You started a hellish flamewar with this, and perpetuated it badly downthread. That's seriously not ok and we ban accounts that do it, so please don't do it again.
It's not what this site is for, it destroys what it is for, and it evokes worse from others. Not cool.
p.s. Also, you posted this twice. Please don't do that. (The other one was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229712 and I've marked it as a dupe and merged the replies here now.)
Fair enough, no argument from me there! I appreciate your moderation effort Dang! I was way out of line and not in a great mental headspace, and deserved to be flagged to oblivion.
You do not put people in solitary confinement for nine days - or twenty days - and without giving them any idea of what is happening, or notifying anyone where they are. This is cruel and unusual punishment.
You would think that being the subject of such awful treatment would have instilled some empathy in you. Instead, it seems to have turned you into an awful, vindictive human being. Please seek professional help to deal with your trauma.
You will be happy to know that the detained person was a White Australian. By the way, whenever I see pictures of US border patrol officers, many of them are not White.
> You will be happy to know that the detained person was a White Australian
Absolutely, now Bogan Barry knows how it feels on Nauru or Christmas Island.
I'm a Brown American, but after this election and others across western nations, I've come to realize you Firangis won't come to help us. You only speak out when it's one of you guys facing this kind of dehumanization, not us.
I'm sure you have legitimate reasons to be frustrated, and have been describing things that really happen and double standards that really exist.
At the same time, perpetuating race war on HN, which is what your comments in this thread are doing, is not ok. It only makes things worse, so please stop and please don't do it again.
p.s. The people breaking the site guidelines in response to you ought not to have been doing that either, of course. I've responded to those now, or at least most of them.
No, he's just pointing out the double standards, and I agree with this sentiment. It's very difficult to visit the US (or really any Western country) with my passport, and always has been. You have to put in a lot of money and collect many pieces of paper for even a tourist visit (forget about working there or — god forbid — trying to legally immigrate), and there's a large chance you will be denied regardless. Nobody gives a flying fuck about this.
The outrage here is that she was detained. One thing is to be denied entry even when you did everything right, another is to be detained for an indefinite period of time.
Yep. Becuase I'm tired of this holier than thou crap.
It's very easy to follow visa laws as a German national to the US. You don't face any of the same amounts of hurdles that non-Western nationals face.
And your countries would treat us the same if we didn't have a US passport (I remember those experiences in Frankfurt Airport before and after I got the American passport)
The thing is, in Europe, precisely in European Union, people can travel and work freely with minimum formalities across all 28 EU countries and in Norway. It's easy for European citizen (and the person in question was from Germany which is an EU member) to forget that some countries are still that deeply not civilized.
Notwithstanding that, the person should just be deported immediately, but instead was detained for multiple weeks. Is it how it supposed to be dealing with visitors?
Because the EU does not treat US citizens in this way and on average it is far more unlikely that a German wants to be an illegal immigrant in the US. It is not hard to understand.
You know how Germany treats refugees? They let them stab 2 year old children and hide their identity in the press so as not to offend them.
And AfD now has 152 seats in the Bundestag, and as a result the CDU/CSU will have to become equally anti-immigrant.
This is the only way Germans will learn, just like the only way us Americans will learn about the dangers of populism is getting burnt and abused by DOGE.
> Before I got my US passport, the German immigration staff would always treat me like shit, but with the US passport, I'd make sure to flaunt it so I'm not treated like yet another South Asian or Middle Eastern national.
Given the behavior of the current administration, I fear soon you will be back to be treated the old way even with US passport.
Oh? My understanding so far was that she claims to have wanted to visit a friend in the USA, and is only accused of wanting to work. Can you please pinpoint to me where you got the information?
> CBP agents at the border accused Brösche of planning to violate the terms of the visa waiver program by intending to work as a tattoo artist during her trip to LA, Lofving said
Yes. Accused. That article does not mention anything else.
I personally believe that just an accusation is NOT enough to justify that treatment. In fact I don't believe that even if she did intend to work the correct thing would have been to send her back. But an accusation?!
When transiting an international border in the US, visa status information is available to CBP along with a quick perusal of the person's social media (EU states do the same if not in a VWP program).
Her social media has shown she was working as a tattoo artist on tour in LA with dates - direct violation of the VWP because it's an employment role.
This makes no sense. What law do you think she violated? And you're certainly painting Latin immigrants with a wide brush, there are a TON of us who came in illegally.
Expedited removal is part of their existing authority to deal with fraud and misrepresentation with visa entry requirements.
It only requires a few hours to process and results in a five year ban from the United States as a deterrent. Detaining someone indefinitely under these specific circumstances is not something that happens in France and Germany. And until now wasn’t something that was happening in the United States.
Formal deportation does not require imprisonment for weeks, I personally know someone deported on arrival from Spain and they were sent back to their home country a few hours later. There's no reason to do it, it costs more for the country deporting someone, it doesn't improve the deterrence since the deported will be banned from entry for a while.
> but based on the German election results, there's no hope.
I think in a perfect and just universe, the most fitting end for this post would be for it to be perfectly preserved, with your actual name, in perpetuity, in the worlds most popular and enduring history textbook. Imagine your children's grandchildren reading this sublime example of the casual banal brutality of our time, even among regular everyday people.
I sincerely hope for that future for you, and for all of us.
I agree that a month was far too long and she should have been sent back much sooner. But, she 100% intended to violate her visa and I simply can't imagine calling a criminal being imprisoned for 1 month before being sent home, "brutality".
I would yell this from the rooftops loud and proud if I was running for office in the Bay Area as a D (because I worked with them early in my career and am a party member).
Most 1st and 1.5gen Asian and Latiné Americans would agree with this statement I gave.
> The point is to make an example so no one else tries these shenanigans.
This is complete bollocks. She did not try these shenanigans.
> The fact that a German thinks she can use the VWP like that absolutely ticks me off.
How dares she enter the country with a valid passport, having done all the paperwork correctly, a good reason and a return ticket? Seriously, what the actual fuck are you on about? You’re ok with a tourist being punished for no reason whatsoever because somehow you have a beef with some immigrants?
