[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Waiver_Program#:~:text=As...
https://za.usembassy.gov/refugee-admissions-program-for-sout...
> Consistent with President Trump’s Executive Order on Addressing Egregious Actions of the Republic of South Africa, the Department of State is coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security to consider eligibility for U.S. refugee resettlement for people who are of Afrikaner ethnicity or a member of a racial minority in South Africa who are victims of government-sponsored race-based discrimination.
(That's a lot of words to say "white".)
I'm not disagreeing with ya, just adding more context.
Well that is happening too but is separate to what I was alluding to - mistrust of SA issued passports.
e.g. Ireland scrapped visa free access & appears to have been for this reason
The two biggest off putting things are immigration (had few friends blocked half a day required to give access to all their devices just recently, treated very brutally out of nothing) and the insane inflation that happened in the last years.
Traveling to the US used to be cheap for Europeans, but the prices are nowadays insane for anything. Used to have a hard time spending 150$ per day in Manhattan, it's twice the amount just for a budget hotel. Went to see the Knicks vs Bucks for 40$, it's like 10 times the amount for the same seat.
Attractions like Disneyworld and such as well have skyrocketed to the point it's really off putting.
If at least immigration wasn't so obnoxious and I didn't hear horror stories from IRL friends I could swallow the pricing pillow, but not both.
Theirs no reason to take a vacation here. Everyone is subject to arbitrary detention without reason or cause.
Asia is still cheap, has better food and generally has significantly lower crime.
But we have the best pizza in the world. Detroit, Chicago and a decent NY are just better.
The northern part of the east coast easily has the greatest concentration of amazing sandwiches in the world. It was shocking to me just how bad a sub sandwich can be even if you are in a different location in the US, I never found one I would recommend in Chicago.
Most places I've traveled have a single style of sandwich maybe worth eating. Although sandwiches like the Banh Mi deserve to be discussed. But you can get those wherever there is any kind of Vietnamese population in the US and I haven't noticed much difference regionally personally.
Brisket BBQ was also invented here and most countries do not even a bad option for it.
There's italians all around the world. You can have a great pizza virtually everywhere.
I had a great one, and I mean among the best I had in my life (mind you I've been to the highest rated pizzas in Italy) even in Sangenjaya, Tokyo, Pizzeria Da Peppe - NAPOLI STA CA.
> but I still prefer a Detroit style over them
We all have our Stockholm syndrome :)
The other thing is due to the K-shaped economic recovery, where companies realized the bottom 90% have no money and don't bother to try for their business at all. Concert tickets have similarly increased in price and decreased in supply.
Also, I have some friends and I always had a good time in US so I wanted to share the american experience with my SO.
But if for the same money I can take 2/3 normal vacations or stay a month in Capri..I'm not rushing.
You see this all over the economy. Since 1980, income of the top 10%, subtracting the top 1%, has increased much more than the income of the middle 20%. That’s why every brand is trying move upmarket. Disney World ticket prices have increased vastly more than inflation, because the company is willing to ditch middle class customers to chase a more affluent customer base: https://nypost.com/2022/08/03/disney-world-prices-up-3871-in...
This is also why “middle class luxury” chains like Sizzler have gotten squeezed out.
There's actually quite a bit of the US outside of NYC and Orlando, and a lot of it is cheaper.
But yeah the prices are crazy.
Because now you're required to list all of your handles on any social media you had in the last 5 years and any email you used in the last 10.
This applies even for visa waiver countries as of 2026.
This makes me nervous because I have been critical of the US on some topics regarding the news or geopolitics (e.g. the recent events in Venezuela).
But even admitting the us is a sane country protecting the right to speech, there are 0 chances I remember all my emails (I don't even remember all the clients I worked with but gave me an email) or reddit/forum accounts.
This whole traveling thing is not doing much good to the earth, to one's pocket, or to most of local people, cities, places one is traveling to (besides of course minority of people engaged in travel related businesses).
Travel used to be prerogative of rich or elites. A few more may travel due to work or business. But nowadays it is becoming an essential thing even for those like me who can't really afford or need. People who don't like or do traveling are considered as morally deficient.
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Yes I agree. I only noted what I felt about its effects on illegal immigration.
As for legal immigrants, note my other comment, I think an in-cahoots bond agency that will pop up, collect an annoying but much smaller fee, then let you put up your car or something as collateral.
And borrowing Donald Trump some money for a few weeks and expecting it back is something that I would not do.
Effectively what this will do is to stop people from those countries from traveling to the US entirely. Which is probably the real goal.
As to your edit:
People flying in from abroad won't have cars available as collateral, and most likely won't be allowed to fly before they put up the bond.
This seems moot if such a bond agency would be allowed to set up offices in the origin countries.
I don't agree with the bond personally, nor the idea of collective punishment, I'll just note it follows a principle that is generally followed on the world stage with a few notable exceptions like Svalbard.
There's always the option of not coming to the US.
