Haven't these guys heard of the "reciprocity principle"?
When I went to Brazil a few years ago, the basic price for a tourist visa was like $25 and could be done online. But, if you were a US citizen, it cost $150 and you had to schedule an attend an interview in person -- because, those were the costs and burdens placed on Brazilian citizens to apply for a US visa.
Does the US want other countries inspecting our citizens' social media posts for the last five years?
ED: Fix spelling mistake
Yizahi · 2h ago
I wish it happened more in different countries. Your country demands that you are forbidden to bring any items, regardless of how dangerous they are, in the embassy? Apply the same rule to the citizens of that country and only for them. I'm sure they will appreciate being openly discriminated in front of the applicants from the other parts of the world. Your country demands 150-200 dollars for a shitty single time entry tourist visa (yes, I'm looking at you UK)? Charge the citizens of that country the same sum for their visas. Etc. And in reverse - if they are easing or removing absurd restrictions, then reciprocate and ease restrictions in return.
derriz · 5h ago
In this case, what has Ireland done to US citizens that this reciprocates? Ireland has a special deal for US citizens - no visa is required for visits up to 90 days - you just turn up and show your passport.
I'm not convinced that this is truly about actually protecting the US from terrorism or foreign attack since all major terrorist acts that I can recall over the last few decades were perpetrated by native-born US citizens and not by visitors on visas.
It seems more about catching people who might have, for example, expressed an opinion that doesn't align with "they deserve it" with respect to Palestinians in Gaza - which currently seems sufficient to be branded "a threat to the US" and grounds for detention and expulsion.
monkeyfun · 1h ago
You don't seem to have understood their post at all by asking what Ireland did that this is reciprocating. They're saying other countries should reciprocate this upon Americans. The point you make about the purpose from the American pov is valid and correct + clearly meant to be expanded upon or abused in the future, but not their point.
HWR_14 · 47m ago
9/11, which most people would put in the past few decades and a major terrorist act, was exclusively done by people on visas.
Meanwhile, I think the post you are responding to was pointing out that other countries are likely to reciprocate similar rules for US visitors to their countries.
JumpCrisscross · 4h ago
I’d guess this administration draws its power from voters who don’t have a passport and power brokers whose staff handle visas. (Or at least it operates as if it believes it does.)
ethbr1 · 3h ago
That any US citizen doesn't have a passport is mind blowing, sad, and also indicative.
$18/yr for access to most of the world.
Yet people say "No thanks. I'm sure the US is great."
monkeyfun · 1h ago
Access that costs thousands of dollars for a short trip that most people simply don't have the spare money for. The median US income is <40k/year, and healthcare + housing costs dominate most workers' lives.
Also, it's not $18/year like a subscription, it's $165 upfront -- money that could be spent on gas, food, medical bills, desperately saved up for emergencies, etc. and won't provide any benefit whatsoever to their lives unless they're taking a vacation they probably don't feel they can afford financially or in their <2 weeks of vacation time.
OkayPhysicist · 44m ago
For all but a tiny fraction of Americans, the cost of a passport is a tiny, rounding error expense compared to actually leaving the country. This isn't Europe, where you take a wrong turn and end up in a different country. Here in California, there's a highway you can drive on for 750 miles and not even have left the state (like driving from Paris to Warsaw). And we're just one state of 50. On the diagonal, crossing the continental US is like driving from London to Tel-Aviv.
Nearby, we've got Canada and Mexico, and up until pretty recently, you could cross over those borders with a driver's license. And both those countries are big. On the other sides we have oceans. So for most Americans, the minimum cost of an international flight is the same as the cost for a European to fly to the US ($500-$1000), and a full day's travel each way. Here on HN, we might forget that most of the population makes fucking peanuts, so keep in mind that means that for most Americans, $1000 is a lot of money. Most Americans also don't get a lot of time off, so those 2 days of travel are a significant cost in of themselves.
All told, the lack of passports amongst Americans isn't indicative of some isolationist mindset. It's just that they have no need of a passport, because they aren't taking the kinds of extremely far-flung vacations that would need one, and they know if they need one, they can just get one before their trip.
ryandrake · 1h ago
Fewer than half of Americans have passports. Many have probably never left their home state, and there are probably a significant number who have never left a 100 mile radius around their homes.
People who regularly travel internationally are not a large or powerful voter base. They can be shit on without hurting a politician's career.
HWR_14 · 40m ago
The US isn't insanely backwards. France hovers at 50-60% of citizens with passports. The UK has similar rates to the US. Italy is slightly higher at 60%. Japan and China have far lower rates.
I think you just overestimate how common passports are.
hypeatei · 5h ago
> Haven't these guys heard of the "reprocity principle"?
Did you see the trade war started recently with every country in the world? I don't think anything is being thoroughly planned or thought out in this administration. They're all about power and not governance.
sebtron · 5h ago
I don't think the current US administration cares about this. Most people who voted for it probably don't care about travelling abroad either.
zeven7 · 1h ago
They don't want people in the US to travel outside the US so they probably see it as a positive if other countries put up more deterrents.
neallindsay · 5h ago
The xenophobes making these decisions don't care if they create problems for US citizens traveling abroad.
SauciestGNU · 2h ago
They probably also don't want Americans abroad and able to see how much better things are in so many places.
bpoyner · 5h ago
Bolivia also has a reciprocity visa charge of $160 for US citizens. Many years ago we were very close to the Bolivian border but the visa cost for a day trip just didn't make it worth it.
jjcob · 5h ago
I don't understand what these things are good for.
If you want to enter the country illegally, overstay your visa, or perform some sort of attack, then it's trivial to lie on the forms.
It's just making it inconvenient for honest, harmless travellers. Is that the goal?
crote · 5h ago
The goal is to provide an excuse.
Very few people will be able to provide a list of 100% of the accounts they used. This means every visitor will technically be lying on their forms.
You're more than happy to visit - until you do something the regime doesn't like, like criticizing the recent attack on Iran, or making fun of the military parade. Then they have a ready-made reason to deport and ban you.
ghusto · 4h ago
He didn't mention it, but I think he meant to extend it to "and how would they check/prove it?".
The practice of creating pretextual laws is well established in places like Russia, but a necessary component is proof. In fact that's the entire purpose of a pretextual law, to have something (as ridiculous as it may be) to pin on someone. I can't see any way they could prove I have this handle on Hacker News, for example.
soco · 4h ago
You can call yourself lucky if you're "just" deported, and not sent to (and forgotten in) some unnamed prison abroad in a random exotic country.
ethbr1 · 3h ago
Are there any instances where the US has refused to repatriate a foreign citizen whose government was willing to take them back?
In the interest of truthfulness, I believe all(?) of the CECOT deportations weren't accepted by their own country.
