receive tips).
The article you linked says: "participation by amateurs in musical, sports, or similar events or contests, if not being paid for participating"
It sounds like he would solidly qualify for that, considering it does not sound like these were shows contracted specifically for pay.
And even if, somehow they suspected that he was in violation of these rules, it does not justify their actions.
No, I don't believe so. This is just done as a courtesy, for the audience to show their appreciation. It isn't even barter because there isn't a deliberate plan to exchange a good for a service. I suppose he could preemptively say, "I plan not to accept any free food or tips," but what good would that do really?
If the customers were paying an entry fee, a cover, then it qualifies as work. And you have to apply for a visa waiver in advance before leaving your country.
He _obviously_ said that he was going to be paid, in tips and food.
No one here is justifying the draconian actions of the border guards. We're merely pointing out that, based upon what he said, any border guard in a bad mood would refuse him entry.
What the frail are you talking about? Why the hell do we have such ridiculous laws to begin with? What the hell kind of country have we become? It's certainly not the land of the FREE! The terrorists won. We lost.
It's not the law - it's the way somone who broke that law was treated like a suspected drug-dealer. Sure, technically they had the right to deport him. But doing so in this case was heavy handed, and adding strip-searches and refusing to let him contact his girlfriend was purely obnoxious.
Although not directly linked to terrorism, this kind of behaviour is condoned now because the fear of immigrants generated by "terroism".
People keep repeating that he broke a law and was planning to work for pay, the pay being a single meal offered by his host at one of the coffee houses he was going to play some songs at.
I have not seen any evidence though that someone giving you one dinner during a trip qualifies as pay in exchange for work.
It seems to me that it is a fairly common occurrence that one is treated to a meal by a friend or associate while traveling.
Does anyone have actual references to law that make clear that being treated to dinner qualifies as being paid for work and thus triggers a visa violation and reasonable cause for deportation?
> I have not seen any evidence that someone giving you one dinner during a trip qualifies as pay in exchange for work
You are approaching this from entirely the wrong direction. Your statement is like saying "I have not seen any evidence that so-and-so is innocent of the crime".
It is the presumption in the United States that someone applying for a "non immigrant" (visitor) visa intends to illegally immigrate to the United States. And so it is the burden of the visa applicant to prove otherwise.
There does not need to be any evidence that one dinner during a trip qualifies as pay for his entry in the United States to be lawfully denied.
You realize how high US salaries are? As a developer I can't get even half of what I'm making there, unless it's some ridiculously expensive country like Switzerland.
If US were to open its borders for anybody who wants to work, it would collapse your labor market instantly. And it won't be the poor mexicans looking for low level jobs. It will be Indians, Chinese, Russians moving in millions to get a piece of that pie.
That's US has an H1B work visa program. It's not perfect, but it lets the government control the influx of highly skilled and cheap labor that will take most skilled Americans out of business.
I don't care what nationality they are. If they're working as hard as I am, then they should get paid as much. That there are salary discrepancies between countries has a number of compounding factors, but often the U.S. has explicitly meddled in those countries in order to keep the "good jobs" to itself. Screw that.
It's not like you get anything if you move to US. You have to work for everything yourself. You don't even get healthcare if you can't afford it. Stop being stupid.
Salaries should be paid by how you perform not by your nationality.
It's like saying about Rodney King, "well, our police are brutal, but after all he was speeding and resisting arrest." This kind of statement is a sophists trick, knowingly or not, to justify the unjustifiable.
I don't care what this guy "did", he shouldn't have been treated this way. If he broke the rules and we need to deport him, fine. Then do it. Don't strip search him, threaten him, go through his personal effects, harrass his friend, unjustly limit his ability to contact his people, and generally abuse someone who's trying to visit our shores who comes in peace.
The worst thing they should have done to him was force him to pay for a work visa and a "processing fee", and let him into the country.
While I agree on the overreaction, no, it's not just about paying for a work visa. It's determining eligibility and whatnot. He even admits that it's "very difficult" to get such a visa. Certainly you don't want to encourage people to attempt entry illegally (under false premises) with the fallback of paying for the visa.
