Arwa Mahdawi: Don't visit the US - it just isn't worth the risks right now

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Don’t visit the US – it just isn’t worth the risks right now

Minor visa infractions have seen tourists detained, shackled and deported by overzealous US border staff. There are many more welcoming places to go on holiday

Arwa Mahdawi
Tue 25 Mar 2025 12.57 GMT
Last modified on Tue 25 Mar 2025 17.04 GMT

Do you like being shackled and strip-searched? Absolutely no judgment if so, but anyone who isn’t into that sort of thing may want to avoid a holiday to the US at the moment. Although I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that. Unless you’ve been hiding under a news-blocking rock (in which case: what’s the address? And can I join you?), you’ll have noticed that Donald Trump’s America hasn’t exactly been rolling out the red carpet for visitors. There have been a number of recent incidents where white westerners – people who aren’t normally targeted by overzealous US immigration authorities – have been detained, deported or denied entry for obscure reasons.

Take the 28-year-old Welsh artist Rebecca Burke, for example. She was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) for 19 days in what her father described as “horrendous conditions”. Now, to be fair, Burke had the wrong paperwork: she hadn’t realised that she needed a working visa instead of a tourist visa in order to exchange domestic chores for accommodation with a host family. But getting imprisoned for almost three weeks over a mix-up and then being led on to a deportation flight – in chains! – back to a country that is supposedly a close ally, is obviously extreme. A Canadian woman also made headlines after being detained by Ice for two weeks when immigration enforcement officers flagged her visa application paperwork. And two German tourists were similarly held for almost two weeks in a detention centre.

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Forget being careful about following the rules – just don’t come here. Why spend your money in the US, which is threatening to annex its neighbours and rapidly descending into authoritarianism? ...

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/25/dont-visit-the-us-it-just-isnt-worth-the-risks-right-now

[Bread and Circuses]

1. I expect that EU, Canada and others...

Will place a Travel Advisory on the US in the future months.

[drray23]

3. That has already been done

Happened a few days ago. Several EU countries just did that.

[Girard442]

2. I'm an American citizen and the thought of REentering this country is making me nervous.

[Mosby]

4. Here's what she thinks about the US.

The US has never been shy about how much it hates Arabs. But ever since 7 October that hatred has shot to such disturbing new levels that I no longer feel at home in this country.

I can’t rationalise living in a country where such a large portion of my taxpayer dollars is spent on funding war and what Kamala Harris has gleefully described as the “most lethal fighting force in the world”

Why does the Guardian platform people like this? Why is the Guardian even an acceptable source here? Everything in these excerpts violate the DU ToS.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/06/palestinian-us-friends-job-opportunities-humanity-gaza