
Another US visa holder was denied entry over someone else’s messages - jbegley
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/02/denied-entry-united-states-whatsapp/
======
whiddershins
I flagged this article, and I am happy for someone to explain if that isn’t
the correct action.

I flagged it for the reason that the headline purports to know something tech
crunch can’t possibly know: the reason the individual was denied entry.

It’s clear that the CBP says whatever they are saying, and it’s clear the
individual has a different version of events.

That’s all that’s clear from this as far as I can tell, yet tec crunch is
asserting this is a particular pattern they have somehow discovered.

This feels beyond biased in to deliberately misleading.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I flagged it for the reason that the headline purports to know something
> tech crunch can’t possibly know:

That's a reason to suggest modifying the HN headline from the source headline
to something more accurate for the factual content; flagging is for a story
that is out-of-bounds for the site, not for suboptimal (including clickbait,
editorializing, or outright misleading) headline on an otherwise appropriate
story.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
True, but I'd argue the non-clickbait version of the story is out of bounds
for the site. "Some guy says CBP lied about why they denied him" doesn't
exactly lead to deep discussion.

~~~
fzeroracer
HackerNews covers far more benign examples of someone's privacy or rights
being violated. I'm not sure how this is somehow out of bounds on the site
compared to discussions about YouTube deleting [x] videos and so forth.

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tech5000
All the people here trying to throw CBP under the bus, did you read their
report?

If I have a 'terroristic' picture on my phone and I try to cross a border, and
at the same time I tell CBP that I want to work in my cousin's gas station so
that he will be freed up to do other things, it is reasonable to think that
CBP might exercise their right to decline to admit me.

Commenters who are saying that CBP are lying: if its he said / she said, I am
going to believe the person without the dead baby image on their phone. Not
the person with the 5 year visa who wants to be away from their wife and child
for three months for 'vacation'.

It seems a bit weak to me to call CBP liars absent any evidence (and here
there is none) that they have lied.

Mainly what I want to say is about the dead baby image: if my 'friend' sends
me that photo, we are having a talk stat about good judgement, he is not
sending me any more photos, I am probably blocking him, and that photo is
getting deleted.

And if I have that photo on my phone and I choose to tell some bullshit story
about child safety PSAs etc, and about my cousin's gas station, I have to
expect that discretionary decisions are not going to go well for me.

------
Mikeb85
A few too many question marks here. A message with a dead child from an
acquaintance he met at Hajj? A 3 month visa to travel with his wife and child
who weren't with him yet? But he was visiting his relative who owned a
business...

Surely he can see why this looks bad.

------
jrochkind1
So.. at this point nobody should try coming into the U.S. with a non-clean-
wiped phone, eh?

~~~
sys_64738
Don't travel with electronics. It'll ask just as many questions of why you
have a wiped clean phone or laptop. In this story they were simply looking for
justification to deny the guy and they found it. I'd gauge that the border
guards here would use clean electronics for the like as 'you must be hiding
something'.

~~~
jrochkind1
How long until you can't get a US Visa if you don't have a facebook account?
You need to have one, so they can snoop it. If you say you don't have one, you
must be lying.

~~~
sys_64738
About now by the looks of the new social media reporting requirements. You
don't have a FB account? No US visa for you!

------
Freak_NL
In a positive turn of events, Ismail Ajjawi has now been granted a new student
visa and can attend classes at Harvard as planned:

[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/03/palestinia...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/sep/03/palestinian-
student-harvard-ismail-ajjawi-immigration)

------
bgorman
Unfortunately large portions of the US government operate outside of civilian
oversight. (TSA, CBP, NSA) etc. At this point foreign governments should
probably be advising their citizens to take a burner phone to the US.

------
notkaiho
Completely unrelated to the article, dealing with TechCrunch (Oath's) cookie
privacy notes is an absolute nightmare. No (clear) way to opt out of them.
Sad.

~~~
eps
Firefox + uBlock Origin will do the trick.

------
csomar
> The officers asked Dakhil if he wanted to claim for asylum, which he
> declined.

Interesting. They are denying him a tourism entry but also asking him if he
wants to stay indefinitely.

------
irq11
Mods: unflag this. This is a prime example of ideological abuse of the
flagging system.

------
curiousgal
Crossing any border with pictures of dead children on your phone is plain
stupid regardless of the recent idiotic U.S. visa policy.

~~~
troynt
You do not control what is on your phone.

Any app/website can put whatever it wants on your phone and you would have no
idea.

------
influx
The document states he claimed he was going to work at his relative's gas
station, which seems plausible. This is a visa violation, and would get you
denied from basically every country in the world.

~~~
egypturnash
Did you read the text of the article? He vehemently denies that he was going
to work at his relative's gas station.

 _One line of questioning focused on an officer’s accusation that Dakhil was
planning to work at a gas station owned by his cousin — which Dakhil denied._

 _“They totally changed this scenario,” he said, rebutting several remarks and
descriptions reported by the officers. “They only disclosed what they wanted
to disclose,” he said. “They want to justify their decision, so they mentioned
working in a gas station by themselves,” he claimed._

~~~
influx
Read the report of the officers, Techcrunch intentionally put it at the end of
the article to bury it, but there are two sides to this story and the report
is quite plausible:

"[] stated that he was not sure how much he would get paid or how many hours
per day he will work. [] stated that by working at one of the gas stations,
this would free [] of the responsibility and allow [] to work at a different
gas station."

There's a lot of detail in that statement that lends credibility over what
Dakhil says.

~~~
Freak_NL
It just lacks plausibility. Ismail Ajjawi doesn't come across as illiterate,
and certainly would have been aware of seeking work on a student visa being
grounds for denial of entry. Besides being general knowledge, it would have
come up several times during his visa application process.

~~~
pandaman
Here[1] a NZ journalist, who tried to come for work on ESTA visa waiver shares
the horrors of CBP nazis not understanding that it's hard to get J-1 visa and
denying entry. This proves that being literate is not enough to understand
requirements of various visas.

[1]
[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11494827)

------
dmitrygr
Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are

Edit: I'm not condoning or arguing against the CBP decision, just pointing out
that their line of thinking is not novel. It has been around since the times
of Socrates.

~~~
graeme
Viral whatsapp messages are common in south asia. Receiving a message doesn't
mean it's from a friend.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Tell me what subreddits you subscribe to and I'll tell you who you are.

~~~
cortesoft
Most of my subscriptions are ones I accidentally clicked while scrolling
through r/all