Going through his "personal effects" is one way to determine is someone is lying. Strip search seems ridiculous unless they felt he was smuggling something.
I know someone that does booking for European musicians in the US and it's a gigantic hassle and a complete waste of time.
The process to even "prove" someone's a musician is ridiculous, and on top of that, you as much as need to prove that this "job" couldn't be done by an American. Music is not some commodity that can be provided by just anyone. You want a certain celebrity to headline, you don't just want some guy who happens to sound similar.
Since when is a touring musician stealing jobs? It's a process that's obnoxious and time-consuming even for someone who does it day in, day out. I can't imagine what a headache it must be for a hobby musician just trying to have fun.
Well, I'm not going to get derailed by the not important conversation that you seem to want to start regarding appropriate work visa policies. Whatever that policy is, it CANNOT include the kind of stupidity described in this persons post. No more intimidation, no more molestation, no more angry, invasive, demeaning, bullying, just plain awful treatment of anyone like this, ever again, for any reason. Frankly we need to treat everyone with a great deal more respect, no matter what they're accused of doing.
Just so we're clear, you're against strip searching anyone for anything, ever? So, if someone was smuggling in rare species or ivory or other contraband, the CBP should do what exactly?
Correct - is there something wrong with that kind of argument? Examining edge cases can be revealing. I replied to someone saying that these actions are never justified to anyone. But that's not true.
Apparently everyone agrees it's OK to search a smuggler. What level of proof should CBP agents need to decide this?
What other potential criminals should be searched? Someone that appears to be intending to reside or work in the US despite not obtaining a visa? Can they search their belongings to help determine their intent? Or should they just close down the visa waiver program entirely and force everyone to clear positively before coming to the US, so that border agents have an easier time?
Really the only plausible thing I find is that for things like strip searching, a supervisor should need to agree that the person poses a smuggling or other threat that a strip search is likely to prevent.
But either way, it's far more complicated than "this behaviour is always unacceptable".
Look, if one diversionary tactic doesn't work, that the TSA was just trying to make sure the IRS got its due (or whatever), that doesn't mean you move to another one in the form of a strawman, extrapolating to the most extreme case you can think of.
I don't understand the reason, but from what I've seen the US and Canadian rules on these things are explicitly set up to screw small musicians. Like getting a VISA to do a single gig in a bar or restaurant costing more than the venue would normally be paying the musicians: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/29/canada-foreign-worke...
And I know our local (US) maritime music festival didn't bring in a Canadian duo the organizers love because of the expense of getting them a Visa to work here. (And when I later talked about it with the duo, they told me they now also have to deal with the IRS to play American shows!?)
If he broke the rules of his visa, then deport him. Stick him on a plane and send him home. (Perhaps refuse him entry in the future, if that's what the law says...)
In western democracies, we have this notion of "the punishment should fit the crime". All this harassment and intimidation at the border accomplishes nothing useful. It is power for the sake of power. It is entertainment for people who enjoy having power over other people (like CBP).
Even if this were the case (and there are challenges as outlined by other commenters), it is entirely and obviously disproportionate. Do you seriously find it acceptable for your tax dollars to be spent this way?
Secondly, this all misses what I think was the real point of the story - that this is an outcome of the surveillance dragnet.
Please explain "surveillance dragnet" - I didn't see any evidence of that in the translated article. I saw some "I wonder how they found my stage name", but unless he's taken some large precautions, that doesn't seem too far-fetched for Google to handle...
He talked about them knowing about all his shows, stage name, and about facebook relationships. Translation is sketchy but he seems to be making a wider point that they knew about a bunch of stuff that would only be known by fairly broad and deep surveillance (as per the title of the article) and then applying a distorted interpretation.
Bullshit. This is someone who is on vacation, and happened to be playing music along the way. His only mistake was trusting in the rationality of people with badges. He should have borrowed a guitar after he got here.
Playing some music and having appreciative people feed you and give you bus money simply shouldn't be the sort of thing a Work Visa regulates. This guy was a student traveling around the US, meeting people and writing about it. This is education, not work, and he had a student visa.
