The story of this one French guy being turned back at the border (out of millions of travellers) is what people see:

- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-f...

There were a few other stories that made the news like a British citizen that was prevented entry to Canada and then arrested trying to return to the US (who wanted to work illegally in Canada but admittedly treated very badly by the Americans).

- https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-rele...

"Claims that CBP is searching more electronic media due to the administration change are false. CBP’s search numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and less than 0.01% of travelers have their devices searched. These searches are conducted to detect digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to visitor admissibility, all of which play a critical role in national security."

- https://www.trade.gov/feature-article/march-2025-air-passeng...

"Non-U.S. citizen air passenger arrivals to the United States from foreign countries totaled:

    4.541 million in March 2025, down 9.7 percent compared to March 2024.
    This represents 87.3 percent of pre-pandemic March 2019 volume."

It's true that there is real confusion and fear. I have coworkers (I work for a large US company with offices all over the world) that share worries. This includes people with green cards, other working visas, and foreign visitors. There's plenty of travel and zero issues. People are worried is true.

In Canada there we also have a lot of people with strong feelings/emotional response to Trump's 51st state nonsense and tariffs. There is a real feeling of betrayal. There are practically zero issues with Canadians traveling to the US.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/250522/dq250...

"In March, Canadian residents returned from 2.7 million trips to the United States, representing a 24.0% decrease from March 2024 and accounting for 63.9% of all trips taken by Canadian residents in March 2025.

Meanwhile, US residents took 1.2 million trips to Canada in March, down 6.6% from March 2024 and representing 81.3% of all non-resident trips to Canada in March 2025. "

Basically the worries are real, fueled to a large extent by these sorts of articles, and in my opinion politically motivated (and I don't like Trump either) but the likelihood of running into problems is small and unclear if larger than it ever was.