British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/british-man-banned-from-us-for-life-after-immigration-officials-find-text-to-american-girlfriend/news-story/7e8df16ef386f5cacddb7ec3164b44ef

by r_singh • 7 years ago

79 125 7 years ago

news.com.au

r_singh• 7 years ago

Here's the text that caused this: https://imgur.com/O2SbNL8

gcb02• 7 years ago

a barrage of clingy text messages after a break up. Looks like border patrol was really trying to save the american person in this one case. /rimshot

golergka5• 7 years ago

I think that this is very unkind way to judge a person.

goodcanadian2• 7 years ago

Funny you say that. It would seem to be standard to call the girlfriend to check his story. If she said she didn't want to see him, that would cast a great deal of doubt on his stated reason for coming.

Topgamer7• 7 years ago

Power tripping border officials.

yholio• 7 years ago

This has to be the result of some incentive structure that rewards border personnel whenever any scrap of evidence for illegal intention is found.

No policeman I ever met was ever so thorough with their job. It's deliberate emigration policy at work.

severine• 7 years ago

Can you imagine if the same attention and assumptions were payed to rich people's private money moves and communications?

actionowl• 7 years ago

Does the US _really_ have a problem with UK citizens overstaying their visa? I highly doubt it, this is insane.

Sharlin• 7 years ago

Not likely, but US border officials can pretty much exercise arbitrary power in deciding who gets in, and they can’t get in trouble for denying entry to a non-citizen Joe B. Nobody.

dev_north_east• 7 years ago

Not British, but two Irish acquaintances of mine were rounded up and deported from the US in the early 2010s. I don't see a problem, they broke the law in illegally moving there. Such practices were common among Irish up until the 2000s. Doesn't happen so much anymore, but then again it is near impossible to legally emigrate there if you're from Ireland.

rutthenut• 7 years ago

Yes, they do have issues with this. Whether UK or any other nationality. Funnily, I have a colleague who overstayed his entry visa by exiting a day late and frequently gets stopped and questioned when he goes back, which he does often as he had since married an American and probably entitled to US and UK passports by now!

cheerlessbog• 7 years ago

Getting a green card would presumably reduce his border hassles. On the flip side it would require him to file US taxes as long as he retains it no matter where he lives.

In my case even with that I got hassled every time - multi hour delays on every arrival because of something screwed up in their records of me. Eventually I went so far as to get citizenship because of the hassle. That requires me to file US taxes for the rest of my life even if I choose to permanently reside outside the US.

raverbashing3• 7 years ago

A problem as in "people of that nationality causing problems" probably not as much.

A problem as in "it is against our current immigration rules" technically it is correct. Numerically it's probably around < 1% possibly around 0.1%

burfog8• 7 years ago

It happens.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6665949/The-birth-c...

jopsen• 7 years ago

Because most illegal immigrants are British, lol :)

Being an illegal immigrant in the US is extremely unattractive -- decent jobs require paperwork.

baybal22• 7 years ago

You know, you will be surprised that the charts of biggest illegal immigrant nationalities worldwide is topped by Swiss citizens.

Developed countries' citizens consistently outmatch people from undeveloped countries when in comes to immigration crimes almost everywhere

polotics• 7 years ago

Wow really? Interesting! Citation needed please!

raverbashing3• 7 years ago

Developed countries' citizens consistently outmatch people from undeveloped countries when in comes to immigration crimes almost everywhere

[Citation needed]

Just an example, it is assumed the US has around 11Mi undocumented migrants (rough number). Switzerland does not even have that many people.

RickJWagner• 7 years ago

But still there are 10s of thousands pouring in every month.

The promise of a better life (in the future) for you and your family is a strong one.

threezero• 7 years ago

Aside from the fact that this article originally came from a sensationalist tabloid (the Sun), there is only the word of the one person, without even a quote from his girlfriend. The whole thing sounds fishy.

DanBC4• 7 years ago

It doesn't sound fishy at all.