He just got a different education than he was expecting.
You are right, but the problem is where do you draw the line? And once you have a small intention of working and getting some reward, there is always a chance you might be doing other paid gigs that they could not find.
The simple fact is, if they have and reason to suspect you might be doing something a little wrong, they will deny your entry. Every country can and will do this. This is not an innocent until proven guilty option, this is ANY suspicious activity. You don't have a right to enter any country except your own.
I agree this guy screwed up. But the fact that you can't go three hours without seeing an obvious illegal alien in the US makes this whole thing hilarious.
It's the Anarcho-Tyranny thing Sam Francis wrote about. Be a middle class, law abiding euro with some undotted i's and get instantly deported. Hop the southern border as an illiterate with criminal convictions and it's "no problemo" as an apparent matter of national policy. Hell, illegals rally on the National Mall on a regular basis. As a border jumper it appears you can often get away with vehicular homicide and still not be deported. There are multiple publicized cases.
This seems to me like borderline racist generalization. I'm sure there are plenty of people getting away with vehicular homicide one way or another, and to single out a case (or several) where the perpetrator happens to be an illegal immigrant is missing the point.
The US treats people suspected of being illegal immigrants pretty badly. Heck, I'm a US Citizen, born in California, but raised in Australia. When I moved to the US in 2002 I had to wait six months (and provide all kinds of ridiculous documentation beyond my birth certificate and valid US passport) to get issued a SSN (and thus be able to work). Why? I was in Arizona and look kind of vaguely Hispanic.
Oh boo hoo. I went to Japan for extended periods a few times and they made me get a complicated visa, questioned me on entry, and made me register with the police as well as carry an alien registration card. Fucking good for them. It's their country and their right to control who's in it.
Except that the person you're responding to was a non-resident U.S. citizen with valid passport and was still forced to wait by explicitly racist, undemocratic, and likely unconstitutional policies.
>There are multiple publicized cases.
I love racist anecdata as much as the next guy, but if you can't figure out whats wrong with this line of argument you might want to sign up for a stats refresher.
Every now an then these kind of articles get popular on HN and someone points out that the person had done some wrong. I find it incredibly irritating. The reason why border security or any law enforcement agency exists is because we want to maintain reasonable order, one way to achieve it is enforcement of existing laws.
But somehow enforcement of rules, some of which are highly questionable has taken center-stage over creating a sense of order. It appears that US government and the security forces are operating out of paranoia, hitting those who cant hit back. This is sad.
America is a good country, many people will still give an arm and leg to get migrated to this country yet, with passage of time, while we all love America, we have began to despise the government. In the longer run it will have serious implications.
> operating out of paranoia, hitting those who cant hit back
It's "anarcho-tyranny." The paradigm governs much US domestic exercise of power. John Corzine walks free, but sellers of unpasteurized milk to willing and informed customers go to jail. Self admitted illegal aliens write op-eds unmolested, but a zero risk short term visitor is denied entry.
Again, put yourself in the position of trying to ascertain if a person is coming to the US under false premises. You've determined they have. Now, at the border, under threat of deportation, you're going to say "OK, call this place and tell them no", and you're going to take that as an acceptable answer?
That idea just doesn't work. Worse, it creates more incentives for people to try to come under a false premise, as they can just backtrack at the border and still get in.
I wouldn't say this guy was here "for work" and I don't think he thought he was either. Hell, a different agent on a different day probably would have let him through.
There are better ways this could have been handled that wouldn't have led to deporting him.
If you take as a given that the US wants to enforce their immigration laws, allowing people to attempt to break the law with a penalty of them saying "ok just kidding" doesn't make much sense.
It's like the liquids ban at airports. If you ARE caught with liquids, there's no penalty, you just throw them away. So it's not a disincentive to try to bring liquids aboard. Just keep trying until it works.
Each achieves the goal of keeping their intended contraband out, why make a big deal out of it? The angry boneheads at the TSA are not responsible enough to teach behavior modification.