Maybe one day the USA will rejoin civilization but there are enough countries to choose from as it is. For me the main yardstick by which I measure how civilized a country is is by observing how the authorities treat people who have little or no power within the system.
it appears that they intentionally avoid relationships with countries that could try to unduly influence them.
Just like tariffs were decided, and a bunch of microscopic pacific islands are being judged by trade deficits.
Otherwise can't think of any identity/tribal reason... maybe tobacco lobbyists requested since they tried to ban smoking?
You didn't want to listen, though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32051452
I don't disagree. Some users on here, though, are a little notorious, and my spidey sense went off given past interactions. One search on https://hn.algolia.com/ and here we are.
I think it’s worth noting that he doesn’t believe that his mind has changed.
> Visa overstays are a “bigger problem” according to whom? Could someone reasonably consider illegal border crossings a bigger problem because they involve completely unvetted people, as opposed to visa overstays which involve people who were at least minimally vetted in getting a visa?
All I said was that you could reasonably consider illegal border crossings to be a “bigger problem,” even accepting that visa overstays account for a larger volume. You’re tacitly assuming that “bigger problem” and “bigger volume” are the same, but my point there was that those aren’t the same.
And four years later, of course, we’re in a different factual scenario. The level of border crossings is down to almost zero now.
The article you linked is from 2019 and says "for the seventh consecutive year". This is not new info.
> And four years later, of course, we’re in a different factual scenario. The level of border crossings is down to almost zero now.
Border crossings can be a higher priority even if visa overstays account for more volume, because of the different level of vetting for those two routes. But now that border crossings are down, it makes sense to focus on visa overstays. How is any of that inconsistent?
They only want rich criminals. Not poor ones.
It is trivial to implement e-verify for employment for everyone. It would nearly eliminate illegal workers. If Republicans (or anyone) cared about stopping the hiring of illegal workers, it is a trivial process to implement. No one wants to do it because then Americans would unionize.
And sorry, given ICE's mandates, ruled temporarily okay by SCOTUS, that color of skin, accent, name are effectively "probable cause" for detention, I'd say her perspective is absolutely aligned with current enforcement priorities.
Clearly the distinguishing factor is money, not melanin.
This is you being "left -wing" as you acknowledge something you actually know about is true.
This policy was instituted in August. Pretending that this is just an evolving norm in a pocket along the line of a routine policy spectrum makes you part of the problem, not the solution.
They knew that they could make this a campaign issue so they did it. Then democrats realized they could also campaign on this issue without actually doing anything.
Then once a decade or so someone makes a few changes and the system gets fucked up again.
I'm in my late 30s and immigration has always been broken. People have always admitted it's broken. Then nobody does anything to fix it besides posturing/grandstanding for an election cycle.
Had to toggle JavaScript on for the site to get the full article.
(Not discounting the possibility that perhaps at some point it won't be though. And I am a white male if that makes a difference.)
Furthermore, a lot of politicians not only agree with this extrajudicial justice, they applauded the lies and the shootings.
Even US citizens are being detained. I think most tourists and immigrants should be very, very apprehensive about coming to this country.
I live in Oregon where this stuff is happening on the daily. Citizens are being plucked out of high school parking lots with no verification.
I think saying "it's fine" is pretty out of touch with reality. If you are non-white I would absolutely not travel to the United States right now. I say this as a white guy on the west coast of the US. Basically all my non-white foreign friends, mostly in academia, refuse to travel to the US right now and have no plans of doing so while Trump is in office. Their organizations and universities also aren't recommending US travel at this time.
A social media post from a decade ago could land you in custody. Think about that before traveling to the US. Is it likely? No, but it's very possible with Trump's proud boys doing immigration enforcement. Remember, they(federal agents) have absolute immunity.
Not trying to downplay that, but I think that's also on people's minds because of the new cycle. There are regularly "questionable" police shootings, causing deaths and have been going back as far as... well, ever. So in an unfortunately way, this isn't really "new".
Had the best time.
Having dealt with the US Federal government, good luck trying to get your 15K back if there's an administrative issue.
"Give us your rested, your rich, your single individuals earning high incomes with special skills, yearning to stay for one year only, the people who don't need asylum from their high-GDP developed democratic nation and own property overseas."
It's set up with a number of safeguards:
The USC has to apply for it on behalf of the immigrant, while the USC is physically in the country, and the immigrant must not be (to prevent coercion).
But the visa is set up to expect the USC to be the primary breadwinner. I get that part of this is to dissuade "buying a visa" (but these days, hah).
But my USC fiance was a student while I was an Australian IT professional. The government wanted us to demonstrate that we could support ourselves for months while I found a job, but literally didn't care what finances I contributed to that.
Ended up that her mother had to sponsor my visa using her house as surety. For which I am entirely grateful, but bleh.
They didn't expect her to pay for our lives, but meant that if I used any government resource such as Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security in my first ten years as a resident, that the IRS (I think) could be asked to effectively bill her for reimbursement of every dollar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland_Abu_Dhabi https://www.travelandleisure.com/most-visited-city-in-the-wo... https://www.instagram.com/thepostcardhotel/
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