Border patrol routinely check through people's documentation to see if their stated reason for visiting is supported. This person claims to be visiting temporarily, but has sent text saying he is moving to be with this woman and never wants to leave her: this is enough for entry to be denied. This is not an uncommon experience.

enriquto• 7 years ago

It is unacceptable that border police do search the messages in my phone. Never going to this country.

WorkingClassSWE• 7 years ago

Canadian border patrol have done it too

Tsubasachan• 7 years ago

Should have used WeChat. On a Huawei phone.

akmarinov• 7 years ago

They can detain you indefinitely until you give up your password, so it doesn’t matter.

There are no laws at the border, even the constitution doesn’t apply for US citizens there.

cannonedhamster2• 7 years ago

To be completely accurate the Constitution doesn't apply anywhere within 100 miles of a U.S. border, which includes airports. This covers something like 60% of the population of the United States.

https://www.thenation.com/article/66-percent-americans-now-l...

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone

angry_octet2• 7 years ago

Just a nitpick, but the Constitution still applies (and worldwide between US GOvt and US Persons), but the courts have decided its rules against unreasonable search and seizure don't apply for customs and immigration purposes with certain distances of a port of entry.

Plenty of laws apply. They thing to remember is that you can't give up something you don't have. Use a blank dumb phone when crossing, restore afterwards.

Nextgrid2• 7 years ago

Just wondering as to why people even bother with the US at all? What does the US give you that UK doesn’t, besides a fucked up government (even more so than the UK - see who’s in charge of the FCC or the tax filing situation), crazy & unreasonable immigration policies, etc?

This won’t change as long as people accept it. But if tomorrow tourism & business travel slows down to a crawl because of this you can bet you’ll see changes the next day.

kortilla2• 7 years ago

Bother with what? Living there?

Nextgrid2• 7 years ago

Travelling there or thinking of moving there (if you have the possibility to obtain a work visa/green card/etc).

avocado45• 7 years ago

Unmatched opportunities for science, entrepreneurship, education, and technology. Population that's more welcoming to immigrants than any other place in the world by far. Outdoors. Cleaner air and water. Cheap prices. Diversity. Optimistic, friendly, and humble people.

silverdemon• 7 years ago

This article suggests that its not "more welcoming to immigrants than any other place in the world by far" if a single private IM can get a guy banned for life.

Still a great place to visit, but I'll take a burner phone next time. Maybe a Huawei device :)

kaisn• 7 years ago

You must be joking or have never left the US for more than a few days.

mad_tortoise2• 7 years ago

When you say unmatched that implies that nowhere else in the world can give opportunities in those fields that are equal, and that is plain wrong, in fact the USA is slipping from being the top in those. When you say population that's more welcoming to migrants, as someone from Africa, my own and those I know, our perception of the USA has changed so much that many people I know would not even consider moving there due to your current attitudes towards Muslim, Latin American and African migrants. When you say outdoors with cleaner air and water, I hear of your fracking, of Flint, of mass open cast mines across your country, of your president leaving the Paris climate agreement. When you say cheap prices, I've been all over the Third World and the USA is not cheap at all. When you say optimistic, friendly and humble, most of what I know of the USA's international actions is warmongering arrogance, of your far-right movements, of mass shootings and crazy abortion laws. I have many lovely American friends but they are not representative of the country that pushes a gun-friendly, war positive, women controlling message. That's why I wouldn't move to the US as it currently stands.

zaarn5• 7 years ago

I dunno if you have been to Europe but we have plenty of all that outdoors, clean air and water. From my location, it's less than 3 hours to the alps if you need even cleaner air and water with triple the outdoors.

And lots of diversity there too, almost any place has somewhere around 2000 to 1500 years of history on the books, you can walk from your current location to another place with wildly different customs and traditions within an hour.

You can say similar things about other parts of the world as well, not just Europe and the US too.