This seems like a good place to leave a quick plug for the recent computer game "Papers, Please", which perfectly simulates the experience of being a clerk inspecting prospective entrants at the border of a dystopian republic and approving/denying visas.
As the game progressed I found myself "just following orders", even as they got increasingly creepy, and now I think I have a much better understanding of what life is like for these people. There are rules, and you follow them because your job is to carry out the rules. You may occasionally think hard about whether what you're doing is wrong, but you don't stop doing it because you've got a family to feed.
Spooky stuff. I felt like I had a much better understanding, after 30 minutes in the game, of what border agents are actually doing when I give them my passport.
You might find the essay, 'The Checkpoint' interesting (and thoroughly bleak). It is by an Israel Defense Force conscriptee who started working those internal checkpoints between israel proper and the occupied territories.
It is an account of how an even more extreme situation is utterly soul-destroying for the people working those jobs, no matter how good their initial intentions are.
It's very hard to extrapolate from stories like this to know if the actual instance and intensity of abuses is increasing, or if reportage is increasing (i.e. landing on HN front page) because of folk's irritation with other aspects of the US government.
For my money, TSA is right after HSA as far as FUBAR government agencies go. Seems like quality control is right in the shitter. As for solutions, I'd like to see a customer satisfaction survey implemented across the board. You might actually be able to implement something like this in a favorable political environment (there's no law saying that TSA has to attempt to piss off every person that comes through our borders). I've noticed that some of these completely dysfunctional agencies seem to attract the worst sort of bad eggs, so with something like that you could at least weed out some of the most underperforming TSA mob squads.
I'd like to see a customer satisfaction survey implemented across the board.
It needs to have teeth.
All of these problems are the result of giving people responsibility without accountability.
As it is now, the only accountability they have is whether or not something 'bad' happens. But the actual chance of something bad happening is so low that it is no more than statistical noise. So no matter what they do, they can claim it is necessary and effective because, see nothing bad happened!
Adding additional dimensions of accountability is the only way to reign in the bullshit. Customer satisfaction surveys would be a step in the right direction, but the organizations who currently enjoy the carte blanche of zero accountability will fight any meaningful reform tooth and nail.
The TSA has nothing to do with this interrogation, as bad as they are; Customs and Border Patrol are the offenders, here. And this guy made a critical mistake: He announced his intent to "work" in the United States; i.e. he was going to play shows. This requires a Visa, even for nonprofit purposes, which is a silly law, but it is the law.
You don't think its weird to be strip searched, and kept from contacting worried parties, because you decided to play a non-profit show without a visa?
And how is CBP supposed to know his entire intention was just to play a couple of non-profit shows? He admits he will be compensated (tips and food) for the shows. Maybe after that he's planning on getting paid shows, or something.
As I understand the law, he could have stayed and appealed the decision. Not that they're going to tell you that or help you out - they're allowed to lie to you and so on.
Strip searching seems very excessive, as does the entire handling. But fundamentally, interrogating someone that appears to be going to violate their visa is one of the reasons for having CBP at all.
I wish there were honest statistics available, so that people could know for a fact that yes, there are or are not actually a lot of extreme cases like this.
The only "extreme" part is that we're deciding this guy is "innocent" and not worthy of the level of scrutiny. Being interrogated and searched is very commonplace. So you'd need stats that somehow report how many people they interrogated and searched that they didn't consider to be suspicious. I doubt they'll report a very high number, of course.
Best stat I can think of is "how many strip searches resulted in allowing the person to enter the country", which is also probably fairly low. By that time, they've probably decided to deny you entry.
Neither shows or prevents mistreatment that the CBP deems OK, which seems to be the case here.
Mexico has a similar law. Near where my parents live, they recently started enforcing it with some vigor. The problem being that foreign musicians (mostly Americans) were playing shows for "donations". Whether that was actual donations or bar owners donating was unclear, but either way it was plausible that these people were displacing musicians entitled to work.
The shorter version: jackasses getting around a law cause more laws, ruining things for everybody.
I have another interpretation: bad laws are impossible to enforce in a just way. I have no idea why anyone should be required to have a special visa to work in the US. Because we are selfish?
