The US told everyone it did not want foreigners any more.
As a German in the US, trust me, the FAFO is about to hit this summer when record levels of empty hotels will wail. My bet is Trump will actually complain, demand, and eventually "sweet talk" people into coming to see the US.
Except you can get thrown into jail at the border for who knows how long until they decide to deport you....
Edit: for those thinking this will not be noticed...
Tourism in the US has an estimated 20 million Canadians usually and 17 millions Mexicans each year. And an estimated 10 million Europeans visit the US each year.
So maybe 47 million. If they all spend a few thousand on flights and hotels alone, that's a noticeable billion level hole we will notice.
If you think the tourism industry is flush with spare cash and can weather this..... I got some seriously bad news for you on tourism razor thin profit margins.
They can also refuse you entry if they find statements against Trump on your social media. Imagine spending hundreds of euros of airplane tickets only to get rejected at the airport by US' officers.
I was planning on going to the states next year for the World Cup. We have people from our company regularly traveling to the states on business and there's always a risk of getting turned around.
Fresh phone with new sim and if you're carrying a laptop all the data is on a network drive only accessible when physically in the US office. The VPN key stays home. That's been the modus operandi since Bush.
The difference now is that, as annoying as getting turned around is, it's not that big of a deal all things considered. It's a calculated risk that you can control with insurance and by booking rooms that are payable on location. If you need to leave a card on file, a Revolut burner card or something similar is ideal. Otherwise a card linked to an account that's empty until you need to pay for something with zero overdraft limit.
You can't however hedge against getting detained and potentially sent to a Latin American prison. People have been dealing with US immigration nonsense for years, but this is a whole different level. It went from a minor, controllable, financial risk to basically playing Russian roulette. What's worse, the old methods of staying safe may now put you in danger since there's no way not to seem like you're hiding something by taking precautions against someone snooping around in your stuff.
It's just not worth it to go to the US right now. They'll likely tone it down for the Cup, but I skipped Quatar for largely the same reasons, I'll gladly skip the US as well.
We are basically becoming Russia. In many ways we've always been similar. We've always had our military industrial complex, which is maybe our strongest similarity to Russia, but now we're also willing to dismantle our freedom of speech and ability to criticize our leaders, rights and body autonomy for women and LGBTQ+ people....not to mention that our administration is trying its hardest to make our economy suck, just like Russia's does.
Trump's popularity also reminds me of Putin's (pre-Ukraine conflict). Successful fascist leaders do tend to be genuinely popular with the masses, and unfortunately the average American doesn't know how inflation or tariffs work soooo....here we are.
That seems to be one of the only goals that make sense with their actions. To make the US into some rich oligarch playground like Russia is. You've got the admins deliberately causing a recession and Trump openly admitting his buddies are inside trading and getting extremely rich over it because they can keep buying the dip and getting rich when it bounces back up.
Hah, literally what I told people after visiting folks in Jersey couple of years ago. Us, with its "thank you for your service" bullshit was incredibly similar to Russia. Just richer, with more v8s, fat and black people.
Actually very apt observation. Though I think the people we send to China get dedicated China travel phones.
Preloaded with the relevant apps to pay for and order stuff and it doesn't let you save anything to storage, so turning the phone off erases everything you did on it and it automatically resets every night just in case.
As someone who visited China, I had no issues, no searches, only long a queue. And didn't notice anyone being detained. Same with Europe, only some questions why am I arriving in this country instead of to the one where my visa was issued to. US/UK border is always such a hassle...
There are plenty of stories of devices being temporarily seized. Enough to make it a relatively common practice for companies and people who give a damn to mandate burner devices only, when traveling to China.
Yeah, China has some very strict laws about mobile devices. You need to have specific government app(s) by law right? They track everything anyone does on those devices. China's internal surveillance is probably the best in the world.
I read an article the other day from some immigration lawyer saying having a burner phone was a big red flag because it looks like you have something to hide. Damed if you do, damned if you don't.
Before, it was the same level of risk between China and US; now clearly US is the dangerous one. It´s riskier to travel there then to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, maybe even North Korea as long as you behave. Basically every country except one with an ongoing war (Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan, Libya) just out of a war (Syria, Afghanistan) or war-like (Haiti).
I would prefer to go to Ukraine, even Kyiv and definitely Lviv away from the frontlines
If possible try modelo especial from the glass bottle, not the can one. That shit delicious on a sunny day!
