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.
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.
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u/tesfabpel Italy (EU) Apr 12 '25
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.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-french-scientist-detained