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501 Comments
- cboeman, on 11/06/2007, -25/+124foreigners are unwelcome? america is unwelcome to it's own, ***** police state
- trundlebed, on 11/05/2007, -6/+99The entry experience to the U.S. sucks. You get off the plane and deal with long lines, then arrogant, and often under-educated USCIS officials who treat you like crap and demand fingerprints. I totally understand why people are turned off. By contrast, when I enter Europe or Asia as I do on a regular basis I'm off the plane and outside the airport in much faster time. We can certainly improve the important first impression many visitors get without sacrificing security by making entry more efficient and less unpleasant. Reducing wait times and obnoxious treatment will go a long way.
- derforseti, on 11/05/2007, -8/+96I guess the the terrorists won, then.
- inactive, on 11/04/2007, -5/+78It is sad that other nations hate us simply because we treat them like *****.
- Seidoger, on 11/06/2007, -2/+65Even with that dollar.. If i have to fly somewhere from here (Canada) I'll do everything but to connect from the USA. It's just horrible (Besides, because of them I cannot do backpacking now when I fly, I need a suitcase for my contacts fluid and toothpaste).
I love traveling to the US, it's great. But there's now this feeling of non-safety in the USA for me and many others. Americans will probably digg me down, but it just feels like I could be imprisoned for nothing and never see light again. It's irrational perhaps, but it's how weird the US feels to me now (and a slew of people I'm sure).
I feel so intimidated passing the US customs at the airport, it scares me to death. I'm scared of not being able to answer something fast enough or saying things they wouldn't like. - KampfGherkin, on 11/03/2007, -6/+66What goes around comes around.
Why should anybody be surprised? America is the neighbour who doesn't get invited to the street party anymore. You should ask yourselves why that is, instead of saying stuff like "good! tourism doesn't help me anyway" or "foreign *****" or a bunch of other things that are bound to get said here.
Every rational person would want to make friends and have valued relations with other people in their life. America doesn't think so anymore. And you're literally all the poorer for it.
...And there used to be a time when I adored you...now I just fear you. - inactive, on 11/06/2007, -3/+60I can't decide what is more absurd; the belief that stopping visitors to the USA would end terrorism, or the belief that somehow immigration was responsible for 9-11? Maybe it's the belief that tourism isn't a productive industry....
Tough call. - vidorian, on 11/03/2007, -2/+56The Euro has been higher than the dollar for a while now. The lower dollar should make the US very appealing for tourism but as the article states there is a lot more to the lower tourism dollars than money.
- trolleyfan, on 11/06/2007, -19/+72Don't worry. As the dollar continues to fall, cheap (to others) prices will soon lure these people back.
- smoothmedia, on 11/03/2007, -2/+50This just in, terrorism works.
As long as you let it. - omnithought, on 11/03/2007, -4/+49I remember when I came back from a month in Thailand and having to go through American customs. They create an atmosphere that makes you feel like you could be hauled off to prison for the smallest slight. I never felt anything remotely like that in Japan or Thailand. Thailand wasn't exceptionally friendly, but I didn't fear prison from them. Japan was friendly and efficient, yet quite secure. We could learn a lot from them. We don't need to be ***** pumping out fear in order to have good security. There's a balance.
- RogerStrong, on 11/06/2007, -1/+44You're missing the point. As a potential Canadian visitor, I don't have a problem with the U.S. securing it's borders. What I *DO* object to, is giving up all civil rights when I get there.
When visiting the States in the past, it was my understanding that I had civil rights. Not the right to vote, hold office, make a citizen's arrest, work or anything like that - but the right to a fair trial. To not be jailed without good reason. Things even a convicted criminal would get.
Now we know - from many examples - that non-Americans have no rights at all in the states. In extreme cases they can even be pulled off a connecting flight from Europe to Canada, taken to a third country, and tortured, based on vague accusations.
I know a lot of people who often travelled in the States, who simply refuse to go there now. - trghpy, on 11/05/2007, -4/+46That is so odd. I mean ever since 9-11 we've been constantly advertising our new foreign visitor accommodations down in gitmo.
Guess it must have lost its shine when every tom, dick, and mahamid visiting America gets to visit gitmo. - resonatenow, on 11/03/2007, -2/+44Having just traveled out of the country, it's a sad experience to re-enter the US. I saw border agents directing foreigners like cattle, just cocky and impatient. (Granted I've witnessed passengers who are just as bone-headed at TSA checkpoints.) We live in post 911 world--we get that, and we're willing to deal with extra security measures--but courtesy and vigilance shouldn't be mutually exclusive.
- CedEx, on 11/05/2007, -0/+41The cheap dollar won't lure any foreigner back when you treat them like criminals at customs!
All foreigners are required to have their picture taken as well as their fingerprints recorded (even on a re-fuel stopover in an American airport), and have their passports scanned. No cheap dollar is going to attract people to want to go through that hassle.
The only reason why Canadians are still coming over (besides the high Canadian dollar) is the fact that Canadians as of yet don't need to provide a picture or fingerprints. Once that get implemented, you can bet that Canadian visitors are going to drop. - shabumike, on 11/03/2007, -5/+44They also stay away out of "cavity search fear" a common disease at our borders these days.