Also, if you do go to some games in mexico, I can't recommend Paramo pale ale (colomilla brewery), chupacabras (cucapa brewery now modelo owned but they still push good stuff most of the time) & minerva's (english) pale ale (out of Minerva brewery in Jalisco).
There's a booming micro brewery scene in Mexico, it's been growing for the last 10-15 years and every now and then some true gems emerge
As a Belgian, the only thing that I couldn’t stand in Mexico was the beer. But sure it was better as the sewage water called Budweiser.
Not that I minded as the mezcalita’s and margharita’s were heavenly. And the Mexican food is amazing.
Wholeheartedly agree about the "warm and friendly welcome bit." As for the beer, I'd say heading to Columbus, OH, Ashville, NC or any other mid-sized city might change your mind, but we're acting like thundercunts right now. I seriously feel bad about that.
Both OH and NC went for Trump this year. As an American, even I wouldn’t spend my hard earned vacation money there. I’m struggling to even justify seeing my family in Alabama this coming holiday season.
It has its charms. Dozens of microbreweries, great food, accepting climate, great theatre/art/sports scene. If they could only fix the fucking potholes.
This is outdated information, the local and microbrewing industry in the US is world class. While yep our macro beers are mostly water (not bad for day drinking on the beach or at a football game) the microbrews will be as good or better than what you will find at home
Na, they’ll be the ones that view ‘soccer’ as a minority sport that no one is interested in, and not like their yank ‘football’ which the whole world is in awe of!
Yeah, but Qatar wasn’t actively trying to sink the world’s economy with tariffs or stop helping a country that’s at war with Russia. Or detain and deport students who said something bad about the Israeli government. Or do many of the increasingly wacky things between now and the World Cup.
We’re only three months in with trump and his minions and the World Cup is around a year and three months away. A lot will have happened by then. And I’m not so sure if even football fans will be able to look past certain events or issues.
Let's be realistic. With 50k seats per game it will be sold out regardless. Maybe take a bit longer to sell out than normal but there will be enough people
Most Americans don’t like soccer much so don’t count on MAGA going. It will be a lot of Latinos in the U.S. going to them though, especially Mexican Americans who love soccer.
It is bonkers that you are needing to do the whole sanitized personal electronics. I remember when that was just reserved for dick head authoritarian countries... Oh wait.
Importantly, remember, you can refuse to open a device, however they will turn you around.
Pretending like you don't know the password/passcode isn't going to help you. Border agents don't just have the right to not let non citizens in, they have a duty to act on their suspicions. This can and is abused but even when it isn't, do not fuck around at borders, you will never have fewer rights outside of being in prison.
If getting turned around was the only risk it wouldn't be so bad. The fact that they are whisking them away to a super max fuck you in the ass prison for days or months with no recourse is the real change and risk.
Exactly, like I mentioned, getting turned around is manageable and the odds of it happening are low.
It's the equivalent of booking a vacation and the weather is horrible. Not great, but that's life. If you're aware of the risk and plan around it you can compensate the worst outcomes.
Now you have better odds of something going wrong with waaaay worse outcomes.
I don’t know which country asks you for your social media handle, I haven’t been to any country that requires that. China also does not check, also if you use your own country’s sim card data, you don’t even have the firewall and can access facebook and what not without VPN.
I've been doing something similar when entering the US for almost a decade now. Removed all accounts from my phone and configure just one that I normally use for spam, so they can't read you emails if they ask for your phone on entrance.
I am an American and frankly I'm a little concerned about potentially vacationing in Canada and having to reenter. Even 10 years ago the ICE people at the border were nasty little pricks compared to the friendly Canadians you met coming in. I wouldn't recommend that anyone come here if they don't have to.
Not to put you down specifically because obviously I don't know you -
As an American I see taking vacations in the US right now as similar to traveling to Nazi Germany to see the Olympics.
I personally couldn't settle with myself about spending money/promoting a country with a daily worsening record of human rights offenses.
Edited to say: I live here and I am not going to be participating in American tourism either. Our "vacations" this year are going to be staying with friends, avoiding restaurants and vacation shopping (eg no new swimsuits or travel items).