"I have no idea why anyone should be required to have a special visa to work in the US. Because we are selfish?"
Seriously? If the US didn't have immigration requirements, half the world would move there, causing the society and infrastructure to collapse? I can't see how unrestricted immigration benefits the US at all (I'm not a US citizen).
I'd wager that A: the disparity between countries is larger and more well-known now, and B: the ease of physically travelling to the US is far easier now.
The Model T started production in 1908 and the first commerical airline flight was in 1914. The state of the art for sea transportation around then was the Titantic, which sank in 1912. So maybe that had something to do with it.
Until fairly recently labor was bending over backwards to enforce such controls in the belief that such laws were effective protections for American workers. The union movement is historically skeptical of markets and its adherents mostly subscribe uncritically to the 'lump of labor' fallacy. It's only in the last few years that they have jumped on the bandwagon for immigration reform; prior to that they were happy to blame a lot of their own structural problems on an influx of Mexicans.
This is not about statistics, this is terrorism, you want 0 occurrences. You don't use gaussians and distributions on fat uneducated Americans investigating people's anus.
I don't think any rate of change of instances of abuse matters a whit. As for the TSA/HSA, I really think there's a case of governmental PTSD and they really have no idea what they're doing, so they just fuck with everybody. There's no strategy, they just collect all the data at the NSA, crawl up your asshole at the airport, detain you for a random number of days, and call these policies of full-spectrum personal invasions "protecting the country." They hire the stupidest, weakest and most unquestioning people so that they will perform perfectly robotically, with a maximum snitch factor. Seriously, they're just guessing.
To play devil's advocate, he traveled to the U.S. with a guitar, had 5 shows booked in advance before his arrival, uses a pseudonym to perform and didn't declare any of this to the border officials. I think the article can also say he has a CD coming out soon. I can actually see why he was turned away. He's a musician, hoping to travel and do some shows in the U.S. for fun.
You can't work in the U.S. without a work visa. The rules are pretty clear about that.
Specifically denied is "paid performances, or any professional performance before a paying audience". If there was a cover charge to get in, it counts as work.
I think they vagueness of this points to part of the problem. There is no real specification of what makes an amateur performer in a musical event. I would assume since he was not contracted to receive a payment for his performance, it would be acceptable.
And just because there is a cover charge does not count as work. The cover charge is collected by the venue and does not mean he will get paid, which was specifically the case here.
Probably the guy broke a rule, or could at least be interpreted as breaking a rule.
However, the infraction is so minor compared to the penalty. The guy wants to travel around the country and play music for free at a variety of venues. He can't do this because that's considered work.
That really shouldn't be grounds for detaining, rough interrogation, strip searching and finally deporting the guy, all the while not allowing him to communicate with the people who are waiting for him.
Such rules really shouldn't be considered acceptable in a free and open country.
He's not performing at his Aunt's retirement home. He's getting on a stage in a bar, at a predefined date and time, with those dates advertised and promoted on his blog, in front of paying customers, entertaining them. Some musicians get paid for that, and some do not. He's hoping people will tip him or feed him. It's work.
I'm not sure what exactly happened, but this is what I gather from the translation.
John was visiting the United States from London.
He was planning on traveling through California with his girlfriend, then traveling through the south on his own, eventually meeting up with his aunt in Alabama.
After landing, he had a problem in customs. He had a guitar with him and told the agent that he would be playing some shows in the US.
He was then sent away from the US because he didn't have a work visa and he was here doing work.
It sounds like this was a perfect storm of shitty situations. Take an overworked/stupid/bad (take your pick) security agent, someone who doesn't speak native english and may have had some trouble explaining his situation, an expired student visa (adds to confusion) and a weird "working" on vacation situation and you have a recipe for a bad time.
We don't know how good the translation is but I've read the article in German and there it clear that he studied in the US and presented a paper at a conference: http://www.euce.org/eusa/2011/papers/9d_farneti.pdf. I'd say it was not a communication problem.
