Welcome to America, where we read your private mail, track all your movements online, shoot your dogs, abuse you at the borders, put antibiotics in your food, bankrupt you when you get sick, throw you in jail with hardened criminals if you smoke a spliff, and drone-execute you with no warrant if the president doesn't like you. Would you like fries with that?
While I agree that this person was probably treated very poorly, I also want to point out that they were traveling for work purposes.<p>In the United States, non-US citizens entering the country for work purposes are generally required to get a visa. There are a few (and very few at that) business exceptions to this process, as listed here: <a href="http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html" rel="nofollow">http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html</a><p>He stated that he was: Trying to work several unpaid shows, he would receive meals and tips as compensation at one or more shows, and then he was going to write articles for Noisey (<a href="http://noisey.vice.com/" rel="nofollow">http://noisey.vice.com/</a>) about it.<p>Bringing musical instruments with you (and admitting you are a musician - even if just as a 'hobby') on a supposed tourism visit and going to one or more cities where you did not have relatives or explicit non-business reasons to be there probably immediately triggered an investigation as to why he did not have a visa / whether he required a visa for his visit.<p>Yes - our border control system is horrible. I totally grant that. But this person was also explicitly not playing by the work visa rules either.
This seems like a good place to leave a quick plug for the recent computer game "Papers, Please", which perfectly simulates the experience of being a clerk inspecting prospective entrants at the border of a dystopian republic and approving/denying visas.<p>As the game progressed I found myself "just following orders", even as they got increasingly creepy, and now I think I have a much better understanding of what life is like for these people. There are rules, and you follow them because your job is to carry out the rules. You may occasionally think hard about whether what you're doing is wrong, but you don't stop doing it because you've got a family to feed.<p>Spooky stuff. I felt like I had a much better understanding, after 30 minutes in the game, of what border agents are actually doing when I give them my passport.
It's very hard to extrapolate from stories like this to know if the actual instance and intensity of abuses is increasing, or if reportage is increasing (i.e. landing on HN front page) because of folk's irritation with other aspects of the US government.<p>For my money, TSA is right after HSA as far as FUBAR government agencies go. Seems like quality control is right in the shitter. As for solutions, I'd like to see a customer satisfaction survey implemented across the board. You might actually be able to implement something like this in a favorable political environment (there's no law saying that TSA has to attempt to piss off every person that comes through our borders). I've noticed that some of these completely dysfunctional agencies seem to attract the worst sort of bad eggs, so with something like that you could at least weed out some of the most underperforming TSA mob squads.
To play devil's advocate, he traveled to the U.S. with a guitar, had 5 shows booked in advance before his arrival, uses a pseudonym to perform and didn't declare any of this to the border officials. I think the article can also say he has a CD coming out soon. I can actually see why he was turned away. He's a musician, hoping to travel and do some shows in the U.S. for fun.<p>You can't work in the U.S. without a work visa. The rules are pretty clear about that.<p>And performing for free is still work.
I'm not sure what exactly happened, but this is what I gather from the translation.<p>John was visiting the United States from London.
He was planning on traveling through California with his girlfriend, then traveling through the south on his own, eventually meeting up with his aunt in Alabama.<p>After landing, he had a problem in customs. He had a guitar with him and told the agent that he would be playing some shows in the US.<p>He was then sent away from the US because he didn't have a work visa and he was here doing work.<p>It sounds like this was a perfect storm of shitty situations. Take an overworked/stupid/bad (take your pick) security agent, someone who doesn't speak native english and may have had some trouble explaining his situation, an expired student visa (adds to confusion) and a weird "working" on vacation situation and you have a recipe for a bad time.<p>It sucks.
This sort of thing has happened a number of times recently to people I know. I'm a musician and have lots friends who play in bands and book shows, so this hits close to home.<p>Last month a band from Canada I was scheduled to play with was stopped at the border and told to turn around because they didn't have work visas. This group of four women in their late teens and early twenties -- day jobs at bars and restaurants, driving a shitty 1980s chevy van -- <i>might</i> get some gas money at the gig -- which is basically a party in a warehouse -- and free PBRs from a cooler that the bands all share. This is not the sort of commerce that threatens jobs or the US economy.<p>A musician I know just tried to go the legit route but failed to meet the artistic reputation standards of the Artist (o-1) Visa. US Immigration wanted newspaper and magazine reviews and proof of past shows at recognizable venues. If you're a small artist on a small label, you're not going to have those. You'll have chatter about you on blogs and twitter and facebook, you will have played at house parties, warehouses and bars, and you're on a small label website which, honestly, anyone could spoof to look legit. Nevertheless this guy is a real artist with a great record that a thousand people have bought. The shows he was going to play probably would have drawn capacity crowds at a handful of punk rock venues in the SF Bay and elsewhere. But he can't play or even come to the US because he's not "exceptional" enough.<p>I have a friend who is on a student visa from a middle eastern country and presently doing the exact same thing as the OP: traveling around the US with a guitar and making friends. I sent this to him immediately with the instructions: "do not ever say you are playing a show. do not ever say you are a musician. if they ask you about the guitar, tell them you're learning how to play."<p>As for the OP, he's just a student. He's not getting paid. Someone's cooking him dinner and giving him tips because that's what hospitable people do.<p>Our immigration policies treat harmless people harshly and are absurd.