Which doesn't make it right, but does change the situation.
throwawayffffas · 5h ago
The goal is to have leverage over everyone, and to occasionally execute overt performative acts for the media, like refusing entry to famous ideological opponents.
Vote for clowns, live in a circus.
regularfry · 5h ago
Not exactly - they're guaranteeing that if you do lie on the form then they've got a nailed-on route to expel you even if nothing else sticks, because lying on an immigration form is an offence.
chii · 5h ago
to play the devil's advocate, if more people wanted to visit the US than the other way around, then it's not "disadvantageous" for the US to do this.
throwawayffffas · 5h ago
This kind of adversarial nonsensical thinking is the problem.
It's disadvantageous for the US if their citizens have to go through more bullshit whenever they are visiting another country. Regardless of how much they subject people going to the US, or how many people travel either way.
It's a lose lose pissing contest. The reason reciprocity is exercised is to discourage this kind of thing in the first place.
ghusto · 4h ago
I don't think the people in support of such things are travelling very much.
AnthonyMouse · 5h ago
> to play the devil's advocate, if more people wanted to visit the US than the other way around, then it's not "disadvantageous" for the US to do this.
That would only be true if the per capita advantage to the US of doing it is at least as large as the per capita disadvantage of having it done to US citizens. Which it isn't. The value of doing it is negligible and the cost of having it done to you is significant.
Cthulhu_ · 5h ago
Why's that? Doesn't tourism and business coming into the US benefit the country?
Take student visas. Sure, you could have a student come to the US, finish their education, and go back to their home country, "stealing" knowledge from the US to benefit their own country. Or they could find a job in the US and/or start the next trillion dollar company since the opportunities in the US are better. Satya Nadella traveled to the US for a university degree and ended up at Microsoft, where he led business units bringing in tens of billions, and under his CEO-ness he increased the value of the MS stock from around $40 when he became CEO in 2014 to $477 today, making it one of the first trillion dollar companies in the US.
But that wouldn't have happened if he didn't get a visa. Neither would Tesla (Elon Musk, migrated from South Africa on a student visa), netiher would Google (Sergey Brin migrated in from Russia, Sundar Pichai migrated on a student visa from India), etc.
I just don't understand it.
wizzwizz4 · 5h ago
Stocks going up doesn't actually improve things for anyone. To use Microsoft as a specific example: that stock price increase corresponds directly to a reduction in quality of life for many people.
This is, of course, immaterial to your main point: we can point to many actual contributions from migrants, such as maintaining infrastructure, providing food and education, and technological advancements.
JumpCrisscross · 3h ago
> Stocks going up doesn't actually improve things for anyone
Yes, it does, it’s called the wealth effect. This is beyond firm effects that stem from lower costs of capital.
littlestymaar · 5h ago
Until you realize that tourism industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and the US used to be one of the biggest tourist destination of the world (only behind France and Spain).
zczc · 5h ago
Looks like the new requirement is only for F, M, and J student and exchange visas that already need more paperwork, not for B-1/B-2 tourism and business visas.
android521 · 4h ago
Well, other countries want US tourists money.US doens't need it as much.
seanmcdirmid · 4h ago
US isn’t nearly as important to world tourism as it thinks it is. Maybe Mexico or Canada since they are so close, but otherwise Chinese tourist dollars are sought after more than American.
Reciprocation is going to be more of the norm than not.
bitshiftfaced · 3h ago
From what I can see, China, Germany, and USA are the big three. So it's probably pretty important to make it easy for citizens of these countries to get a visa if you care about tourism. Also, there are places in China where it's very hard to get a visa to travel.
seanmcdirmid · 3h ago
China opened up no visa needed for western European and many Asian countries, so…they have the right idea.
No one is really interested in catering to the US tourist market right now. It’s not even clear if Americans are welcome in many countries, or if they have to pretend being Canadians again.
disgruntledphd2 · 2h ago
> No one is really interested in catering to the US tourist market right now.
I don't think this is true, at least where I live (Ireland). I'm pretty sure that the economy of half the coastal towns would collapse without US tourists.
diggan · 5h ago
> Does the US want other countries inspecting our citizens' social media posts for the last five years?
Do you really think the US government cares that much about how Americans are treated outside of the US, or even considers that when setting up these policies? Based on some quick searching and skimming, it seems like only half the population even have passports in the first place.
casenmgreen · 6h ago
It seems to me one of the methods of control in oppressive States is to have a multitude of rules, which are impractical to actually adhere to, where failure to adhere provides leverage to State - a "justification" for State to then do whatever it is it decides to do with you (such as deportation without due process).
mrtksn · 3h ago
IMHO the new administration is aiming for full control, they don't need pretext to deny visa. Maybe they will iron out the process on foreign enemies before start chasing the enemies from within. IIRC they want to profile everyone and Palantir will handle that.
ghusto · 4h ago
They're called "pretextual laws", and are prevalent in places like Russia and China. They always require proof though, since the whole point is an easy case in court.
I can't see an easy way to prove someone supplied an incomplete list of online handles though. It would be trivial for me to look up all the places I've supplied my real e-mail address and make sure to include them in the list, and good luck finding my handles otherwise.
bananapub · 3h ago
> I can't see an easy way to prove someone supplied an incomplete list of online handles though.
1. it doesn't matter - it's immigration, them simply asserting you lied is enough for them to decline your visa, and as of January 2025, enough for them to have masked goons kidnap you on the street and imprison you without charge or trial and/or deport you to some random country
2. the easy way is to just ask American Big Tech to rat you out - Elon obviously would do it for a kind glance, the rest will do it because they either support the actual end of democracy in the US or because they think it'll increase shareholder value
hagbard_c · 5h ago
You're describing more or less every legal system in existence for at least the last few centuries. It is often close to impossible to go through a day without breaking at least one law, usually a multitude of them. Such infractions are not acted upon until some power-that-be deems it necessary to get a handle on a person.
As to the sudden insistence on due process when it comes to deportation of illegals I do wonder why this was not an issue when the previous regime let in millions of people without any regard for the laws of the land - i.e. due process. Is it the intention to make it impossible to correct this flagrant violation of migration laws by suddenly insisting on having every single individual go though a lengthy legal process, clogging up the courts?
biimugan · 3h ago
What you say may be true with respect to breaking laws. But illegal immigration is one of those relatively small infractions, and only now is there some sudden insistence to prosecute all of them and deport them. So this is a self-made problem.
All of the evidence available to us shows us that migrants, on average, commit less crime than U.S. citizens. The evidence shows us that they pay into social programs without reaping almost any benefit. The evidence shows us that they take jobs that the average American isn't interested in. An evidence-based political program would not target migrants as a first priority, except to provide some more straightforward way to become documented and legal.