Also: How did they know about his musician alias and his concert dates? From the article it looks like they read his emails. He could also have posted the dates for all to see on Facebook.
This sort of thing has happened a number of times recently to people I know. I'm a musician and have lots friends who play in bands and book shows, so this hits close to home.
Last month a band from Canada I was scheduled to play with was stopped at the border and told to turn around because they didn't have work visas. This group of four women in their late teens and early twenties -- day jobs at bars and restaurants, driving a shitty 1980s chevy van -- might get some gas money at the gig -- which is basically a party in a warehouse -- and free PBRs from a cooler that the bands all share. This is not the sort of commerce that threatens jobs or the US economy.
A musician I know just tried to go the legit route but failed to meet the artistic reputation standards of the Artist (o-1) Visa. US Immigration wanted newspaper and magazine reviews and proof of past shows at recognizable venues. If you're a small artist on a small label, you're not going to have those. You'll have chatter about you on blogs and twitter and facebook, you will have played at house parties, warehouses and bars, and you're on a small label website which, honestly, anyone could spoof to look legit. Nevertheless this guy is a real artist with a great record that a thousand people have bought. The shows he was going to play probably would have drawn capacity crowds at a handful of punk rock venues in the SF Bay and elsewhere. But he can't play or even come to the US because he's not "exceptional" enough.
I have a friend who is on a student visa from a middle eastern country and presently doing the exact same thing as the OP: traveling around the US with a guitar and making friends. I sent this to him immediately with the instructions: "do not ever say you are playing a show. do not ever say you are a musician. if they ask you about the guitar, tell them you're learning how to play."
As for the OP, he's just a student. He's not getting paid. Someone's cooking him dinner and giving him tips because that's what hospitable people do.
Our immigration policies treat harmless people harshly and are absurd.
Absolutely. There really needs to be a treaty between all friendly countries that says artists are allowed as tourists as long as they don't make more than X amount of profit.
> He's not getting paid. Someone's cooking him dinner and giving him tips because that's what hospitable people do.
I agree, but if I were making the case to the INS I would phrase it differently: feeding someone who came to town specially isn't remunerating them, it's covering their expenses. And covering someone's expenses doesn't take money away from Americans who need jobs — because the American who didn't get the unpaid gig because this foreigner got it instead, is now sitting at home and consequently doesn't have travel expenses that need covering.
If the definition of what it is to be American is warped, specifically, that it takes more than citizenship to be welcomed home, then that should come into the discussion of these cases of mistreated foreigners.
Race is always complex, especially because racism illegal. It becomes a subtle and hard to describe thing. Maybe "random search" is a good way to describe it.
Ultimately, it makes me feel like I'm being delusional. I hope I am.
That story is about the TSA and local police, not the CBP. Very different.
Also, a US Citizen returning to the US does not have to answer any questions (apart from the written customs declaration) and cannot be denied re-entry to the US. (Although, as always, agents may abuse people.)
It seems that every day new reports are published talking about victims that are denied to enter the USA because of the wildest reasons - even with legal papers.
But it's not only the arbitrariness that every report seems to claim. It's more than that the behaviour of the officials towards citizens of other countrys and nations.
"America knows everything" - and you're not welcome any more.
Why can't the police / border guards just treat these humans as humans.
Ok, do what you must, return them to the originating country if they break some law.
It's unfortunate when it is a cool thing for some to be "tough" like this?
"The result was that I was denied entry because I was on a business trip unannounced. The payment in the form of a warm meal at one of the shows in Nashville at a restaurant with ten tables is apparently illegal."
Well, yeah, sorta. If you come to perform a task and be compensated they might construe that as work. I'm not sure what he means by privacy violations - if his name is Googled, are there no results for his stage name? Did he have nothing in his items with his stage name? It seems odd to just assume CBP agents are doing something secret when this seems like public data.
I'm Canadian, and I was detained at the border as one CBP agent felt I needed a work visa (not just stating I'm there for business reasons) to represent my company at a tradeshow. (OTOH the unions at conference centers also agree that lifting a box or plugging in cables is work so...) Fortunately his supervisor disagreed.
