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Comment by kennysoona | Hacker News Reader

All people involved have jurisdiction on how to apply the law. Putting this girl in prison and a jumpsuit is ridiculous.

It creates yet another person who will come to rightfully hate the US, gets bad press affecting tourism and business, and for what? For a girl that loved the US, misinterpreted or misunderstood something and is staying a little longer, spending more money and having good experiences.

Enforce the law, sure, whatever, but the jumpsuit and 10 days in a detention center are barbaric and unnecessary. There's a reason this wouldn't have happened before a wannabe dictator was in power.

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I agree that the conditions are far from ideal, but if that's how US generally deals with people waiting for their court dates, it's what it is.

This does not mean US should not work to improve those conditions for everyone — I don't see a difference between a Mexican person overstaying or her overstaying from the angle of immigration clerks — it should! US should also certainly adapt laws to avoid any "detention" for people open to "voluntary deportation".

In my non-EU European country, arbitrary application of laws is exactly what's the issue. This leads to rampant corruption and society going crazy (it's not about being a good citizen, it's about not getting caught being a bad one).

> but if that's how US generally deals with people waiting for their court dates, it's what it is.

Historically, (as in: during periods where Trump is not president) it is not.

It did happen before as well: see above comment I made about my IT colleague being drilled for hours when they said they were coming in "for work" instead of "for a business trip".

If you've not passed US border control as a foreigner, you really have no idea of what a pleasant experience it... is not.

My point was not that "being drilled" did not happen.

Being locked up in a detention center for days (and in solitary confinement in at least one recent case) for this sort of violation would have been rare to non-existent.

I crossed the US border many times as a foreigner, although I am now a citizen. The easiest kind of foreigner though - white, anglo, male, middle class. Even those qualifications don't seem like enough to stop the absurd responses from ICE anymore, though.

Was it at a land crossing and were you already denied entry into Canada due to you planing to work there to sustain yourself?

I get it that US could be nicer, but it was Canada who denied entry first (the girl was coming into Canada after being in the US for weeks prior to that).

I just don't think this has changed due to Trump: I could very well see this happening prior to Trump.

Somebody mentioned how average detainee wait for a court date is 50 days! Trump has not been in power long enough to bring the average that high.

> I agree that the conditions are far from ideal, but if that's how US generally deals with people waiting for their court dates, it's what it is.

It's what it is under Trump. 3 months ago Someone in this situation wouldn't have been detained for this long and in the news for such a minor offense.

> This does not mean US should not work to improve those conditions for everyone

This wasn't happening before for cases like this. All the worst CBP agents are empowered now and have no checks on their authority. That's the problem.

More than a decade ago, a UK or Italian colleague travelling into US for a business trip said in an entry interview they are coming in "for work". An IT person, and way before Trump himself even had an idea of becoming a president.

They were drilled for hours until finally they let them in: it required producing a lot of paperwork by the company hosting the event on top of the traveller's documentation.

Were they ever in an orange prison jumpsuit?

Nope, but they never admitted to already having worked on their temporary visit visa (waiver), or that they were denied entry in nearby country due to planning to work there. And they were at an international airport which would have given them easier option to get deported.

>All people involved have jurisdiction on how to apply the law. Putting this girl in prison and a jumpsuit is ridiculous.

So what are you proposing? Giving someone from an European country better treatment than someone from South America? Sounds like racism/white privilege to me.

>It creates yet another person who will come to rightfully hate the US, gets bad press affecting tourism and business, and for what? For a girl that loved the US

South Americans are fleeing prosecution from drug gangs or economic devastation. That's a far stronger justification than some girl who "loved the US" and wants to backpack for a few months.

>misinterpreted or misunderstood something and is staying a little longer, spending more money and having good experiences.

As other people have mentioned, it's basically plastered everywhere during the ESTA process that you can't work. "misinterpreted or misunderstood" seems like a stretch.

> Giving someone from an European country better treatment than someone from South America? Sounds like racism/white privilege to me.

No, the proposal is to treat all such cases equivalently, regardless of national origin.