Don't underestimate the rest of the world.

hnarn3• 7 years ago

As someone who, like you, was born in Europe, I feel like half of those points are open for debate and the other half are nonsensical. Are you saying that the nation that is the home of the Flint water crisis and has a weaker Environmental Protection Agency than ever is something you move to in order to get "cleaner air and water"?

What do you mean when you say "diversity"? Have you been to the mid west? There are "un-diverse" and "diverse" areas of almost every country. People in the US are "optimistic"? "Friendly" and "humble"? The claim that Americans are "humble" when compared internationally is almost laughable (probably even by most americans), and I doubt that "friendliness" is really something you see drastic differences in around the globe. For the the last one there's no need to ask your gut because there are studies made regarding in what countries people feel the most optimistic about the future. As a matter of fact, most of them have pointed out China as the most optimistic country, which may make sense in a perspective of economical relative growth, but it doesn't on its own make me want to buy an apartment in Shanghai.

who-knows95• 7 years ago

sarcastic comments should have ~s after them. yours must be sarcastic as everything you have listed is fiction.

-Says CareerAddict, “The average scientist in Switzerland receives an annual salary of roughly $95,000 (in Euros, of course), making Switzerland the country with the highest salary for scientists in the world. The best scientists can earn over $100,000 per year, though that is primarily in the private sector.”

-An Investopedia article uses a World Bank report to rank Singapore as the top country for entrepreneurs (source: Best And Worst Countries For Entrepreneurs | Investopedia).

-The UK has scooped the first spot in The 2019 Best Countries for Education, maintaining its rank from last year, according to a study by US News & World Report.

-Japanese researchers have won many Nobel Prizes. Japan’s particularity lay down in the fact that they achieved results in every fields : from bio-technology to robotics.

-The claim that the USA is the best for immigrants is hard to disprove in terms of study's. but, sociopolitical it is quite clear The USA isn't as welcoming as seen. cough trump cough

-"outdoors" another almost impossible metric to prove/disprove, but i know for a fact that NZ (New Zealand) is held as the best place for adventurous activities.

-Finland sits at the top of the list with a 90.68 EPI score.(EPI = Environmental performance index.) https://improb.com/top-cleanest-countries-in-the-world/

-do you know about the flint water crisis? Switzerland has the cleanest water levels in the water, to the point that many places don't even treat their water with chemicals.

-cost of living is what i'll use to debunk the claim that america is "cheap" most expensive is Switzerland at COI= 121.16, USA is 20th at 69.91. below the USA at 99 countries, including at 24th the United Kingdom at 65.28, at 48 is Fiji with 50.93 and plenty more. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings_by_country.js...

-Papua New Guinea is the most diverse, There are thousands of ethnic groups in the country, each with their own languages and customs.

-supposedly china is the most optimistic, "The survey found that 94% of Chinese youth – defined in most cases as those aged 12-15 – were optimistic about their own country’s future, compared with 64% of their American counterparts. "

-Portugal is the most friendly "Friendly attitude towards expats: 94%, Ease of making local friends: 58%, Expats likely to stay forever: 47%" https://www.forbes.com/sites/jennysouthan/2018/03/21/the-wor...

-i couldn't find any stats or studies about humble, but if you have to boast about how humble you are, you probably aren't.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Now let's talk about some things America is the leader the way in:

-the US, Lesotho, Swaziland and new guinea are the only countries in the world that doesn't have paid mandate leave for mothers of newborns.

-also the only country to not require companies to have paid vacation.

-there is also no guarantee workers will get paid Sick days.

-The US's education budget is the largest, but the results are shocking poor.

-the US exports the most weapons in the world.

-have the highest incarcerate % in the world.

-highest healthcare costs, by a staggering amount.

-babies death rate is the highest than any other industrialised country.

-the wage gap between the "uber" rich and poorest is the biggest in the world.

no hate, just don't enjoy the spread of false information.

hyperdunc2• 7 years ago

What does the US give you that the UK doesn't? First and second amendment protections. Perhaps those are not an advantage in your book?

nailer• 7 years ago

We're allowed to do most things in the UK except communicate privately or talk about David Furnish.

lewilewilewi• 7 years ago

First amendment - yes, in most cases. Second amendment? Hell no.

hvidgaard3• 7 years ago

Apart from the right to bear arms, what is different? Many people even see that as a benefit to the UK.