The other issue is -- the U.S. has 300 million+ citizens. This argument that migrants will "clog up" the courts seems ridiculous if you also believe U.S. citizens deserve due process. If your court system can't handle a relatively small percentage of your residents committing the crimes you have on the books, then maybe those crimes aren't really serious crimes are they? Or else not funding the courts appropriately to satisfy the political program is purposeful. The goal is to avoid due process and accountability, for citizens and non-citizens alike.
saagarjha · 5h ago
That's not what due process means.
FirmwareBurner · 5h ago
Play the devil's advocate with me for a bit.
Say you let someone in who suicide bombs himself and takes out several Americans. Then a reporter asks the DHS spokesperson how they let someone in the country that had "Death to America" posts all over their social media out in the open for everyone to see but they didn't. Nobody would forgive the government for such a grave oversight.
At the airport you already let them check your luggage and pockets to make sure you're not a threat to the crew and passengers. How's it different to be checking your social media before entering to make sure you're not a threat to the citizens?
Which do you think is more important to the electorate, the safety of the citizens, or the privacy inconveniences of immigrants, which doesn't exist anyway?
OKRainbowKid · 5h ago
If the authorities weren't already aware of the identity of the person who posted that, what's stopping somebody with terrorist intentions from simply omitting that account while applying for a visa?
To me, this seems like a grave transgression of privacy with little to no actual safety benefits.
potato3732842 · 5h ago
The point isn't that they'll provide it. The point is that a bunch of useless people buried in the bureaucracy can say "well, he wasn't on our radar and his social media came back clean" and act like that constitutes doing their jobs.
It's no different than your local government that's probably happy to permit all sorts of absurd invasive development as long as some engineer puts a stamp on it but if a homeowner wants to build a retaining wall he gets told to f-off and come back with $20k of engineered plans that make the project not worth it.
It's not about the end result. It's about dodging accountability.
msgodel · 5h ago
It's a little dumb to just ignore it.
People on Visas are guests, it makes sense to ask questions like this that wouldn't ask ordinary citizens. We have been way too relaxed with it and it's nice to see some changes.
AnthonyMouse · 5h ago
> Say you let someone in who suicide bombs himself and takes out several Americans. Then a reporter asks the DHS spokesperson how they let someone in the country that had "Death to America" posts all over their social media out in the open for everyone to see but they didn't. Nobody would forgive the government for such a grave oversight.
Everything is partisan now.
If something bad happens, every media outlet will blame the party they don't like for it somehow. It doesn't matter what that party actually did, therefore there is no value in doing harmful stuff for CYA purposes because deploying the CYA tactics will not stop you from being blamed for it by the outlets that don't like you, and also will not stop the outlets that do you like you from blaming the other party instead of you.
FirmwareBurner · 3h ago
>Everything is partisan now.
You're making it partisan, I wasn't.
>If something bad happens, every media outlet will blame the party they don't like for it somehow
Ignore the media. If a loved one of yours would be killed by a visa holder who wasn't vetted properly even though his social media profile had all the red flags, who would YOU blame ?
Eddy_Viscosity2 · 5h ago
How many of those are there really? How much are you willing to sacrifice to prevent this hypothetical? Because there is no end to this sort of argument. Why should it stop with foreigners, wouldn't a suicide bomb by a local cause just as much damage? "We have to monitor every web page and every email, text, and word spoken of every person at all times to 'prevent a tragedy'" You want to prevent a tragedy don't you? You don't have anything to hide right? The fact that these kinds of powers have always been abused by those who have them is not something you should be concerned about. It won't happen to you. They will only go after the bad guys, and you're good, right? Now show us your papers.
FirmwareBurner · 1h ago
>How much are you willing to sacrifice to prevent this hypothetical?
Citizens don't sacrifice anything. The rules applies to those who request visas.
Everything else you wrote after that is so much more delulu, it's not even worth addressing.
matwood · 5h ago
"takes out several Americans" is a Tuesday in the US right now [1]. The main people attacking Americans on American soil are...other Americans. The US has decided to do almost nothing to address the issue.
I will submit to inspection of the things I bring into a country, but I will not submit to a review of everything I've written that I haven't made public.
It's like asking me to bring decades of letters and personal journals to be judged by. It's unreasonable. If this required of me I won't go.
FirmwareBurner · 4h ago
>If this required of me I won't go.
Do you think the US will see you not going there as a huge loss?
xxs · 5h ago
>How's it different to be checking your social media before entering to make sure you're not a threat to the citizens
Since the leading sentence with the devil's advocate, it's hard to presume the post is mostly sarcastic. If not - the inability to see the difference is rather staggering.
Swenrekcah · 5h ago
But the terrorist isn’t going to provide that particular username, nor will he check the “I am intending to harm people” box in the visa process.
So this only provides the government means to oppress and intimidate regular people while having no effect on crime and terror.
lifeformed · 5h ago
Why would a suicide bomber provide the government links to their death to America posts?
FirmwareBurner · 4h ago
Why do thieves post pics of themselves on Facebook with the stuff they stole? Because some criminals will always be stupid.
reedf1 · 5h ago
"Anything to declare?"
"Yes, 40kg of trinitrotoluene"
mbirth · 5h ago
“Trinitro-something. That’s this heart attack drug, right? And what are those units? 40 … grain? You must have a serious heart condition then. Well, all fine, you’re good to go, Sir.”
osa1 · 5h ago
Exactly. Another case where this happens is with credit/point based systems for things like settlement/citizenship that effectively allows governments to discriminate freely based on vague criteria.
jjcob · 5h ago
I think point based systems are the most fair and not arbitrary, since points are usually awarded for things like age, degree, language proficiency. That's the least discriminating way to steer immigration.
casenmgreen · 3h ago
From what I've read - but have not myself looked into - Australia has been using this system for some time, and wants very much to move on from it, as it has not worked well in practice.
krona · 5h ago
While your perspective bias undermines your point, this form of government (i.e. vague laws, the highly selective application of them, and the use of the justice system regardless of guilt as a weapon to suppress dissent by middle classes (e.g. threat of bankruptcy, threats of long term pre-trial detention, etc.) has existed for quite some time.
It goes by different names depending on your bias, but it exists. The right side of the political spectrum would call it anarcho-tyranny.
verzali · 5h ago
> The embassy also wants people to set their social media profiles to public.
Good thing I have no interest in visiting the land of the "free" anytime soon.
childintime · 5h ago
I was thinking about presenting at a conference in the USA in november, but the risks and abuse associated with entrance are now so high, it's out of the question. The world can no longer center on the USA.
The tr*mp administration seems to think they are inviolable, that they can solve every problem with the military. They'll be caught with their pants down. A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary. A great humbling is coming.
kcplate · 3h ago
> A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary.
Aren’t you actually arguing for these kind of enhanced vetting measures with this realization?
