
Why I stopped travelling to the US and largely stopped doing business in the US - asmosoinio
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/fngfo/why_i_stopped_travelling_to_the_us_and_i_largely/
======
ErrantX
I have to admit, as difficult as it is, he makes a good point here.

I'm nowhere near as well travelled, but we do a lot of work in the middle east
(some of the nastier parts too), which is a place you would imagine a white
westerner would count seriously against you.

But, frankly, I've never felt safer or more welcomed in my life (apart from
the odd dicey moment).

OK, the US is not terrible, unsafe or specifically unfriendly. But there are
little things; some cities I just didn't feel overly welcome because I wasn't
American. I'm in my mid twenties and ordering a beer with a meal got me some
highly suspicious looks! Numerous times I have been questioned by police; for
being sat at a bus depot with a rucksack (they made me miss a bus and were
utterly unapologetic, grr), for being stood on a street waiting for my pickup
(for about 20 minutes.. I think someone had actually called them) etc.

Don't get me wrong; I've met loads of really awesome, friendly and welcoming
Americans. And mostly it is fine. But more than any other place I have been to
you get treated with suspicion.

~~~
arethuza
One of the more surreal conversations I've had while entering the US was one
guy who wanted to know why I've been to Turkey/Egypt/Morocco so many times -
he just seemed to refuse to believe me when I said that they are really nice
places to go on holiday and that they are very common holiday destinations for
Europeans. I actually had to explain what it is that I like about them!

Note - I'm from the UK.

[Edit: Note that I really enjoy visiting the US - the country is great, its
just that the experience of getting in can be a bit odd, although I have to
admit that the last few times were all perfectly pleasant].

~~~
tallanvor
If it makes you feel any better, I get more questions from US border control
than any other country I've visited, and I'm an American, so it's not just
foreigners they treat like crap.

~~~
ErrantX
Make the mistake of entering Israel with a passport stamped for an Arab
country and you will probably put the US second :) Perfectly civil.. but a LOT
of questions, over and over and over.

~~~
jdp23
Back in 1990 I lost my passport in Turkey, got a temporary one at the US
Consulate there, and then got it extended in Munich (where I was living at the
time). As part of this they crossed out the 90-day expiration date, and wrote
in "see page 16" by hand, where the consular stamp etc. appeared. A month
later I had a business trip to Israel for a business trip and decided to
continue on to Cairo for vacation. They questioned me for about an hour at Ben
Gurion as I left the country ... and who could blame them?

~~~
ErrantX
Heh indeed!

We landed in Israel and I realised I had handed over the wrong passport (as we
work in the region a lot we all have a 2nd passport for Israel, it is just
sensible), cue face to palm moment.

They "detained" me for about 45 minutes, but I have heard of people taking
longer (and, in fairness, shorter).

------
paraschopra
I will tell another personal experience. I am based out of India and have been
invited to speak at a conference in San Francisco. I applied for a business
visa and was denied that visa because apparently I am young (23) and they have
not heard about my startup (it is of course not an IT service giant like
Infosys, TCS or Wipro) or conference (it's about A/B testing). Mind you: my
startup is doing quite well financially and we pay regular taxes (had all
relevant documents to prove it). Getting a simple business visa for US is so
hard that from multiple sources I heard that founders of a lot of VC funded
startups (with more than million $ in bank) in India many times don't get a US
visa if they need to setup a sales team there or be there for some business
purpose. Is doing business in US for foreign startups really this hard or I am
an outlier?

It's, of course, frustrating and I don't know what to do about it.

~~~
kingsley_20
You're just too much of a flight risk - they see you as having too little at
stake in India. I've had some friends have similar issues
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=851287>). I myself returned to India
after 8 years in the states partly because it was practically impossible to
start my own business without a green card, aka 4 years of indentured
servitude.