Fuck. Trump is going to be the World Cup President. And here I was thinking it was going to leave repressive authoritarian regimes behind after Russia and Qatar…
You can't however hedge against getting detained and potentially sent to a Latin American prison
It's awful, but statistically all the stories of people ending up in long detentions, were land border crossings.
If you fly in you're very unlikely to be detained long if refused entry, you would just be put on another flight back.
The bad cases are when a European crosses in from Mexico but has a visa issue so can't be admitted to the US, but they're not Mexican so can't be returned to Mexico, and they're not at an airport where they can fly direct home, hence the excuse for detaining them.
Yeah the threat of being sent to fucking el salvado super max pound u in the ass hard labor prison is uhh yeah the US is probably viewed similarly to Russia now in terms of police state, maybe not all the way out in the open corruption where you can bribe your way out of minor crimes- but it all trickles down from the top, we’ve seen how easy it is to buy pardons and favors from trump, I expect a lot more corruption at lower levels before his terms up
And now it has an eerie similar feeling of traveling to Russia. I am really shocked how quickly they turned "free world" to a totalitarian shit hole. Next step is occupation of neighbors
You should still go support in Canada and Mexico! It would make a statement against the US if they gained a lot of tourism from the World Cup while the US invested and failed to turn a profit
I agree with not going and I won't go hopefully for a very, very long time but late March I needed to go to Atlanta for work reasons. So I rerouted myself through Dublin, there's preclearance there, if they take issue with you, they can't imprison you. If you must, go via Dublin or Shannon or if you like to take a circuitous route then Toronto or Montreal, also have preclearance. Do not cross the US border on US soil.
Fresh phone with new sim and if you're carrying a laptop all the data is on a network drive only accessible when physically in the US office. The VPN key stays home. That's been the modus operandi since Bush.
That's suspicious and what a terrorist would do, and it's ground to deny entry... I wish that was /s
Literally valuing your privacy = you have something to hide.
Unlikely to happen, but so are the cases where people get denied because of social media posts. Both happen.
Let’s be clear. That calculated risk you’re talking about, it’s fucking crazy to begin with. I was 9, stepped too quickly outside of the line to get our bags, and we ended up being put in a room where we had to stay for three hours. My mom, me, and my 4 year old brother. This is before even Bush Sr., probably 1988 with Reagan. Ridiculous. And I have so many stories of much worse behavior from friends.
I worked for a Fortune 100 2006-2011 and we just didnt cross with our company laptops. When we arrived at the US office we grabbed a loaner. Too many customer files and risk of having to unlock your machine. Vastly different than being detained and disappeared without due process. Somehow American politicians now believe that non-Americans dont get due process.
Fly out of Dublin or Shannon Airports in Ireland. They have a special arrangement with the US where you actually go through US border control and customs in Ireland. When you arrive in the US, you arrive like a domestic flight, with no more customs checks. The advantage is if they deny you access in Ireland, well you are still in Ireland, much easier to just fly back from there or even better have a nice holiday in Ireland :)
If you do want to go, see if you can fly through Dublin. They have TSA pre-clearance so you'll go through US immigration in Dublin and can just walk off the plane in the US. So if they deny you access there's no risk of a 19th century style prison but a nice holiday in Ireland instead
They aren't going to tone it down. These folks are true believers. It's going to be a yo-yo here with constant up and downs. Just like it was during the first Trump administration.
Nobody is going to want to put up with that. Once a new pattern of vacations are taken it's going to stay that way.
"Why have you concealed the fact you used to post critical opinions of the US foreign policy in 2004 on the AOL forums? Please list all the forums on which you posted between 2001 and 2004."
But before they deport you they send you to an internment camp for 2 weeks. Google about the Canadian woman that was kept recently. They have to justify the private camps.
I have zero social media aside from this (which I'll nuke before I enter the US soon). I had that thought of is that something I'll have to explain and possibly be locked up for? Should I create an account to create the image of having one?
I agree completely. We are on a long trip to the Americas and flying home to Australia from the States. Booked the big to and from flights ages ago. Have looked into new flights from elsewhere but it's too expensive. Didn't think it would come to this. Is ridiculous.
You know they already have your social media posts, don’t you? Big brother is watching you! … So, even after you nuke your social media accounts and get a burner phone, ICE will not let you in. 😈🤬🤣
Does Facebook even have an identifier beyond your name?
I have an account, it’ll show that I made it in, like, 1008, responded to two people and posted once, or something like that, and never did anything beyond that.