DanBC4• 7 years ago

UK has freedom of speech, as defined in ECHR. That right isn't total, it's balanced with other people's right to life and protection from genocide.

https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list/-/conventio...

no1youknowz2• 7 years ago

Let me make a list:

- Better TV.

- Much Better Food.

- Higher paying jobs.

- Bigger cars, bigger roads.

- Second Amendment.

- First Amendment.

- Lower Taxes (income and sales).

- Ability to not talk to the Police and not have that used against you.

- More likely to succeed if you start a business. Shark Tank > Dragons Den UK.

- More likely to get funding if you decide to get an Angel / VC and higher amounts with lower equity.

- More likely to have FFF rounds fund 6 figure seed for startup. Everyone I know in the UK is skint because of zero hours and high taxes and no savings.

- 325m vs 66m in population. Therefore a much higher population to sell a product to locally and regionally. Not the same in the UK. Small business more prevalent in the US also, easier time to sell B2B.

I've spent probably close to 4 years now in the US. Lived and worked in many states. The US outclasses the UK by many margins.

Here's one for you. I'm living in the UK now, it's actually detrimental to bootstrapping a business. Tell me, what does the UK give you that the US doesn't.

Oh that's right, healthcare is the biggest one. Yeah, I'll give you that one. Nothing else though!

dhkxh• 7 years ago

This list is so ridiculous that I can't bring myself to do a point-by-point rebuttal.

n4r96• 7 years ago

I live in London, have visited the US and have friends that live there. Almost all of these are wrong or simply things I don't value. The only one I don't dispute is the likelihood of success in business. To be fair I'd rather take the healthcare (and slightly more sane political environment).

- Better TV. Who watches normal TV as opposed to Netflix?

- Much Better Food. Dispute this. US food standards are demonstrably lower than in the EU. You might be able to get bigger portions and a larger variety of junk food but so what.

- Higher paying jobs. In SF maybe, but the cost of living is correspondingly much higher.

- Bigger cars, bigger roads. Why do you need this if you can comfortably get places via modern public transport?

- Second Amendment. Unnecessary in a country where no one has guns

- First Amendment. We have comparable laws

- Lower Taxes (income and sales). I'd rather pay taxes to get healthcare free at point of service and a safety net for people who lose their jobs

- Ability to not talk to the Police and not have that used against you. We have comparable laws

chrischen2• 7 years ago

Big market. 300 million people. Plus I'm here and I'd like to think I'm a pretty big deal.

Rather than attack the US as a whole, why not just attack the inane policies. We don't all support everything that goes on here. It's not as if elsewhere in the world there are no places with no problems.

raxxorrax• 7 years ago

I do think many people are looking a bit envious towards the US right now. Not because of their primitive social systems or paranoid border checks, but their commitment to freedom. Is that enough? I really do think so.

I live in a state with very strong social security without too paranoid immigration laws, but I still would try to get a job in the US if I had no attachments or commitments.

I also do believe it is far easier to integrate in American society and be accepted than anywhere in Europe.

Aromasin3• 7 years ago

I'd agree if this were most other countries - but the man was British. The freedoms we get here, disregarding gun and drug law, are the same in my eyes. The only reasons I'd be able to think of moving there would be if I was keen on a big city life that doesn't == London, if I was looking to work for a FAANG company, or as in the case of the article, for a girlfriend.

I feel much more free travelling and living in many other countries besides the US. Everyone seemed on a knifes edge while I was there. Don't get me wrong I loved it - everyone was wonderfully friendly and incredibly welcoming to guests - but there seemed to be this underlying unease and I was forever being told not to do this-or-that-or-else. I suppose I've always thought it was a bit ironic that the 'land of the free' has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world.