If anti-US sentiment is high and if the barrier to sabotaging a $2B system is a meager $400…why wouldn’t you do everything you could to prevent people who might be inclined, supportive, or even publicly indifferent to doing your country harm from entering with your blessing?
lantry · 2h ago
These "enhanced" vetting measures don't actually provide any protection against these kinds of attacks. All they do is increase the anti-US sentiment, which increases the number of people interested in attacking us.
msgodel · 5h ago
As a US citizen who voted for Trump: Ok.
We've had a very serious problem with mass immigration over the past few years, I'm fine with anything to deal with it.
EDIT: for those of you who are upset by this and down voting: you should have tried to have this conversation with us years ago instead of just calling us racist. If you continue to do that instead of trying to work with us to solve these problems this kind of dysfunction is only going to get worse.
roxolotl · 4h ago
Mass immigration has been a fake specter used by the right to get votes for decades now. How did it impact you, or even those close to you personally negatively?
I can tell you some positive impacts:
- Most western countries are concerned about economic cliffs around retirement benefits due to falling population. The US is not because so many people, used to(?), want to move here.
- Our food is subsidized by those willing to work awful hours at awful wages. As a humanitarian I hate this but I suspect most people would be upset to have to eat food picked at wages white Americans are willing to work.
- Most studies show more people equals more production equals more economic prosperity.
The solution to an illegal immigration problem is to loosen immigration rules and create pathways to citizenship.
tomp · 13m ago
You're a bit wrong here, aren't you?
- US is special because it is by far the richest and most entrepreneurial (big) country in the world; it gets the creme of the crop of the world, and corresponding economic growth, which no other Western country can replicate; many people want to move to all Western countries (e.g. Europe is experiencing an immigration crisis) but unfiltered (low-skill) immigration doesn't result in economic growth
- illegal (slave?) labour on farms is simply delaying automation, which is ultimately detrimental to economic growth [1]
- in fact, recent studies (and public data) show that non-Western immigrants are not net taxpayers, therefore they result in the opposite of economic prosperity (see graph in [2])
>What problems are you talking about? Be specific.
The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets.
The average working American in my state can't even afford "good" healthcare but we're happy to let these people in sign these people up for state healthcare and benefits (at least in my blue state, perhaps the red states have stringent criteria that makes them ineligible) and doll out millions of dollars of contracts to all sorts of entities that facilitate this process. It's absolutely nonsensical policy. And this is without even examining the effects on supply and demand of labor, cheap housing, etc, which I'm sure aren't great.
I don't hate the immigrants. They're mostly fine people. But I would enact the most unspeakable horrors upon the people who actively created this situation were I given the opportunity.
And the people who really ought to be pissed are the people who are in favor of adjacent political policy (broad safety nets, permissive legal immigration policies, etc) because the peddlers of the illegal immigration situation cast shade upon all them.
Edit: Some of you really need to re-read that second to last sentence.
matwood · 3h ago
> The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets.
Legal immigrants and many undocumented workers without employment authorization pay Social Security taxes, analyses show. Some undocumented immigrants use fake Social Security numbers or ones they may have had before their work permits lapsed.
In 2022, for example, undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local income taxes, including nearly $26 billion in Social Security taxes and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. (The report takes into account both employer and employee contributions to Social Security and Medicare taxes.)
But they are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits if they are not lawfully in the US.
> The average working American in my state can't afford "good" healthcare
You're going to blame the complete lack of affordable healthcare in the US on...immigrants? Ok.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 3h ago
> The average working American in my state can't afford "good" healthcare but we're happy to let these people in sign these people up for state healthcare and benefits (at least in my blue state, perhaps the red states have stringent criteria that makes them ineligible) and doll out millions of dollars of contracts to all sorts of entities that facilitate this process. It's absolutely nonsensical policy. And this is without even examining the effects on supply and demand of labor, cheap housing, etc, which I'm sure aren't great.
You're blaming the wrong people for this. Illegal immigrants are not to blame for shit healthcare and if anything, they make things cheaper for you. No one in your state wants to work farms for less than minimum wage.
> I don't hate the immigrants. They're mostly fine people. But I would enact the most unspeakable horrors upon the people who actively created this situation were I given the opportunity.
The most conservative voices are the ones who hire illegal immigrants under the table including the current POTUS. Illegal immigration is a solvable issue and if you look closely at Texas government you'll see that. You will occasionally get a Republican who puts forth a real solution for illegal immigration and other Texas Republicans tank it because they like to campaign on the issue. You can't campaign on illegal immigrants if you fix the problem.
potato3732842 · 2h ago
I think it speaks volumes to either your reading comprehension or moral character (more likely the latter IMO) that you took my comment which is to the tune of "this is the effect of group A, I blame group B" and then strawman me as blaming group A. My statement as to the scope of group B who I do blame was intentionally vague so as to include the many varieties of people within it.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 2h ago
I'm not taking your comment as you blaming Democrats or Republicans. I'm pointing out that the people who are largely anti-immigration are the ones perpetuating the problem and if people want to really solve the problem, we can solve it. You just have to not get distracted by false narratives.
potato3732842 · 2h ago
>I'm pointing out that the people who are largely anti-immigration are the ones perpetuating the problem
You need to separate the politicians from the people. There is always someone willing to say anything to get elected. Of course they never really solve the issues, so long as not solving the issue harms their chances of reelection less than solving it does.
The root cause is the hordes of people who are unable to think several steps ahead, think about then 2nd through Nth consequences of policy and yet still vote, many of them in these comments. Because at the end of the day that's who elects the politicians. And on the other side of the equation are voters who don't actually demand results. You can blame media and whatnot but those are small factors, not the dominating factor of the equation.
>You just have to not get distracted by false narratives
I'm not getting distracted by false narratives. I've witnessed the degradation of my own states safety net services as they became inundated over the past ~5 yr as a result of federal policy. It wasn't like this under Obama or Bush. I'd happily go back to whatever that was.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 2h ago
> You need to separate the politicians from the people. There is always someone willing to say anything to get elected. Of course they never really solve the issues, so long as not solving the issue harms their chances of reelection less than solving it does.
This is the fault of the people putting them in those positions and what I mean by getting distracted by false narratives. If you keep voting for the people who fail to solve the issue then this is what you get.
> I've witnessed the degradation of my own states safety net services as they became inundated over the past ~5 yr as a result of federal policy. It wasn't like this under Obama or Bush. I'd happily go back to whatever that was.
I would love to know your state because I can promise your social programs are not degrading because of immigrants and are degrading because of tax cuts to the rich.
potato3732842 · 2h ago
>I would love to know your state because I can promise your social programs are not degrading because of immigrants and are degrading because of tax cuts to the rich.
Run the numbers on the five bluest states. No matter what definition of "bluest" you use you'll get mine in there somewhere.
You'll never see the issue unless you actually look at nation of origin stats, which are not collected by much of anybody. These people have all been issued state IDs and are state residents as far as the state government cares. But ask any social worker, any administrator, and they will tell you that the demographics being served have changed hugely over the years.
