… 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…
The important point here is that nobody has any rights in the US anymore.
Remember, Trump is the birther-in-chief. He demanded to see Obama’s birth certificate long before he considered running for President. He never admitted he was wrong and that Obama actually had citizenship. He’s now claiming that only citizens have a right to due process. But, since proving your citizenship requires due process, he could just throw Obama in Guantanamo and claim that Obama is a Kenyan, so he doesn’t have any right to due process.
If non-citizens don’t have rights, nobody has rights.
She was refused entry to Canada.
Because she tried to go on a tourist visa for something that wasn’t a tourist visit. They told her she was free to try again with the correct visa, unfortunately, when they refused her entry she had to return to the previous location to apply for that visa, and the previous location was…
In reality, she was probably on an expired tourist visa in the US, working to pay rent. This is against the rules.
She tried to do it in Canada, they said nope.
On return to the US they probably figured out she’d been in the USA on an expired tourist visa.
If this is the case, she is 100% in the wrong in this instance.
That said, the US should have let her fly back home instead of locking her in a cage and treating her like an animal. It’s not like she was a violent criminal or anything.
But this is MAGA we’re talking about. They are all about hurting others. In a few years they’ll be gassing “the others”.
Non Americans, avoid the USA at all costs. It isn’t worth it.
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.
I’m an American and I’m afraid to leave California. 100% we are poison at this time.
But if y’all ever find y’allselves in hell (don’t), I got a bed for you!
These stories are horrific.
Alongside the lack of demonstrated humanity is yet another long game of bankrupting everyone. This is how you destroy fifty states worth of tourism, and all the jobs that go with it. North Dakota and Iowa might not notice it, but most states will.
In addition, this is how you assure a lack of skilled labor and scientists, while speeding up brain drain. Education is done here, importing the educated is also done here. I guess the idea, for Trump, is to die with all the money and power and leave a sarcophagus of a nation in his wake.
Yup, like a lot of what Trump is doing, there will no recovery. It would take decades to rebuild the agencies and trust that’s been shattered, but the world doesn’t have decades. Even if it did, the new normal is that Republicans get to dismantle & destroy anything they don’t like.
Everything about America As It Was is finished. The new America will have only as much freedom and democracy as Republicans are willing to tolerate, which isn’t much.
The USA are a Nazi country now.
It’s an easy enough question:
Would you visit Nazi Germany?
Absolutely! Driving a tank of course
Or from 15000’ yeah!
staying on homestays free of charge in exchange for doing household chores, drawing as she went. For Burke, 28, it was absolute freedom.
When she tried to cross into Canada, Canadian border officials told her that her living arrangements meant she should be travelling on a work visa, not a tourist one. They sent her back to the US, where American officials classed her as an illegal alien. She was shackled and transported to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention centre, where she was locked up for 19 days
I just returned my EZ-pass no more driving in Trumpistan.
In fairness, this person was working on a tourist visa (likely an ESTA). The only reason she was placed in US detention is because she tried to enter Canada from the US and was refused entry by Canada.
I don’t support the nonsense Trump’s administration is doing, but this appears to be entirely unrelated. ESTAs (eTAs for Canada) explicitly prohibit you from working.
She washed dishes and vacuumed the rug, in exchange for sleeping space on the couch. That’s not ‘work’ when you file your taxes, and not ‘work’ by any sane definition.
Stop taking ludicrous authoritarian claims seriously.
I guess pretty much everywhere is authoritarian because they disagree with your definition of ‘work’. This person was refused entry by Canada for the same reason. They would have had their visa cancelled in my country and likely dozens of other countries too.
Many countries specifically have a visa for people who will be working to support themselves (often titled ‘working holiday’).
It’s not “tourism” either.