America's border control system is so broken that it saddens me to see posts like this that reek of sensationalism (I mean, it's Vice) and hide the fact that, you know, he didn't have a valid visa.
I'm having trouble understanding what was so deplorable about this story besides the reprehensible treatment by the officials (which, again, seems exaggerated)? Am I misreading the story or is refusal to enter the country not the proper response to not having the correct documentation?
> I'm having trouble understanding what was so deplorable about this story besides the reprehensible treatment by the officials (which, again, seems exaggerated)?
Right, but Abraham Lincoln did nothing wrong by going to the play and the author did something wrong (I don't mean in a moral sense, but in a sense of 'incorrect') by going to the United States without the proper visa.
It's a common expression. [1] In this context it means: this guy's treatment by the customs & border officials was so reprehensible and abusive that his legal right to enter the US is beside the point, just like how the actual merits of the play were beside the point for Mrs. Lincoln.
If he's German, then he can use ESTA if he qualifies for the Visa Waiver Program. But performing for compensation (tips + food) is probably technically work so that wouldn't help, and he'd need a work visa, like he says in the article.
Well I'm glad this didn't happen to me. I travelled to the US in very similar circumstances a few weeks ago: European, carrying a guitar, visiting the South, previously stayed in the US on a J-1 intern visa. The only difference being that I had a one-way ticket.
I didn't even go through secondary at customs. No issues.
How many of these do I have to read ... this is my government and I DEMAND more from it. (Of course right now they've closed every office that might accomplish something visible).
In the mean-time, I'd like to apologize to the citizens of earth for the horrible behavior of those performing in our security theater.
EDIT: My trips to Germany were very pleasant ... with the exception of having to take goods through customs (for expediency's sake), everyone was pleasant, courteous and relatively efficient.
I feel bad for the guy, but having been across the US border a few times it's important that if you're travelling for anything but spending money in the US you'd better phone and find out if you need a work visa.
Volunteering? VISA.
Working for free? VISA.
Might ask someone for change? VISA.
Speaking at a conference? VISA.
Having coffee with someone and may discuss business? VISA.
Friend might buy you a beer? VISA.
You plan on bringing your bags to your hotel room yourself? VISA.
Exceptions:
If you are going straight to your hotel, then going to disneyland, going back to your hotel and back to the airport then you might not need a VISA, as long as you also know the flight number, airport, airline and seat number you'll be leaving the US on, then you might not need a VISA but should probably phone the consulate and find out anyway.
First, it's visa, not VISA (which is the credit card company).
Secondly, your examples are not correct. You're allowed to come over on visa waiver for business (it's one of the options to select), just not to perform work for compensation. You can certainly attend meetings.
As a Chinese citizen you can come into the US ridiculously pregnant and have your kid in the US on a tourist visa via a flight and never get hassled. You can walk across the southern border and create a human fence around ICE vans and get a slap on the wrist.
The problem: This guy doesn't serve a political interest so he gets hassled. Face it, this country is backwards and caters only to the elite.
They are not the elite, they cater to the elite and special interests goals. China has 60 per cent of its $3.5tn foreign currency reserves invested in US assets. A housing program that offers green cards to foreigners who buy $500,000+ houses. How about the money going to US universities from 194,000 Chinese students. The $8.2 billion Chinese buyers spent in the 12 months to March 2013 of $70 billion on real estate. China will biggest economy in the world and we (USA) needs access. Migrant workers expand the population, provide cheap labor, and consumption A.K.A. grow the economy. They also vote.
The Chinese elite/the ones making the rules that you refer of, are the ones buying the houses. Who can buy a 10th house a 7,900 miles away that costs 2.5 million in cash? Mark Z Yes. If your argument were true, we would see relaxed immigration/TSA because of Obama. But, this article leads me to believe that it has gotten worse, not because of Obama, but because of the system. The birth factor might be considered a thank you in a simplistic sense. The Chinese are buying up houses that wouldn't be bought/proping up the market. The National Association of Realtors does happen to be the largest lobby group.