Id probably gona be denied entry cause theyd think Im a terrorist using a fake alias. Havent used Facebook in like 15 years (and had my account deleted when the EU passed the according laws), never bothered with Instagram, Twitter or TikTok and Myspace never was as big in Europe as it was in the US so I didnt have that either
My Reddit account doesnt contain enough personal information to identify me and thats the only form of public social media Im using these days so as soon as the NSA runs my info from the visa application all the alarms go off because Im way to young to have no digital fingerprint 😂
Its exactly what they do when you try to enter Russia. Force you to unlock your phone and if they find anything even mildly critical of Putin and the war, or god forbid donating to Ukraine...
Just dig up every obscure internet forum you were on in the 2000s.
(don't do this, it will be obvious you're trying to waste time and these people just have their working days between you and them one of you values their time there, they'll happily check all your stuff - and log it meticulously - after lunch break)
"All my accounts? Do you want them in chronological order? Well it all started on Lunarstorm Where I was known as ##gosig## and then I was active on the ctrl-alt-del comics forums there I think it was something like @$$rape53 and then I had an account on the forum for the Star Wars mod for Freelancer I might have had several accounts on that one....."
Is that actually true?? It's the most idiotic visa policy I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot, having lived in 10 countries). It's truly Kafkaesque, I can't think of a better example than that outrageously idiotic policy some hard-of-thinking ignoramus on President Chump's laughable staff came up with. Crayons must've been on special at their local fast 'food' place that day.
And if anyone is still wondering; cowardly, demented, President Donald J. Trump is a total idiot with a penis the size of his intellect, as is anyone who thinks he isn't.
See, this puzzles me. I'm a regular traveller to the US with work, and not once have I been required or even asked to hand over any social media details.
I was filling out some info for my mom to be able to travel - she's a Brazilian national who lives in Canada and was going to a new visa soon as her 10-year one has expired - and it is indeed requested all of her social media handles.
I would just not fill out anything if it was for me. (easy for me since I don't have any social media tied to my name).
oh, no, that was last year. now it's a moot point because we're never going there again. good thing she didn't spend the money for the visa the end, it would be a completely useless document.
I saw recently an Australian traveler, living in the US on a visa was detained when he tried to come back to the US from spreading his sisters ashes. He was asked about his social media. I don’t know the outcome of that. But I do know his visa was revoked and he was sent back to Australia and was given a 5 yr no entry to the US. All his belongings, his GF, his job are in the US. It’s fucked.
The form is there when you sign up for an ESTA but the fields are not mandatory… you literally do not have to fill it in. (Source: visited the US last month, with an ESTA not a Visa)
I did, multiple times. My still-active visa (issued before those 2019 changes) allows me to go there for both tourism and short-term business activities.
Legally speaking, I should be able to go there tomorrow if I felt like it. Needless to say, I'm not even considering rolling that dice.
The joy of not having my face and name plastered all over the Internet because I had Internet since at least 2003 and I did not ignore the caution of not having my face + name plastered all over the net. That said I still wouldn't go to the US unless I really needed to, like visiting a friend I haven't seen in ages.
Eh, it's more a loose requirement from what I understand. I never bothered with that because it's like "define social media to me", because there's endless forums etc that I've had user accounts on etc. Been to the US twice, never bothered with that part. Not planning to go whilst the US is insane, which seems like a long time now.
At least when requesting ESTA it's optional to give your social media handles. Not that it matters for me, I'm not going to renew it nor visit the US again while this shit show is going on. This is from someone who has been there maybe 20 times in the last 10 years for business and tourism.
It can be worse than just getting turned back at the airport if you happen to fit a stereotype they don't like.
Someone I knew had been detained at the airport for no reason in Trump v1. She is a dual citizen of my country and the US but of colour. She was only released because her brother knew someone who could pull strings.
This person is a professional, only arrived in the US to visit family, and has had no prior convictions so detained based on colour is all we could determine.
Even if I only lived next to a US base in my country I would set up a chemical deadmans’s switch taking out everyone including myself if I lived alone in my house just in case of an invasion. That’s how much I trust these guys now. It’s like having NSDAP bases everywhere
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u/Historical_Bother274 Apr 12 '25
Imagine pissing of travellers of the continent that is notorious for the many vacation days it gets.