For future reference: Try to show assets you own (real estate, homes etc) that
incentivize your return; Bring literature about your conference, maybe ads etc
(they need to see that its purpose is not an immigration scam); if you're
married or have kids, that helps a great deal. Good luck!

~~~
paraschopra
Thanks for your comment. I brought a lot of documents with me during visa
interview but didn't they see a single document. It's true I am unmarried but
getting married just to get a US visa is too much to ask for :)

------
edw519
_everyone is utterly paranoid_

Everyone?

I have bit my tongue for a long time about this great community's slipping
quality, but honestly, how does shit like this make it to the top of Hacker
News. Flagged.

Any suggestions for how to get back to having hacker news on Hacker News? (And
please spare us the lame "situational logic" response of how <anyShit> is
hacker news.)

~~~
tptacek
It's not just the off-topic stuff. It's groupthink. The needle on that has
been buried for months now.

I'll give you a telling example: the _insane_ series of threads where, in
essence, an angry mob chased a comp-sci grad student around for nominating
Wikipedia articles for deletion. "Here's the main offender!" "You're a drain
on Wikipedia, a negative source of knowledge!" "You're an idiot!". An
Internet-famous guy chimes in with a comment calling him "a gigantic Nazi
asshole" (fun fact: this is after the guy took the time to sign up to talk to
HN commenters).

Then HN dutifully mods up a blog post by the same guy that calls the guy out
by name for "deciding he's the sole decider of the notability of programming
languages". Nice.

Then a triumphal thread on a post about how the guy has stopped nominating
articles for deletion on Wikipedia. The system works!

Why do I like this example? No politics. Still bad.

You can see the groupthink everywhere on the site, from the comment on any
Amazon post that gets reflexively modded up for pointing out that Amazon
removed Wikipedia content, or how Sony once installed a rootkit, or how IP
laws are bad for America (I especially liked watching people downmod 'grellas
trying to provide context and upmodding someone who, presumably, was not a
startup lawyer).

~~~
wyclif
I like that example, too. Well stated. My observation was that the whole
episode reeked of something you'd expect to play out on reddit, but not the
old-school HN.

~~~
_delirium
Yeah, it definitely had a sort of mobbish feel to it. I've been a Wikipedian
since about 2003, been in and out of the meta-circles, and have a mix of
positive and negative opinions about how it works (but I think on the whole
it's a huge benefit to accessibility of knowledge). So when something like
this comes up in a community I'm also part of, I usually try to participate in
the discussion. Not even really just to defend Wikipedia, because there are
plenty of criticisms one could make. But it was hard to figure out where to
enter into the discussion, and what productive result could come from it.

When there's a bunch of angry people wielding pitchforks convinced that
Wikipedians (or some subset) are evil bastards who hate knowledge and love
nothing but rules, it's not that conducive to calm discussion. There's just
sort of a vaguely defensive, "well, it's not _quite_ like that, you know most
of us also think about these issues and have tried to balance the criticisms
many people have of Wikipedia, and even some of the rules and guidelines I
disagree with do have some reasons they exist, but nobody seems very
interested in discussing any of that, so I guess I'll just mostly sit this one
out...". To be fair, there was some good discussion buried in some of the
threads.

I did write up a way-too-long version of what I would've said in the
discussion:
[http://www.kmjn.org/notes/wikipedia_notability_verifiability...](http://www.kmjn.org/notes/wikipedia_notability_verifiability.html)

(As a non-HN-specific aside: What's frustrating from the perspective of
someone who wants to make Wikipedia work is that it seems most external
discussion of Wikipedia comes in these weird mob frenzies, but they come from
opposite sides. One group of people is convinced Wikipedians are a bunch of
rule-loving fascists; another group of people is convinced Wikipedians are a
bunch of anarchistic amateurs with a hippy anything-goes attitude. So the
first group gets angry when a topic they're a fan of is deleted, and demands
fewer rules; the second group initiates big frenzies like
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy>, and demands
_more_ rules.)