But, the point is, in such an extreme sense as mentioned above. Someone so visibly pregnant that a blind person could figure it out isn't given the slight of day. While a German dude with a guitar is practically thrown in prison. All I am pointing out is the irony/hypocrisy. And since it is so ridiculous and happens all the time there must be an explanation. Do you have one?
The US is a huge country with a ridiculous mess of overlapping laws and massive bureaucracy. It's a legalistic nation, one in which the laws are typically followed to a 'T' regardless of how much sense it makes. This leads to all manner of weird stuff happening.
So you think that the elite in the US _want_ more competition from rich Chinese people in the US real estate market? Pretty sure they'd rather have that to themselves.
The connection between Chinese currency reserves and pregnant women giving birth in the US is... what, exactly? You think that the people buying those reserves (Central Committee / PSC) like the idea of their citizens holding dual US-Chinese citizenship? Riiiight.
And if this US elite were so hot on immigration (and influential), the US immigration system wouldn't be so insanely restrictive.
US policy is dictated by the lowest common denominator.
Ive been at the border several times, non us citizen, and i've always been treated with respect. In fact, the guys at the border were always nice to me, sometimes dared a joke or asked me for help to translate something to someone else.
So yeah, i'm sure there's horrible ones and troubles happen, but i wouldn't make that a generality just like that.
I am one of the lucky ones as well and have been treated with respect every time. Sometimes I even had insightful conversations with border control.
However, along the increasing rejections of visa for highly talented people + more and more stories like this one are signaling a very very bad trend.
I have noticed both among my peers: visa rejections for founders with funding from US investors, befriended founders who are being pulled into second screening every time they enter the country, my co-founder being rejected to enter the country once and now also being pulled into second screening every time (despite having an O1 visa). It's degrading and simply horrifying. And most definitely not a good trend for the US.
This is a very emotional topic. I get sad and angry every time I read or hear a similar story.
Frankly, there is this nice guy in Toronto (a CBP agent at a pre-check thing), he scares me. He's always been nice (I mean chatting and stuff, recognizing me, trying to speak French, etc.), but I'm always afraid that I might give the wrong answer to a joke or something and hell would break lose.
Maybe the probability is lower because he's also a foreigner there, but once is enough to change your life. I can't help but think about the Zone Libre checkpoints when I cross the US border.
I suppose it might be google translate, but this seems like a guy lying on his visa application, being rudely called out on it, and letting his fierce sense of entitlement take over.
This is what happens when soccer moms and helicopter dads run your country. Selfishness and paranoia rule the day, all behind the guise of good intentions, fairness, and security.
When you hire vastly too many enforcement employees (I'm lumping HS/TSA/etc all together here), what ends up happening is they find things to do. The reality is, TSA and Homeland Security have very little to do. The threat is not greater today than it was 20 years ago, but we've acquired tens of thousands of new personnel with absolutely nothing meaningful to do (and the tens of billions of dollars in costs to go with them).
You see the same exact effect in traditional police, SWAT teams, and so on. All that ends up happening is they terrorize good people.
Even as a U.S. citizen, every time I've traveled to other countries in the past few years, it's always jarring going from the hospitable, friendly customs people in the other countries, to the literally rude awakening of getting practically accosted by the agents in the U.S. upon returning.
Try Russia or Germany - neither country has border officials that could be described as "hospitable" or "friendly." They make US border guards look like teddy bears.
I cannot speak for Russia, but Germany cultivates a fundamental mentality of liberalism and respect, for any kind. It will be very difficult to find someone in Germany that wears a badge who has less than 13 years of school education or acts unreasonably, disrespectful or doesn't play by the rules.
I didn't say they weren't respectful. I said they cannot be described as hospitable or friendly, which is true. German border guards are very professional and respectful -- they follow the rules exactly -- but they're not friendly. They're rather cold.
I've come into the US many times, and personally witnessed thousands of people being granted entry into the US with nothing but professionalism. Cases such as this are certainly rare.
There will always be a few people in any large group who treat others badly, and US border guards are no exception. I'm sure we could find rare similar cases in Germany or anywhere else, too.