Personally, my envy is directed at those in the Nordic and Oceanic countries. They seem to have it pretty good over there.

EDIT: Just checking out some freedom index scores just to see whether my experience differs then that of the mean, but it seems to be about what I expected. The Freedom House report definitely covered it very well I think. Reference material below.

[0]https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/united-st... [1]https://freedomhouse.org/report/countries-world-freedom-2019... [2]https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking [3]https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/human-freedom-index-... [4]https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table

Carpetsmoker2• 7 years ago

I lived in the UK for two years (as a European), and I couldn't leave fast enough. Adjectives that I would use to describe British culture: miserable, passive-aggressive to the point of dishonesty, complaining, petty, distrustful of everyone to the point of paranoia.

There are obviously many great British people and not everyone is like that, but the overall way people treat each other? Yeah nah, not for me.

I'm not saying US doesn't have its problems, but they're of a very different nature.

mcjiggerlog• 7 years ago

Sounds like you were in London / South-East. I've lived all over the UK and your description perfectly describes why I left London (for another country), but my childhood/university life growing up in the north of England could not have be more different.

mcv5• 7 years ago

You can also get a fucked up government and crazy and unreasonable immigration policies in the UK. There's no reason you'd have to move to the US to get those.

People who have lived in the UK for decades are suddenly getting kicked out or are being denied access to the country they live. Bizarre xenophobia, both from the government and from people, has been dramatically on the rise since the Brexit referendum.

mruts• 7 years ago

Money? Low taxes? Richest country in the world?

rdiddly• 7 years ago

It's pretty stupid. Moving can mean taking action. Not that it's any of their business. On the other hand, I can see why they would think that, but isn't it like, pretty easy to tell if this guy ends up overstaying his visa or whatnot?

Then I get distracted by the embarrassment I feel reading his meticulous reassurances to her banal insecurities.

Then I'm back to feeling bad for the guy, with someone like me reading his texts.

ralph842• 7 years ago

This is one side of the story. There's likely more than just this text message that raised suspicion.

But the law is quite clear that anyone applying for admission to the US is presumed to be an intending immigrant and the burden is on them to prove they will leave before their duration of status expires. Literally millions of people per year are denied visitor visas because they can't meet that burden of proof. Not sure why this is particularly newsworthy.

CloudNetworking• 7 years ago

He wasn't denied a visitor visa, he's been banned for life and that can't be overturned. Quite different. He also has a girlfriend in the US, so that's over for him. That's life changing.

BTW, he doesn't exactly need a visa, he was on an ESTA.

ralph842• 7 years ago

ESTA doesn't waive the requirement to prove non-immigrant intent when applying for admission.

If he really was banned for life there's more to the story than his inability to prove non-immigrant intent (e.g. fraud, criminal history, etc.). Even people present in the US illegally for extended periods of time are not banned for life.

scotty79• 7 years ago

prove they will leave before their duration of status expires

How can you prove something that didn't happen yet? Best you can do is provide clues and circumstancial evidence but no proof.

It's good that they were being so vigilant! Let's not forget that USA has so much trouble with UK citizens overstaying their visas. /s

teh_infallible• 7 years ago

Something similar, though much less extreme happened to me. My Australian girlfriend got a year long visa to stay with me in the US. The immigration officer detained her for 3 hours, and eventually told her she could only stay for six months. (This was a long time ago, late 99s, so I can’t remember the justification or how he had the authority to alter a visa she had already been granted. He may have been lying.)

He himself wasn’t born in the US, a detail which really pissed me off at the time.

How can someone whose job is to check your visa have any power to alter it?

raverbashing3• 7 years ago

Welcome to the bureaucracies of immigration, usually duration of the visa != duration of the allowed stay

You can of course appeal (with various degrees of success and cost)

gcb02• 7 years ago

You very wrong on the assumptions.

The person with the rubber stamp issues you the I-94 in the USA. That is the ultimate say on how long you are allowed to stay. The visa is only one of the many things they consider.

golergka5• 7 years ago

He himself wasn’t born in the US, a detail which really pissed me off at the time.