------
danssig
I wonder how much longer it will take before americans get enough to take a
stand about this. I suppose it would never reach critical mass with flying
because not enough americans are flying to care, which is why I can't wait for
TSA to follow through with their plan to set up their nonsense at bus stops
and subways.

~~~
buro9
Most Americans aren't seeing this stuff.

When I was married and my American wife got to join me in the queue I was in,
and had to go through the same process that I went through. Well she was
incredulous that she was being treated that way.

Until Americans actually experience this, nothing will be done about it.

I've considered that enough to think that a better way to approach it is to
subject people to the kind of security that they subject others to. So that if
Americans want to visit other countries that they are finger-printed,
interrogated, X-Ray'd, delayed and otherwise harassed.

Then when they complain point out that what is being done to them is a
reflection of what they do to others, that is the only thing I can imagine
might make them consider changing their ways... and I really am not living in
the kind of world where I think this is achievable since European border
control isn't going to start implementing this stuff on a per nationality
basis. So it's not as if I really think this is feasible.

As I've pointed out in the past, I also no longer go to the USA or do business
there.

When I am forced to have face-to-face meetings with Americans, I force the
venue to be in Canada at a location I can get a flight to that doesn't require
going via the USA (tends to be Toronto as direct flights from London are cheap
and frequent).

This works for me to the point that I no longer think about it until it
appears like this on a forum and I remember that I don't go to the USA
anymore... it's become subconscious. I just don't go to the USA because of the
experience of doing so (not limited to border alone, but border is the initial
impression and the worst).

~~~
Lewisham
_Most Americans aren't seeing this stuff._

You mean most foreign-travelling Americans, who are a minority in comparison
to the Americans that don't have a passport, as only 37% hold one [1].
Domestic flights are way less of a pain than international, if only because
you don't have to go through Customs.

[1]: [http://www.theexpeditioner.com/2010/02/17/how-many-
americans...](http://www.theexpeditioner.com/2010/02/17/how-many-americans-
have-a-passport-2/)

EDIT: My American wife (I'm British) was the same way. I'm in the process of
applying for a Green Card, which means we'll have to go to an INS office and
both of us get our fingerprints taken. "Why the hell do they need my
fingerprints? There's no way I'm giving them my fingerprints!" "Honey, they
take my prints _every time I come to the US._ "

~~~
danssig
You're trying to get a green card? Do you realize that once you get it you're
going to be responsible for filing tax returns as long as you have it, no
matter where you actually live and work?

~~~
mdda
This is precisely why I've been repeatedly extending my E-2 visa. Of course,
by wanting that freedom, all my payments to US social security are definitely
going to waste...

~~~
danssig
There is no way to claim that back? To be honest with you, I worked in the US
for over a decade and I consider everything I paid into SS a waste. If I end
up keeping my citizenship (unlikely), by the time I would be able to draw it
would probably be $100/mo or something ridiculous. It could easily cost me
much more than that in wasted tax dollars before I retire.

------
gritzko
I am a Russian citizen living in EU. I generally avoid trips to US. BTW, me
and some of my colleagues, postdocs or PhD students, had to go through the
infamous TAL (technology alert list) checks. What it practically means: 1) you
are a citizen of some US "enemy" country, like xUSSR, China, Brazil or, God
forbid, Iran 2) you have a PhD in any engineering discipline (true for
architects, computer scientists, chemists, physicists, etc) or you work
towards your PhD 3) you are going to a conference in US Then they will do a
mock background check for long enough to grant you a visa one day after the
conference ends.

------
iwwr
It's not merely inconvenience at the border, but travel has become cost
ineffective to him.

 _An expensive piece of kit lost that meant that I basically didn't make any
money that month._

and

 _After 9/11 everyone is utterly paranoid and everyone from security guards to
police, and even random passers-by, have hassled me. Claiming that I am
breaking the law (I am not) or demanding I explain why I am taking pictures._

~~~
tintin
_"I usually have to spend a lot of time being interrogated for my lack of a
huge suitcase"_ he is bothered at the border. He is talking about the whole
experience not only about the cost.