I have people that work for these agencies in my household. I'm not shooting from the hip here.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 1h ago
I also know people who work in these agencies. I'm not saying these people don't exist. I'm saying these people aren't a "drain" as you put it. They pax taxes towards these programs and pay social security that they can't claim. The problem is happening at a different part of the funnel.
potato3732842 · 1h ago
The problem isn't whether they pay taxes. The problem is that we've effectively increased the number of poor people in the country, or at the very least my state, on a whim. And that imperils all the social safety net programs or at the very least degrades them for the populations that they were intentionally envisioned to serve (which also imperils them, but politically instead of financially).
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 55m ago
You've misunderstood my point with mentioning that they pax taxes. If more people are paying taxes then more money should be flowing into these programs, doubly so if more people are using them. If that isn't happening then your problem is with funding.
kubb · 5h ago
Yeah that country is toast, better look elsewhere.
lnsru · 5h ago
Well I had a plan to do some museum/nature trip there and slowly gathered resources for it. But I don’t know if I want full visa+border control experience. I guess Iceland and Adriatic Sea countries will get my vacation budget instead.
nullfield · 6h ago
I don’t even know that I could come up with such a list.
Setting everything to “public”, likewise, has potential implications far beyond a visa, since scraping can happen real fast. Then, things on the Internet live like… more than forever, potentially resurfacing later.
That could be a potential employer, romantic interest, etc.—and just consider how things from 10-20 years ago have already resurfaced for some high-profile individuals, under some new social cause or just attitude change. The same thing can happen to any of us under these circumstances, ready to ruin lives.
oneeyedpigeon · 5h ago
Some people set their social media profiles to less-than-public for very good reasons: e.g. they have protected characteristics and often experience online abuse as a result. This is basically saying "if you're the victim of bigots, you can't come to the US".
mihaaly · 5h ago
I recall in 2014 when we sought travel authorization/visa with my later wife it asked about social media accounts. Well, my memory can fool me, my recollection could be wrong. Anyhow, I had this thought around then, related or unrelated, while already starting to pull back social media presence, not necessarily for the security concerns less serious than today, but for the negative security potentials and also due to the increadible noise and low quality flow of inflated self promotion started to repelled me, so I had this thought then that not having the 'normal' online presence could be disadvantageous in applying to state bodies for some favour or permission. Should I pretend something? Should I have a twitter account and broadcast each and every opinion of mine for the space of the internet? Otherwise I could be the freak, the unusual, the weird, who does not fit the normal profile and becomes suspicious? 'What is he hiding?!', could be the thought if I do not have the right amount of online presence expected?
That time we did not have to worry about setting everything public, we figured US officials will have access regardless, if they really want to. ;)
giacomoforte · 5h ago
Scary stuff. I don't have social media, but from time to time I would create and delete Facebook/Twitter/Instagram accounts. Never posted anything. Just used them for auth/developer/Marketplace...etc. But I don't know all the logins I used in the past... So if I fail to provide a login to an empty profile, do I get permabanned from the US?
stby · 5h ago
HN is social media. Messenger apps are almost certainly social media. GitHub or similar platforms might be social media. There might be some people out there without any social media accounts, but they wouldn't be able to post about it on the internet.
Other than that, your example of using temporary accounts for some secondary platform functionality is yet another reason why this policy is terrible.
sorokod · 5h ago
Could you share the definition of social media the excludes HN ?
Daneel_ · 5h ago
To me social media platforms are primarily for sharing updates about the lives of people and remaining connected to either friends or followers.
HN is primarily a news site that allows discussions - I wouldn't classify it as social media. Heck, Reddit barely qualifies as social media for me.
My internal definition is probably two decades out of date, however.
giacomoforte · 5h ago
If HN counts the so does the comment section of every website that a person might ever use.
codingdave · 5h ago
There are no features on HN to "connect" to others. The discussions and content of HN could be 100% the same even if all usernames and profiles were hidden. So I'm not sure a definition of social media could possibly include a site where the people are disconnected from the content.
msgodel · 5h ago
Probably artificial cybernetics (other than voting) + insists on using real name.
Aeolun · 5h ago
I think what the US wants is for nobody to visit them any more. For nobody to do trade with them any more. Basically Shogunate Japan?
potato3732842 · 5h ago
I think part of the point is to put the squeeze on companies that have been abusing the H1B program in spirit if not by the letter by making it hard for their talent to enter the country easily and giving the executive fairly unilateral right of denial. Though I think this is an ancillary motive.
chii · 5h ago
There are way better ways to squeeze abusers of the H1B program than to roundabout the VISA application like this. This seems to be exclusively targeted at anti-trump people, by punishing them for their free speech.
littlestymaar · 5h ago
Not only anti-Trump people, but also anti-Netanyahu it seems.
zczc · 4h ago
The requirement to list social accounts has been present since 2018, and the FAQ [1] says: Visa applicants who have never used social media will not be refused on the basis of failing to provide a social media identifier, and the form does allow the applicant to respond with "None."
https://ie.usembassy.gov gives 504 so I can't check the primary source, but it seems like the new part is a requirement to make accounts public and applies only to F, M, and J student and exchange visas.
So this answers my question about not actually having social media. In theory you wouldn't be denied. But as a professional in the field who cares for privacy, and simply has no use for such services, i wonder if they could just assume you are lying and has bad intentions.
bonoboTP · 5h ago
I remember that there was such a text box even on ESTA applications several years ago, but it was optional.
This article uses the word "required" but it doesn't give a direct quote saying that it truly is mandatory, it reads a bit waffly.
JimDabell · 5h ago
Yes, I last visited the USA in 2019, and my ESTA application included fields to list social media usernames. I thought it was interesting that GitHub was listed as a social media site.
mbirth · 5h ago
Usernames only? There’s someone living in the US not being able to write their own gmail address correctly. Thus, I sometimes get things like confirmations of hotel bookings they did.
What if you get flagged because someone else used your username to post stupid things? Will you even be informed of the offending posts and have opportunity to defend yourself?
This requirement doesn’t make any sense.
No comments yet
neallindsay · 5h ago
I guess they expect you to set all your repos to public before applying for a visa now. Maybe your Venmo history as well?
mrtksn · 5h ago
Amazing. Do you people understand that this is the most oppressive policy ever among any country?
In American movies dictatorships are portrayed as regimes that are able to control every aspect of their citizen's lives but in real life dictators don't do that. This is why there's the myth among the alt-right about how free Russia is. In real life, only the relevant people are bothered and the rest do whatever they want, say whatever they think. Just don't say it at the wrong place.
USA is going for the US style dystopia and the American dystopia is totalitarian.