- davidp6418, on 11/03/2007, -1/+40I live in SW FLA and tourism is very important to us. I have spoken in length to foreigners who now live here about the surprising lack of foreign visitors, expecially in light of the cheap dollar. In the past when the dollar was cheap we would be flooded with European tourists. My foreign friends tell me that when the European's experience through customs is humiliating and scarry. They feel that they can go anywhere else in the world and feel welcome and appreciated. I know that when I go through US customs as a US citizen, I feel intimidated. I recently went through customs in Costa RIca and it was like a party. What a contrast.
- oooo, on 11/04/2007, -5/+40a) Stop fingerprinting everyone
b) Stop abducting people and stop torture
c) Reinstate right to trial and habeas corpus
... and we'll come back.
oh and while you're at it d) Quit ***** around with other countries - ThyLabyrinth, on 11/05/2007, -3/+38Maybe your reply is supposed to be funny but it's oh so very true!
The first time after 9/11 I returned to the USA for holidays in 2004 I was absolutely horrified, shocked at having my ***** fingerprints taken like a criminal.
Although something even more worrying to me is that I have absolutely no way of knowing who/what agencies have access to that info and on what grounds.
At least Americans have their laws to protect them (for a little while longer, while congress holds back King George's megalomaniacal powergrabs).
If your name comes up because of some buggy computer somewhere, as a foreigner, you don't have a prayer. You get a free one-way ticket to some CIA torture cell in a torture-friendly nation.
Heck, even wrongly identified Canadians don't get an apology after being kidnapped and tortured. - inactive, on 11/04/2007, -5/+40the xenophobes are out in full force today.
- Glugory, on 11/04/2007, -3/+35Whatever happened to, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," ?
- iamnos, on 11/05/2007, -0/+32By visiting? Or just by ordering things online and having them shipped. I don't plan on heading to the states anytime soon, but with a bit of luck, our dollar will be over $1.10 by Black Friday :)
- edrift101, on 11/03/2007, -5/+35America is is hated/feared all around the world and for good reasons. Something needs to change.
- msaleem, on 11/03/2007, -3/+33I can attest to this hostility based on my experience from last weekend. Coming into Chicago from Toronto, I was detained for hours without reason. Now I've been here before so I know the procedure but for any first-time visitor the experience would seriously have colored the opinion of all Americans.
- astroknotical, on 11/03/2007, -3/+33The US has always blamed immigration for something. Whether it be terrorism, a rise in crime, or a rise in unemployment. Immigrants have always been America's scapegoat for its weak points.
- CoJeff, on 11/04/2007, -2/+30I with a lot of the people here about getting into the US. When I traveled in Europe (Germany and Holland) I never once was hassled. As soon as I stepped foot on US soil again the hassles started. To top it off when I got to the DIA airport parking lot, we asked to speak to the manager. Guess what happened? Instead of the manager coming out to discuss our complaint they called the police. So not only was I hassled returning to US soil as an American but I was hassled while trying to file a complaint to the parking lot company.
- bentrop, on 11/05/2007, -2/+27I'm from Germany and I feel the exact same way about traveling to the US. My girlfriend (who is living with me in Germany for 6 years now) is American and we frequently visit her friends and family in the States.
I usually enjoy those trips because her friends are great company and the USA can be a wonderful country.
BUT actually traveling there is just plain horrible. Customs do just about everything to make you feel unwelcome. They treat tourists worse than we treat our criminals, they let us foreigners (from befriended countries) wait in line without air conditioning for more than an hour (after an 8 hour flight), try to purposefully intimidate us and make us feel like we could be thrown in jail and eventually sent home and banned for life from my girlfriends home country for looking and someone or something the wrong way.
The feeling that you could be imprisoned or banned for no reason at all doesn't go away fro the whole trip and it always makes me feel very uneasy. I hate that I cannot even ask for how long my most personal biometric data will be saved and what purpose it will be used for without becoming a suspect immediately.
And what scares me even more is that the USA, its government and more and more of its blissfully ignorant and uninformed citizens remind me more and more of the darkest times of my country.
The Patriot Act reads like something I remember from my history classes and has so many similarities to the Enabling Act that I actually feel scared, helpless and guilty for not doing anything against it. There are so many more parallels that it makes me sick to my stomach, the US government even use the similar terminology for their legalized torture as the Nazis did ("Enhanced Interrogation").
I didn't mean to rant, I like the US, maybe that's why it all makes me so angry ... - mrjit, on 11/04/2007, -6/+31I personally don't understand why anyone would come to the USA anyway, apart from shopping. I've lived /all/ over America and Western Europe (Germany, France), and our "tourist honeypots" aren't even 1/1000th of what Europe, Asia, etc has to offer. What do tourists want to see? Thousand year old fortresses/castles/walls/art, or a field where Gettysburg was fought - or slave quarters in Manassas, or a huge canyon. While I love our country, there is nothing remotely beautiful about any of our architecture/art/culture. We're too much of a McDonalds/Walmart melting pot of color and little distinction. And this is why I call myself a German-American - not an American. I'd like to retain my last bit of distinction from the guy sitting next to me, lest we forget our heritage and how we got to this point.