------
wisty
_NegativeK Insurance is for things that could destroy you if you didn't have
it. Otherwise, by the law of averages, it's a waste of money.

Unfortunately, in the US, lots of things can destroy you: Lawsuits from car
accidents, medical issues, not having a car, et cetera._

Nice comment.

~~~
jrockway
By the law of averages, all insurance is a waste of money. Insurance companies
make money. They do this by collecting more fees than they pay out. In
aggregate, they win and you lose.

The real question to ask is, "can I afford this insurance" and "is it worth it
to me". If you buy a $250 mp3 player and the "insurance" is $300 and lasts for
6 months, it's a waste of money, because you aren't going to break your mp3
player twice in 6 months. But if it's $20 to insure your $10,000 of camera
equipment which has a replacement cost equal to a month of income, then you
should probably go for it. It's a bad deal, but $20 is the cost of a few
beers, which is also a bad deal.

Anyway, someone makes money on every transaction. That doesn't necessarily
mean you shouldn't be a party to that transaction.

~~~
wisty
No, medical insurance isn't a waste, because the cost of not having it can be
_extremely_ high, not just in dollar terms.

Happiness (100% x losing $1000 + 1% x having a free necessary operation) >
Happiness (1% x not being able to afford a necessary operation).

~~~
bugsy
In the US routine medical care costs less than the cost of insurance.

When you get a serious illness like cancer, the insurance company rescinds
your policy and then you become uninsurable and die.

Insurance does cover the odd accident though, but they will fight tooth and
nail over whether you need therapy to learn to walk again.

------
rue
I'm a permanent resident of the U.S., but even with the green card the hassles
at the border are just nasty regardless of where I've been or for how long.
The attitude is atrocious and I usually feel more like a criminal they've
reluctantly had to let back in rather than welcomed back home. Green card
holders also get fingerprinted and in some cases retina-scanned at re-entry.
The nudie scans have only managed to create a small additional inconvenience
for me…

~~~
rue
(And I'm a white guy from northern EU. My sympathies to those from more
targeted regions or ethnicities.)

------
I_get_stopped
I am Indian and not muslim but "unfortunate" to have been born in the middle
east. Everytime I visit the US, I have an intensive check, basically running
all my finger prints through an extensive check. I have to swear what I saw is
true (which I find awkward, raising my palm and repeating what they say). The
officers take my wallet, go through all my credit cards, docs, etc. I have to
wait for about 2 hours. I once missed my connection flight because of the long
wait.

And what is crazier is that the same procedure repeats when I leave the US.

------
sp_
I always resented traveling to the US too because of border controls. Recently
I moved to the US and felt relieved that I do not have to go through
immigration there anymore. Seconds after that thought I had the epiphany that
I now have to go through immigration whenever I am going anywhere else in the
world.

The funny thing is that I have never had a bad experience with US immigration.
The only time I had a non-smooth experience was in Canada, before a flight
from Montreal to Atlanta. An officer waved me out of line saying "I'm sorry
sir but you were selected for a random security check. You can thank Mr George
W. Bush for that."

The two funniest experiences I had was when entering Dubai and Sao Paulo, In
Sao Paulo the immigration officer did not speak a single word of English. I do
not speak any Portuguese. We quickly realized this frustrating situation and I
was waved through. In Dubai I was the first person in line at the customs and
not knowing what to do I just kept walking. The customs people just stood
there and looked at me. I was already quite far behind the customs people,
nearly out of the airport, when I realized that I just walked past the customs
officers without having my bags or anything checked. So I went the whole way
back just to go through customs properly.