I'm sure some will think "This is only for the foreigners, it makes sense to know what they are up to". Once you are done implementing it for foreigners you will want to know what citizens are up to because the rhetoric of these people is not only about the "dangerous aliens among us", they talk about traitor all the time. They will want to know who are those traitors to keep them from infiltrating key positions and you have all kind of traitors already. It's not just national traitor, it's also gender traitors, race traitor, language traitors, fiscal traitors, history traitors, religion traitors, traitor traitors.
The speed of US descending into darkness is scary.
potato3732842 · 5h ago
The problem is that people don't actually do enough stuff that puts them in adversarial contact with the government to realize how terrible it all is.
mrtksn · 5h ago
That's also the default mode in countries like Russia, Turkey etc. No one bothers you %99.9 of the times, these countries don't have the capacity to enforce total control. With the spread of the internet, things changed a bit and people had realized that they must watch what they say online but it's still based on incidents, i.e. if your tweets go viral you go to jail. Otherwise, no one cares. carry on.
US wants total control, they don't want to be in full know. It's in line with their intelligence gathering practices, it's the American way apparently.
msgodel · 5h ago
The vaccine mandates were far more oppressive, and I'd argue the individual healthcare federal mandate was also far more oppressive. this only affects non-citizens.
If the federal government were going around asking for citizens social media I'd be more inclined to agree with you. That's not what they're doing though.
mrtksn · 5h ago
I don't know how the vaccine mandates were enforced in US but two wrongs don't make it right.
Why do you think that it affects only non-citizens?
msgodel · 5h ago
1) You said this was "the most oppressive policy." I gave two examples of more oppressive polices.
2) The vaccine mandates were enforced by having employers fire you for failure to comply with it. It was actually pretty terrible.
3) Visa holders are non-citizens by definition.
mrtksn · 5h ago
You'll remember those as the good old days when you get fired for sanitary reasons. America has begun ideological checks at the gates, this will spread to weed out the enemy within. They don't have a PCR test for this, the test is your speech history. You will have to think the right way, they will need to be sure that you are not infected with a mindvirus. Today's pathogen is the woke mindvirus but maybe in near future other viruses will be discovered.
msgodel · 4h ago
>when you get fired for sanitary reasons
Those are private policies, the vaccine mandate was a federal policy. You said you don't live here, take my word for it, there have been far more oppressive policies.
mrtksn · 4h ago
Care to explain? What they did exactly? Is there more to it than “ if you want to come to the office, you must be vaccinated or you need to provide clean PCR test results”?
msgodel · 4h ago
No. It had nothing to do with RTO and PCR was not an alternative.
There was a federal policy (not legislated btw, just an EO for all the people complaining about Trump using EOs to undo previous EOs) that said any company with federal contracts (which is nearly all tech companies in the US, not just defense contractors) must have 100% of its employees vaccinated. It had nothing to do with safety since there was no provision for remote workers.
Keep in mind this was very early on before they had any reasonable amount of time to even test the vaccines. Forced medical intervention like that as a federal policy is far more oppressive than just asking immigrants and vistors for social media handles, there isn't any debate to be had here.
mrtksn · 4h ago
Where’s is the oppression in that? It’s pretty normal to have health procedures to the best understanding of the threat at the time. It’s pretty straightforward, all kind of professions have all kinds of rules. Can be argued that the understanding or the precautions weren’t right but I don’t see the personal or political aspect of this. Maybe hi-vis vest are also problematic, so what?
Are you upset with the bureaucratic process? On how exactly was implemented? Like the interaction between the officials? Like on lawyer level stuff?
jaybrendansmith · 2h ago
You can't reason with these people. They don't understand science or biologics. They think it's ok to infect someone's grandparents with COVID-19 and kill or disable them (as what happened to my mother). It's their right as citizens, to spread their filth and pathogens to everybody and refuse the vaccine. In short, it's all about them.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 5h ago
> 2) The vaccine mandates were enforced by having employers fire you for failure to comply with it. It was actually pretty terrible.
When I was a kid, I had to have certain vaccines or I couldn't enroll in elementary school. Is that oppressive in your view?
Helmut10001 · 5h ago
So if I have my own Mastodon instance, should I configure my nginx to serve a specific "cleaned up" version if accessed from the US or the embassy's IP?
oneeyedpigeon · 5h ago
Yeah, nobody's going to be doing this. Depending on their definition of 'social media', this could be hundreds of usernames for some of us, many of which have been long forgotten.
ujkhsjkdhf234 · 5h ago
That's the point. It's not possible to comply with this so if you upset the administration they have a valid reason to arrest, deport, and ban you because you lied on an immigration form.
egorfine · 5h ago
Is there a legal definition of "social media"? Because I am a law abiding citizen and I would like to list all of them, no worries. A few dozens, maybe a hundred.
xxs · 5h ago
That's not very relevant unfortunately. Visa applications can be denied at a whim.
stby · 5h ago
> Omitting social media information could lead to “visa denial and ineligibility” for future visas, the embassy added.
Honest question, how would they detect missing info? If they already knew all my social media profiles, they wouldn't need to ask for it. If I wrote some credible threads on any platform, I assume those would have been detected by someone anyway. Also, I surely wouldn't voluntarily disclose the account I used to publish those.
singularity2001 · 4h ago
15 years ago I was interrogated at the airport for some tweet without telling them my username so I'm very surprised that they need the names now, probably just for a confirmation and to see the willingness to cooperate.
nlitened · 5h ago
Has it not been like this for many years already for “non-western” countries? I remember I had to supply all social media details (and a lot of other personal information) both times when I applied for US visa.
bpoyner · 5h ago
I hope everyone is reading through and noticing this is for F, M and J visas, which are all education related visas. Not that I love that either, but it doesn't apply to every visitor.
mongol · 5h ago
This is something I would have expected China to do. But perhaps United States has turned into China now. Getting harder and harder to see a difference from the outside.
stwrzn · 5h ago
What happens if I don't have any active social media? Also, most people could not even produce such a list, even if they wanted to.
Would that be a permanent ban from entering the US?
AnonC · 4h ago
For anyone who hasn’t read the article but wants to comment, this is (currently) for F (non-immigrant student visa), M (non-immigrant vocational student visa) and J (exchange visitors participating in cultural exchange programs).
This does not (currently) apply to other non-immigrant or immigrant visas. E.g. If you want to visit as a tourist or for a business meeting (B2 or B1 visa), this is not asked for.
On the topic of scanning social media accounts, it is ripe for abuse by either party in this process. The ones who really want to hide their tracks would already have alt handles that are not connected to their real identities and take precautions to avoid having that happen. Meanwhile, innocent people who just expressed a hot take that was long forgotten may be excluded by knee jerk reactions (who has time for nuance?).
bravesoul2 · 5h ago
This cures my SF startup fomo
theyknowitsxmas · 1h ago
AT LEAST make a Blogspot about papercraft and origami or something.
acheong08 · 5h ago
> Omitting social media information could lead to “visa denial and ineligibility” for future visas, the embassy added.
