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Comment by scotty79 | Hacker News Reader

US is on my no-fly list for many years now and most likely will stay there till my death.

Same, and I’m from Canada. Lots of international flights route thru the US. I have to make extra effort to avoid. Been doing that for 10 years. Just not worth the risk.

Isn’t that somewhat simplified by doing immigration for the USA at Canadian airports? In that case, I’d guess they could say no at the airport but you aren’t really at risk of being deported since you are still in Canada, and there are no emigration checks in American airports.

Not simplified much. By the silly rules in the US, during the transfer you must go thru immigration and even get your bags and check them in again.

Yes there’s pre clearance in Canada. This would ease the border a bit. But there’s still a risk that something somewhere will go wrong.

The main reason I stoped routing thru the US 10 years ago wasn’t ICE. I didn’t like the way border agents were rude and disrespectful. I felt like I was being interrogated every time and didn’t feel welcomed there. So I decided to vote with my wallet and simply not fly thru.

Oh, only on the inbound trip, outbound from Canada should check thru. Too bad America and Canada don’t do transfer zones like most non-Chinese airports in Asia and Europe.

Same. And many were glad when our head office moved from Houston to Madrid (22,000 employees)

Seems extreme.

Why? There are tons of reports of individuals getting stuck in detention for weeks for extremely minor or even no actual immigration offenses. I’ve traveled extensively across africa including some pretty shady countries and I now feel that I have to put the US in the same bucket: avoid, if not absolutely necessary, due to risks outside of my own control.

I mean, there’s literally hundreds of countries, why would I go somewhere with the risk of being arbitrarily detained, if I can help it at all?

I mean, unless you have a pressing reason to go there... there are lots of other places you could go which are less likely to randomly detain you.

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