------
ilitirit
I refuse to travel to the US because of how much hassle is involved. I don't
starting my trips off on a sour note. The UK is headed this way as well, mind
you.

~~~
smiler
Refuse? Refuse? You can fly to the US - some 4000 miles away in 7.5 hrs for
the East Coast and 11 hours for the West coast. You then may have a little bit
of a wait at immigration (or not as the case may be). I've gone through in 5
minutes and one time it was 45 minutes. Seeing as you state you're in the UK,
you also eligible for the VWP which means you can travel to the US whenever
you like.

Just consider what it was like to travel before the invention of the airplane,
or the steam ship. Please appreciate that you live in a time when travelling
the world is very very easy. And please watch
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk>

~~~
ilitirit
I'm not in the UK, you just assumed that. I just said the UK is heading the
same way. You have to undergo racial profiling, _in your own country_ when
applying for a visa for both the US and UK, and then you're subjected to
"random" searches and interviews when you land there. This has happened on
several occasions to a friend of mine. In fact, soon after 9/11 everyone in
his family's US visas were mysteriously cancelled, presumably because his
surname is "Hoosein". His sister had to leave the US where she had been
working for years and reapply for another visa. She has to do this every year
now. Last month, my friend's employer (Sky News) had to supply special
documents to the UK government to prove that he was actually who he said he
was, and even then they wouldn't give him a visa. We had to get in touch with
the local foreign minister to get him a visa. The last time he was in the UK,
he was detained for several hours (and nearly arrested without warrant under
the Terrorist Act) because he dozed off in front of the Israeli check-in
counter. These aren't isolated incidents.

So yes, I refuse.

------
ugh
_On several occasions I've had expensive gear disappear from my carry-on
during security checks and last year a TSA agent dropped my Canon 1D Mk3,
smashing both the lens and the camera body. No apology, but more importantly:
I was never compensated._

That can’t be, can it? Property damage is property damage. Shouldn’t the TSA
have insurance anyway? Is he stretching the truth?

------
jranck
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither."

Unfortunately I don't see this changing any time soon with the TSA unionizing.

------
sambeau
As a British person I find it sad (and slightly scary) that the best advice
given to him is to start carrying a gun.

~~~
VMG
Does he really have to own the gun or does he just have to declare his camera
as a gun?

~~~
darklajid
This. The GP got it wrong. The suggestion was to use something "sortof" gun-
like to declare that the case contains a weapon, so that the TSA has to list
(and treat) according to the rules for these things.

The one giving the advice said that he has a "starter pistol", which google
explained as a gun that you use to start a race etc.. Not a real weapon.
Others suggested a flare pistol (Dangerous? Sure. But not a 'weapon', but more
a tool).

I find it sad that these workarounds seem to help and that they are deemed
necessary. But "bring a gun" is not what they are suggesting here.

~~~
sambeau
[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/expensive_came...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/expensive_camer.html)

The article referenced, which I read, had this:

"Then someone has the brilliant suggestion of putting a firearm in your
camera-equipment case"

Matt Brandon (the blogger referenced) had the genius move of using a starter
pistol rather than a handgun.

However, it is still sad and slightly scary to me that the solution to
protecting your property during a flight is to pack it with a weapon or
something that looks like weapon.

------
Jakku
I travel alot around the world. America is the only country where I am treated
like shit when I go through the airport.

This time they took everything out of my bag. Spent ten minutes reading my
diary! I mean what the fuck! Were aggressive, rude.

The system is an utter disgrace to foreigners. I wont be coming back.

------
Maro
It must be great to be able to afford to stop doing business in the US.

~~~
iwwr
The US just became unaffordable, it was probably not a choice on the OP.

------
die_sekte
Anybody willing to share how Schengen/EU borders are for foreigners?

~~~
eoghan
What exactly would you like to know? I've traveled to about 10 European
countries. I've never been photographed, had my fingerprints taken, been
interrogated about my intentions. But every time I visit the US, all of these
things happen. I should note that I'm a European Union (EU) citizen which
gives me the right to travel freely between countries in the EU. But my
American friends have only ever been hassled when they broke the conditions of
their holiday visas (e.g. overstayed their 90 days).