The state capture by big tech is getting insane. No national ID because privacy and government overreach but sure force everyone to register an account with a private entity that specifically profits by selling your personal information.
I am curious if they'll reject me for not having any active mainstream social media accounts. I suppose I'll find out next year. Might make a few accounts to automate with LLMs and Stable Diffusion with pro-Trump content just in case when I get time on the weekends.
herbst · 5h ago
In the last thread several people mentioned plans like this, even for their kids.
Basically letting people creating astro surfing accounts that only benefit the social media platforms and politics again.
acheong08 · 5h ago
Now that I think about it, this policy is a really smart play. Pretty much incentivizing foreign interference and sentiment manipulation while keeping more left leaning immigrants out of the country. Give it a few years and that might be enough to give the republicans a consistent majority of national vote share.
selcuka · 5h ago
> Might make a few accounts to automate with LLMs and Stable Diffusion with pro-Trump content just in case when I get time on the weekends.
I don't know. The next president might not like that and deny your visa.
dotcoma · 6h ago
The end is near.
RecycledEle · 5h ago
This is only possible of you ignore decent security precautions and rarely use different user names.
They are literally saying that only those who lie or have garbage security practices can get Visas.
crote · 5h ago
> They are literally saying that only those who lie can get Visas.
Yes. And if everyone with a visa has lied on their application, anyone with a visa can be deported at any time when it becomes convenient.
potato3732842 · 5h ago
Not everyone. They can only do stuff like this a little bit. If they use it too much the courts will strike it down.
Same with every other abuse of government power. Not that that makes it better.
1251231512 · 5h ago
If you say don't have one, especially as a middle to young age adult, that's already a flag :).
DemocracyFTW2 · 5h ago
That sounds an awful lot like the kind of goons running the country...
poulpy123 · 5h ago
well I hope I will have no reason to go to the US anytime soon
FrustratedMonky · 6h ago
People are already being denied entry based on social media posts.
Censorship? Anyone?
Scary times.
Towaway69 · 5h ago
> Scary times
It was Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine[1] who commented on fear:
> Moore’s central argument emerges as he explores the role of fear in American society and how it relates to gun violence. He suggests that the American government and media perpetuate a culture of fear, which in turn drives people to arm themselves, benefiting gun manufacturers and retailers. To illustrate this point, Moore compares the United States to other countries, particularly Canada, which has a high rate of gun ownership but significantly fewer gun-related deaths.
Perhaps this is just another form of fear: fear of others.
This has been policy since the Obama admin, where have you been?
e: they downvoted him because they hated the truth.
Propelloni · 5h ago
You sure you mean Barrack Obama, the 44th president of the USA? He's on record for disallowing this explicitly. The Republicans got quite a knot in their panties over it, too [1].
No, I think the downvotes are because of the "both sides"-ism which is used as a deflection tactic to make it seem like it's just an overreaction. As someone else pointed out, what was stated isn't even true.
1251231512 · 5h ago
Obama was against this, what are you talking about ?
No comments yet
comrade1234 · 5h ago
Here's my, um, hacker news account name. Yes it is social media. And here's my... um... yeah I remember now my orkut login.
bentt · 5h ago
It's infuriating that we're slamming the door on legal immigration because we couldn't fix illegal immigration.
littlestymaar · 5h ago
Illegal immigration has always been a pretext. The real motivation is racism/white supremacism, they don't care about whether or not the immigrants are legal or not (hence the lack of trial/due process to expel people to Salvador) they just don't want more non-white (whatever that means) people in the US.
The government is doing exactly what it promised. "Less foreigners" was one of the selling points of Mr Trump. Sure, it means a bit less of soft power and international startups, but that's a cost the electorate was prepared for. Oh, and a slight dip in tourism. I don't understand what's so shocking about this.
BTW I don't think anyone has ever done a true risk-benefit analysis of such a move, so while it's baseless to say it'll bring any good, it's also baseless to say it'll bring bad. Because realistically, many people going to the US simply don't have an alternative. It'll take decades before Europe decides to hold a meeting to schedule a conversation about improving innovation.
jacknews · 4h ago
I suspect the NSA is able to correlate any accounts already if they really want to so this seems like 'conspicuous examination' and a deliberate barrier to visitors.
F*ck em. America was built on imported foreign talent, and these stupid games will win stupid in the long term.
When I went to Brazil a few years ago, the basic price for a tourist visa was like $25 and could be done online. But, if you were a US citizen, it cost $150 and you had to schedule an attend an interview in person -- because, those were the costs and burdens placed on Brazilian citizens to apply for a US visa.
Does the US want other countries inspecting our citizens' social media posts for the last five years?
ED: Fix spelling mistake
I'm not convinced that this is truly about actually protecting the US from terrorism or foreign attack since all major terrorist acts that I can recall over the last few decades were perpetrated by native-born US citizens and not by visitors on visas.
It seems more about catching people who might have, for example, expressed an opinion that doesn't align with "they deserve it" with respect to Palestinians in Gaza - which currently seems sufficient to be branded "a threat to the US" and grounds for detention and expulsion.
Meanwhile, I think the post you are responding to was pointing out that other countries are likely to reciprocate similar rules for US visitors to their countries.
$18/yr for access to most of the world.
Yet people say "No thanks. I'm sure the US is great."
Also, it's not $18/year like a subscription, it's $165 upfront -- money that could be spent on gas, food, medical bills, desperately saved up for emergencies, etc. and won't provide any benefit whatsoever to their lives unless they're taking a vacation they probably don't feel they can afford financially or in their <2 weeks of vacation time.
Nearby, we've got Canada and Mexico, and up until pretty recently, you could cross over those borders with a driver's license. And both those countries are big. On the other sides we have oceans. So for most Americans, the minimum cost of an international flight is the same as the cost for a European to fly to the US ($500-$1000), and a full day's travel each way. Here on HN, we might forget that most of the population makes fucking peanuts, so keep in mind that means that for most Americans, $1000 is a lot of money. Most Americans also don't get a lot of time off, so those 2 days of travel are a significant cost in of themselves.
All told, the lack of passports amongst Americans isn't indicative of some isolationist mindset. It's just that they have no need of a passport, because they aren't taking the kinds of extremely far-flung vacations that would need one, and they know if they need one, they can just get one before their trip.
People who regularly travel internationally are not a large or powerful voter base. They can be shit on without hurting a politician's career.
I think you just overestimate how common passports are.
Did you see the trade war started recently with every country in the world? I don't think anything is being thoroughly planned or thought out in this administration. They're all about power and not governance.
If you want to enter the country illegally, overstay your visa, or perform some sort of attack, then it's trivial to lie on the forms.