That means no more prison/orange jump suit/inacessibility for Europeans or people from South America who screw up their visa conditions.

>No, the proposal is to treat all such cases equivalently, regardless of national origin.

Your description of "a girl that loved the US, misinterpreted or misunderstood something and is staying a little longer, spending more money and having good experiences" might not have any explicit racial/ethnic element, but it's pretty obvious you're selecting for a certain demographic when you're using criteria like that.

Or are you arguing that nobody should be treated that way? In which case why not just say something like "nobody should be treated this way", instead of qualifying it with so many descriptors?

> "a girl that loved the US, misinterpreted or misunderstood something and is staying a little longer, spending more money and having good experiences"

You seem to be replying to the wrong comment. I never said anything remotely like that.

Yeah was meant for the other guy

> Giving someone from an European country better treatment than someone from South America? Sounds like racism/white privilege to me.

No one is proposing anything like this. Why invent a strawman?

> "misinterpreted or misunderstood" seems like a stretch.

Not if you consider work to mean getting cash in exchange.

> Putting this girl in prison and a jumpsuit is ridiculous.

Should they have put her on house arrest in a hotel room? She doesn't deserve special privileges. A huge swath of the US population would be adamantly against her being treated special.

Do you know that mixed race marriage did not gain majority support in the USA until 1995? Sometimes it is right to not give a fuck about what "a huge swath of the US population thinks".

And in this case, it's not about "special priviledges", it's about the ridiculousness of this process being applied to anyone in her circumstances.

What people say on polls and reality are very different. Most people in all countries don't support mixed race marriage.

Again, discretion is a thing.

Discretion rubs both ways.

Just because it didn't happen to your/our preference this time doesn't mean it never happens.

I don't see what point you're trying to make here.

The point was discretion should have been used this care regardless of other times it has been.

Don't worry they do it to citizens too. On one occasion CBP told me they would not let me enter the country. On another they imprisoned me for ~12 hours, on another they asked me if I work in the US and tried to demand ever more intrusive questions about it.

... I am us citizen presenting with us passport, look and talk extremely white with no foreign accent.

How did your situation resolve? Did you sue them?

The situation resolved in my passport being flagged, feds executing a fruitless search warrant (thankfully the doctors would not go through with the full cavity search but i am in debt for the warrant), and lawyers telling me I'm SOL. Everytime I go to the border I make sure my affairs are in order to be disappeared. It's good advice for anyone entering the US.

Edit: just remembered the time they were enraged they had to let me in so threatened to revoke my passport.

> lawyers telling me I'm SOL.

Why? On what basis?

"We've tried litigating these cases before and after always failing we gave up pursuing these kinds of cases" -- in so many words.

I assume it has to do with a federal law that grants immigration agents broad searches and inspections and technically the Fourth Amendment does not fully apply as long as they are within 100 miles of the border or in the functional equivalent of a border (like an airport). The ACLU has a summary page about this.[1]

[1]: https://www.aclu.org/documents/constitution-100-mile-border-...

I wouldn't think that would extend to threats like a cavity search and flagging their passport.

Lady named Cervantes had doctors warrantlessly finger raping her and lost due to jurisdiction fuck fuck games ( i also talked to her lawyer). Happen all the time, CBP lost once iirc in new mexico and letters were sent and thenn promptly ignored. CBP bragged to me about it. They also bragged about flagging trans people claiming their surgical dong was drugs and sending them for exam to fuck with them.

It's not just about security, they admitted they fuck with innocent people just for enjoyment. They cannot be stopped as the courts don't really see them as beholden to the Constitution, it's a huge legal hole and the officers have a crystal clear understanding of this.

This is also why when they needed an unbeholden army to send to Portland to pick up protesters in unmarked vans, they used CBP.

https://holdcbpaccountable.org/2016/08/09/cervantes-v-united...

Dude has said on here before that they voluntarily went to Syria to join in the conflict so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

... on the US allied side. The government has known this for 10+ years, if it was illegal I'd have already went to jail. Look up Ashley Cervantes case if you don't believe it can't happen to anybody.

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