~~~
die_sekte
Well, I am an EU/Schengen citizen, and I would like to know what non-EU, non-
Schengen citizens experience at the EU/Schengen borders.

~~~
psykotic
My live-in partner went home with me to Denmark for Christmas. The border
crossing in Copenhagen Airport was pleasant and completely without incident.

What was maddening was the process of applying for a visitor's visa. In
addition to forms, it required around 25 pages of auxiliary documentation,
including her most recent pay-slip; a print-out of her bank balance on the day
of submission; a letter addressed to the embassy from her employer attesting
to her position, her monthly salary and her length of employment; a travel
insurance policy covering the length of the stay; a round-trip plane ticket; a
letter of several pages from me, accompanied by evidence such as photos,
describing how and when we first met, when I most recently met her, the total
amount of time we have spent together face to face, etc.

That was for a two-week stay over the holidays. Fun.

~~~
limmeau
What countries are you originally from?

~~~
psykotic
I am a Danish citizen. She is a university-educated project manager for a
large international engineering firm in Thailand.

------
felipe
_> I've been to Russia before the cold war ended. I've been all over the
middle east. I've been to China. I've travelled all over Europe. I've been to
Cuba and I've been to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Nicaragua. What all of these
places have in common is that going there was a far more pleasant experience
than going to the US._

Oh, c'mon, this sounds very over-the-top. My experience is that TSA and USCIS
(formerly INS) are very professional and follow a strict protocol. The
protocol may be unfair or not, but that's the protocol, not the professional's
fault. In places like Brazil your entire trip is at the hands of chance: Most
times you get a nice officer, but sometimes not.

For example: After an incident involving an American in Brazil [1], all
Americans were out of a sudden required by the Brazilian authorities to get
pictures taken at the Brazilian customs. The situation got so ridiculous, that
at some point the airports ended up with 3 lines: "Brazilian Citizens",
"Foreigners", and "Americans". In other words, Americans were singled-out from
the rest of the world. Would the OP describe that as a "pleasant
experience"???

I have had somewhat bad experiences in the US too, but that's not even close
to the kind of stuff I (or close family members and friends) went through in
Brazil, or as a Brazilian in Europe. In the US I never had any trouble, and
officers always acted professionally.

And I highly doubt this person would get compensated in any one of these
countries.

[1]
[http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/01/14/finger.gesture....](http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/01/14/finger.gesture.reut/index.html)

Disclaimer: I am a Brazilian naturalized American.

~~~
PakG1
>> all Americans were out of a sudden required by the Brazilian authorities to
get pictures taken at the Brazilian customs

I'm curious why this would be such a hassle. I work in China right now and
every time I go through customs, there's a little web cam there that takes a
photo of me while the customs officer looks at my passport and stamps it. I
think both foreigners and citizens experience it. Adds no time to the process
at all. I even see my photo on the computer screen if the screen is angled
right.

Unless Brazil simply doesn't have the ability to set up this kind of tech....

~~~
felipe
I also live in China.

1\. In China the system is set-up for that. The little web-cam and the system
are integrated with a push of a button, and the process is very quick. In
Brazil they didn't have anything. They were taking pictures with off-the-shelf
digital cameras, and I read an article saying that they did not even have a
system set-up to transfer the pictures out! It was really something
implemented overnight, clearly just to piss people off.

2\. Sorry if I was not clear, but my point about the hassle was not much the
picture itself, but the fact that Americans were singled-out and placed on a
different line. This is borderline racist IMO.

Note: Brazil eliminated this stupid policy a while ago. I mentioned it just as
an example.

~~~
ovi256
Se my comment above, you completely ignore the reason for that policy.

~~~
felipe
As a Brazilian, I am well aware of the reason for the policy. Two wrongs don't
make a right.

------
frevd
There is also a really interesting (scarifying-wise) discussion about apathy,
existentialism and generally missing purpose in America's daily life, in the
later comments to check out (scroll down 1/3, i.e. a mile).

------
known
Don't come to America. USA debt is $200 trillion.
<http://www.blacklistednews.com/?news_id=10626>