Even if you were born and raised in America, you're not truly American unless you're white.
Until then, prepare to be accosted at immigration.
It seems that every day new reports are published talking about victims that are denied to enter the USA because of the wildest reasons - even with legal papers.<p>But it's not only the arbitrariness that every report seems to claim. It's more than that the behaviour of the officials towards citizens of other countrys and nations.<p>"America knows everything" - and you're not welcome any more.
Why can't the police / border guards just treat these humans as humans.
Ok, do what you must, return them to the originating country if they break some law.<p>It's unfortunate when it is a cool thing for some to be "tough" like this?
Key point:<p>"The result was that I was denied entry because I was on a business trip unannounced. The payment in the form of a warm meal at one of the shows in Nashville at a restaurant with ten tables is apparently illegal."<p>Well, yeah, sorta. If you come to perform a task and be compensated they might construe that as work. I'm not sure what he means by privacy violations - if his name is Googled, are there no results for his stage name? Did he have nothing in his items with his stage name? It seems odd to just assume CBP agents are doing something secret when this seems like public data.<p>I'm Canadian, and I was detained at the border as one CBP agent felt I needed a work visa (not just stating I'm there for business reasons) to represent my company at a tradeshow. (OTOH the unions at conference centers also agree that lifting a box or plugging in cables is work so...) Fortunately his supervisor disagreed.
America's border control system is so broken that it saddens me to see posts like this that reek of sensationalism (I mean, it's <i>Vice</i>) and hide the fact that, you know, he didn't have a valid visa.<p>I'm having trouble understanding what was so deplorable about this story <i>besides</i> the reprehensible treatment by the officials (which, again, seems exaggerated)? Am I misreading the story or is refusal to enter the country not the proper response to not having the correct documentation?
Well I'm glad this didn't happen to me. I travelled to the US in very similar circumstances a few weeks ago: European, carrying a guitar, visiting the South, previously stayed in the US on a J-1 intern visa. The only difference being that I had a one-way ticket.<p>I didn't even go through secondary at customs. No issues.
"I noticed an Indian boy in his early twenties at the end of the room." anyone else think of aditya? <a href="http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-during-ramadan" rel="nofollow">http://varnull.adityamukerjee.net/post/59021412512/dont-fly-...</a>
I'm interested in the fact that it seems that low level border flunkies have access to the email of anyone they're interested in for <i>work</i> violations.<p>Not terrorism or anything. Another example of security state mission creep. Download all your emails now.
How many of these do I have to read ... this is my government and <i>I DEMAND</i> more from it. (Of course right now they've closed every office that might accomplish something visible).<p>In the mean-time, I'd like to apologize to the citizens of earth for the horrible behavior of those performing in our security theater.<p>EDIT: My trips to Germany were very pleasant ... with the exception of having to take goods through customs (for expediency's sake), everyone was pleasant, courteous and relatively efficient.
I feel bad for the guy, but having been across the US border a few times it's important that if you're travelling for anything but spending money in the US you'd better phone and find out if you need a work visa.<p><pre><code> Volunteering? VISA.
Working for free? VISA.
Might ask someone for change? VISA.
Speaking at a conference? VISA.
Having coffee with someone and may discuss business? VISA.
Friend might buy you a beer? VISA.
You plan on bringing your bags to your hotel room yourself? VISA.
</code></pre>
Exceptions:
If you are going straight to your hotel, then going to disneyland, going back to your hotel and back to the airport then you might not need a VISA, as long as you also know the flight number, airport, airline and seat number you'll be leaving the US on, then you <i>might</i> not need a VISA but should probably phone the consulate and find out anyway.
As a Chinese citizen you can come into the US ridiculously pregnant and have your kid in the US on a tourist visa via a flight and never get hassled. You can walk across the southern border and create a human fence around ICE vans and get a slap on the wrist.<p>The problem: This guy doesn't serve a political interest so he gets hassled. Face it, this country is backwards and caters only to the elite.
Ive been at the border several times, non us citizen, and i've always been treated with respect. In fact, the guys at the border were always nice to me, sometimes dared a joke or asked me for help to translate something to someone else.<p>So yeah, i'm sure there's horrible ones and troubles happen, but i wouldn't make that a generality just like that.
I suppose it might be google translate, but this seems like a guy lying on his visa application, being rudely called out on it, and letting his fierce sense of entitlement take over.
This is what happens when soccer moms and helicopter dads run your country. Selfishness and paranoia rule the day, all behind the guise of good intentions, fairness, and security.
When you hire vastly too many enforcement employees (I'm lumping HS/TSA/etc all together here), what ends up happening is they find things to do. The reality is, TSA and Homeland Security have very little to do. The threat is not greater today than it was 20 years ago, but we've acquired tens of thousands of new personnel with absolutely nothing meaningful to do (and the tens of billions of dollars in costs to go with them).<p>You see the same exact effect in traditional police, SWAT teams, and so on. All that ends up happening is they terrorize good people.
Even as a U.S. citizen, every time I've traveled to other countries in the past few years, it's always jarring going from the hospitable, friendly customs people in the other countries, to the literally rude awakening of getting practically accosted by the agents in the U.S. upon returning.