One thing that I constantly notice americans born in US don't understand about immigrants is that legal immigrants are one of the most anti-illegal immigration groups in the country. At least a lot of knowledge workers that got in through H1B or similar mechanisms are.

It makes perfect sense. I know a LOT of people who immigrated to US legally, and they see illegals as people who're trying to cheat at exactly the same rules that they have had to obey and spend a lot of resources and effort to do so.

TorKlingberg• 7 years ago

The border control system is full of these gotchas and opportunities for arbitrary harsh punishments. Just off the top of my head, and a mix of US and UK:

* Be careful saying you are travelling for "business" or "work". The two words mean about the same in everyday use, but at a border check one is perfectly fine and one is a giant no-no.

* You apply for a 30-day visa and are granted a 90-day visa. If you decide to extend your trip to 90 days you can be banned for misrepresentation.

* The whole thing with "intention to immigrate" that is basically policing your internal mental state. It's perfectly fine to travel to America on a non-immigrant visa, decide you like it there and apply for a change of status or a new immigrant visa. Someone who planned to do that from the beginning is violating their visa, but of course it's impossible to prove unless they slip up.

* There are many situations where you are allowed to stay in a country, but if you go on any trip to an other country you will not be let back in. For example if you are waiting for an extension application. Not fun if a parent is suddenly sick in hospital and you want to see them before they die.

chrischen2• 7 years ago

I'm almost 100% certain at some point someone said that this would only ever be used to stop Bin Laden style terrorists, and now people are browsing through intimate text conversations to ban people on trivial technicalities from allied countries.

The problem is not that this person received a harsh punishment, but that we will continue sliding down this slippery slope. Next thing you know, this won't be limited to our borders. We'll have minority style report pre-crime punishments. This guy was essentially punished before he even committed his crime (overstaying in the US).

gambiting3• 7 years ago

Not to undermine your point, but the entire visa-granting process is based on a pre-crime action. I'm unlucky to be from a country that still requires visas to the US(Poland - despite the fact that our government is literally crawling up the ass of the American government and participating in every single conflict America engages in for no reason other than to say we are great friends), and yeah, basically to be allowed to visit the US you have to visit the embassy and allow your whole life to be inspected - if there is any chance that you might stay - and it might be as minor as having a cousin already living in the US and being in vaguely the same industry you are in, which of course is an indication you will want to stay too /s - then you will be denied and told to try again in 10 years. It's absolutely brutal and yes, it's based entirely on officials guessing whether someone is likely to break the law or not - not whether the law was actually broken.

neverminder• 7 years ago

It is interesting that Poland looks to be the only EU country that is not on the list of US Visa Waiver program - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#/media/Fil...

burfog8• 7 years ago

That should only apply to a non-immigrant visa I would hope. For dual-purpose it shouldn't matter. For an immigrant one, you should be rejected if it appears you don't actually intend to stay.

kristianp• 7 years ago

Reminds me of this news story about a 70-year old children's author detained at a US airport [1]. I'm led to believe that US customs/immigration is the rudest in the developed world. Nowhere else talks to visitors to their country in this fashion.

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-25/mem-fox-detained-at-l...

goodcanadian2• 7 years ago

The article is somewhat misleading. The image of the texts provided by the man himself show an intention to "never be away from you again" in addition to "moving to be with you." We only have the man's word on what happened; we have none of the evidence that the border officials used. Did he have a return ticket? Did he have a home or a job to go back to? A lifetime ban seems a bit extreme, but I am completely unsurprised that he wasn't admitted.

mcv5• 7 years ago

Even if he did eventually want to live permanently in the US, why would that be a reason to ban him? Does the US only want people who hate the place? If so, they're doing a good job.

vinni2• 7 years ago

Why was he detained and his messages checked in the first place? The immigration officer must have had some suspicion even without the text messages.

mproud• 7 years ago

wut

British man banned from US because of text to American girlfriend

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