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If you're planning a visit to America, cancel it for god's sake (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 4 months ago by DougHolland@lemmy.world to c/aiop@lemmy.world

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... The majority of the women were from Latin American countries, but some were from India, China, Iran, Afghanistan and Gaza. “Most of them were asylum seekers, but there was this handful of new people who had come in recently who did not know why they were here.” Lewelyn joined the dorm a few days after Becky. She had just returned from visiting her family in the Philippines; she had been living in the US since 1976, working as a lab technician at the University of Washington hospital’s cancer centre. “She’d had a visa issue that had been resolved many years ago, but now it was flagging on the system again.” Kseniia, a Russian woman who had been working for two years in a California nail salon, had permission to work in the US but was handcuffed while waiting for her husband to come out of an Ice interview. “She was so confused. She kept saying to me, ‘I’ve got a work permit.’”

There were other tourists, too. Bana, from Romania, was on holiday in Canada and visited Peace Arch park, on the international boundary between the US and Canada. She told Becky she had been taking selfies with her husband when a US border official told her they had strayed into American territory without the right visa and took her into custody...

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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago

It's an iffy situation. What she was doing was somewhere between working and visiting as a tourist. If she'd been staying with a friend and doing the exact same thing it would have been a purely tourist type visit.

She may have become friends with the people she was visiting, but it was setup through a company that lets people do housework in exchange for a place to stay.

No money changed hands. But, it it's possible she would have been asked to leave if she hadn't done the agreed housework. Then again, if you're visiting a friend, it's possible they'll ask you to leave if you're not helping with the housework too.

So, basically, it's a reasonable error to make. She's halfway between the pure "work" situation and the pure "tourist" situation.

I suppose it's reasonable to deny her entry on a tourist visa if she explains the situation, but it's also perfectly reasonable to allow her in and say that it counts as a tourist visit.

Where she got screwed is that she ran into this situation when trying to enter Canada from the US via a land border. If she'd been coming from England, she could have just gone back. Probably if she'd been entering via an airport instead of a land border, they could have just denied her entry, she would have been stuck in the airport, but she could have taken a plane home. But, because she was entering Canada from the US via land, she had to re-enter the US after the mix-up, and that's where she got screwed over.

A reasonable outcome at that stage would have been to escort her to the airport, and get her on a flight to England. That would have been much cheaper for the US than caging her for days on end. But, make a tiny mistake in the current US system and you're in a situation that's worse than most jails.

Non-Americans should avoid the US at all costs. Even Americans should avoid crossing the border at all costs because coming back in could be a big risk. I hope every major international organization planning a conference this year has the conference in any country other than the US. This will be hell for some places like Las Vegas, but this is what they voted for.