- oooo, on 11/05/2007, -0/+24Er, Germany, France?? And the suspects for the London and Spain bombings were all home based. No amount of copying the crappy welcome the US gives you would have prevented that.
- Trublmakr, on 11/03/2007, -1/+25Already have,.. I don't know a single Canadian who hasn't already made plans to take advantage of a $1.07 loonie.
- Bonzodog, on 11/03/2007, -7/+30I am British, but have absolutely vowed on sheer principle that I will not ever enter or even fly over the borders of the USA, until the current Fascist Christian Fundamentalist administration is done away with, until guantanamo bay is completely closed, until the US has NO military presence of ANY sort ANYWHERE in the Middle East, and Until the Patriot act and the DMCA are overturned or Withdrawn.
I do however plan to visit Canada, I have friends there I would dearly love to see, and in looking for a way of getting to canada, I now know of airlines who have routes to Canada from Europe that do not cross US borders/airspace, and it will cost me anything up to a £1,000 extra, but it will be worth it.
I know that my principles are not likely to be fully realised inside my current lifetime,but if I never see the US again (I was over there in 1988 in California for 3 weeks), then so be it. - Sketchcast, on 11/05/2007, -2/+25I live 20 minutes from the Blaine Washington crossing and honestly, I'd rather just pay for shipping. When I was little my mom would pack us up and across we'd go, but now we all get treated like a ***** criminals at the crossing.
- preisler, on 11/03/2007, -2/+24Terrorists like Osama Bin Laden? Yeah you've really shown him that when he attacks the U.S. you'll go after him for a year and then turn your attention on something not related to terrorism, well unrelated until you turned it into a terrorist recruiting station that is.. Hell of a job there Jakie..
- cheesehead, on 11/05/2007, -4/+26I'm Canadian and I won't go near that place anymore. Land of the Free. What a joke
- mikealao, on 11/04/2007, -0/+22I travel overseas frequently and have also seen customs officials yelling at foreign passengers while herding them like cattle. It's embarrassing as an American to see a fellow American treat a guest in such a way. I've even seen them do it to seniors who simply didn't understand the direction. Instead of being patient, the customs agent basically screamed at them. What a god-awful way to welcome people to our country.
On top of it, those old folks were probably the parents of an American citizen. - sgtpppr, on 11/10/2007, -2/+24That also could explain the fact we haven't been attacked by Godzilla, Megatron, or Skeletor.
- inactive, on 11/08/2007, -4/+25After what I've been hearing, I'm more than happy to avoid connecting in or visiting the Fascist Republic of America until it once again becomes a welcoming destination. I remain convinced that the tool at the top regards 'tourists' in much the same light as 'terrorists' because they kinda sound the same.
- guestaccount, on 11/03/2007, -2/+23If you were to remove every illegal immigrant, regardless of race (its not just the Mexicans, idiot) our economy would crumble. They don't "take our jobs" as ignorant folks such as yourself would say, they take the jobs your lazy ass wouldnt do even if it were available for you. If it were up to me, I would welcome them into our country, at least someone still likes us.
And the terrorists you say the immigrants are? Now that is just retarded to say. I have never once heard of mexicans bombing us. Either way, their coming here would not make a bit of difference to you, even if they had bombs strapped to their asses, seeing as you seem to come from the inbred redneck parts of Kentucky.
***** racist. - inactive, on 11/03/2007, -2/+22Full body cavity searches don't make people feel welcomed?
- oderdigg, on 11/05/2007, -0/+19It's people like YOU that make people like ME dislike Americans. You are doing your entire country and citizens a disservice by speaking.
- Bdog2g2, on 11/03/2007, -4/+23"Who wants those foreign ***** here anyway."
STFU you ignorant *****.
Unless you're Native American, then your parents, or their parents, or their parents were foreign *****. Exit door is to the right, watch the steps. - guestaccount, on 11/06/2007, -3/+21I see you got a D in economics.
- brickbat, on 11/05/2007, -4/+22Stick your fingerprinting up your ass.
- Bdog2g2, on 11/04/2007, -3/+20Funny enough, most of them are descendants of immigrants. But most are to uneducated to know that.
- quaxon, on 11/03/2007, -5/+21youre an idiot.
- Grumps, on 11/03/2007, -1/+17"costing America 94 billion dollars in lost visitor spending, nearly 200,000 jobs and 16 billion dollars in lost tax revenue"
Thanks to war on terrorism. - pintomp3, on 11/03/2007, -2/+18and without the aid of france, there wouldn't have been a US to dump those poor huddled masses on.
- kazamx, on 11/03/2007, -1/+17Er....the one where polls showed that in pretty much every country in the world the population thought that the US was wrong to go into Iraq. Even the UK (the only country to send a decent number of troops) was against the war and was pushed in by Tony Blair. Before the war about 75% of the British were against the war.
- Trublmakr, on 11/03/2007, -0/+16Canadian postal services are already backed up weeks with all the online purchases.
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