It's just making it inconvenient for honest, harmless travellers. Is that the goal?
Very few people will be able to provide a list of 100% of the accounts they used. This means every visitor will technically be lying on their forms.
You're more than happy to visit - until you do something the regime doesn't like, like criticizing the recent attack on Iran, or making fun of the military parade. Then they have a ready-made reason to deport and ban you.
The practice of creating pretextual laws is well established in places like Russia, but a necessary component is proof. In fact that's the entire purpose of a pretextual law, to have something (as ridiculous as it may be) to pin on someone. I can't see any way they could prove I have this handle on Hacker News, for example.
In the interest of truthfulness, I believe all(?) of the CECOT deportations weren't accepted by their own country.
Which doesn't make it right, but does change the situation.
Vote for clowns, live in a circus.
It's disadvantageous for the US if their citizens have to go through more bullshit whenever they are visiting another country. Regardless of how much they subject people going to the US, or how many people travel either way.
It's a lose lose pissing contest. The reason reciprocity is exercised is to discourage this kind of thing in the first place.
That would only be true if the per capita advantage to the US of doing it is at least as large as the per capita disadvantage of having it done to US citizens. Which it isn't. The value of doing it is negligible and the cost of having it done to you is significant.
Take student visas. Sure, you could have a student come to the US, finish their education, and go back to their home country, "stealing" knowledge from the US to benefit their own country. Or they could find a job in the US and/or start the next trillion dollar company since the opportunities in the US are better. Satya Nadella traveled to the US for a university degree and ended up at Microsoft, where he led business units bringing in tens of billions, and under his CEO-ness he increased the value of the MS stock from around $40 when he became CEO in 2014 to $477 today, making it one of the first trillion dollar companies in the US.
But that wouldn't have happened if he didn't get a visa. Neither would Tesla (Elon Musk, migrated from South Africa on a student visa), netiher would Google (Sergey Brin migrated in from Russia, Sundar Pichai migrated on a student visa from India), etc.
I just don't understand it.
This is, of course, immaterial to your main point: we can point to many actual contributions from migrants, such as maintaining infrastructure, providing food and education, and technological advancements.
Yes, it does, it’s called the wealth effect. This is beyond firm effects that stem from lower costs of capital.
Reciprocation is going to be more of the norm than not.
No one is really interested in catering to the US tourist market right now. It’s not even clear if Americans are welcome in many countries, or if they have to pretend being Canadians again.
I don't think this is true, at least where I live (Ireland). I'm pretty sure that the economy of half the coastal towns would collapse without US tourists.
Do you really think the US government cares that much about how Americans are treated outside of the US, or even considers that when setting up these policies? Based on some quick searching and skimming, it seems like only half the population even have passports in the first place.
I can't see an easy way to prove someone supplied an incomplete list of online handles though. It would be trivial for me to look up all the places I've supplied my real e-mail address and make sure to include them in the list, and good luck finding my handles otherwise.
1. it doesn't matter - it's immigration, them simply asserting you lied is enough for them to decline your visa, and as of January 2025, enough for them to have masked goons kidnap you on the street and imprison you without charge or trial and/or deport you to some random country
2. the easy way is to just ask American Big Tech to rat you out - Elon obviously would do it for a kind glance, the rest will do it because they either support the actual end of democracy in the US or because they think it'll increase shareholder value
As to the sudden insistence on due process when it comes to deportation of illegals I do wonder why this was not an issue when the previous regime let in millions of people without any regard for the laws of the land - i.e. due process. Is it the intention to make it impossible to correct this flagrant violation of migration laws by suddenly insisting on having every single individual go though a lengthy legal process, clogging up the courts?
All of the evidence available to us shows us that migrants, on average, commit less crime than U.S. citizens. The evidence shows us that they pay into social programs without reaping almost any benefit. The evidence shows us that they take jobs that the average American isn't interested in. An evidence-based political program would not target migrants as a first priority, except to provide some more straightforward way to become documented and legal.
The other issue is -- the U.S. has 300 million+ citizens. This argument that migrants will "clog up" the courts seems ridiculous if you also believe U.S. citizens deserve due process. If your court system can't handle a relatively small percentage of your residents committing the crimes you have on the books, then maybe those crimes aren't really serious crimes are they? Or else not funding the courts appropriately to satisfy the political program is purposeful. The goal is to avoid due process and accountability, for citizens and non-citizens alike.
Say you let someone in who suicide bombs himself and takes out several Americans. Then a reporter asks the DHS spokesperson how they let someone in the country that had "Death to America" posts all over their social media out in the open for everyone to see but they didn't. Nobody would forgive the government for such a grave oversight.
At the airport you already let them check your luggage and pockets to make sure you're not a threat to the crew and passengers. How's it different to be checking your social media before entering to make sure you're not a threat to the citizens?
Which do you think is more important to the electorate, the safety of the citizens, or the privacy inconveniences of immigrants, which doesn't exist anyway?
To me, this seems like a grave transgression of privacy with little to no actual safety benefits.
It's no different than your local government that's probably happy to permit all sorts of absurd invasive development as long as some engineer puts a stamp on it but if a homeowner wants to build a retaining wall he gets told to f-off and come back with $20k of engineered plans that make the project not worth it.
It's not about the end result. It's about dodging accountability.
People on Visas are guests, it makes sense to ask questions like this that wouldn't ask ordinary citizens. We have been way too relaxed with it and it's nice to see some changes.
Everything is partisan now.
If something bad happens, every media outlet will blame the party they don't like for it somehow. It doesn't matter what that party actually did, therefore there is no value in doing harmful stuff for CYA purposes because deploying the CYA tactics will not stop you from being blamed for it by the outlets that don't like you, and also will not stop the outlets that do you like you from blaming the other party instead of you.
You're making it partisan, I wasn't.
>If something bad happens, every media outlet will blame the party they don't like for it somehow
Ignore the media. If a loved one of yours would be killed by a visa holder who wasn't vetted properly even though his social media profile had all the red flags, who would YOU blame ?
Citizens don't sacrifice anything. The rules applies to those who request visas.
Everything else you wrote after that is so much more delulu, it's not even worth addressing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
I will submit to inspection of the things I bring into a country, but I will not submit to a review of everything I've written that I haven't made public.
It's like asking me to bring decades of letters and personal journals to be judged by. It's unreasonable. If this required of me I won't go.
Do you think the US will see you not going there as a huge loss?
Since the leading sentence with the devil's advocate, it's hard to presume the post is mostly sarcastic. If not - the inability to see the difference is rather staggering.
So this only provides the government means to oppress and intimidate regular people while having no effect on crime and terror.
"Yes, 40kg of trinitrotoluene"
It goes by different names depending on your bias, but it exists. The right side of the political spectrum would call it anarcho-tyranny.
Good thing I have no interest in visiting the land of the "free" anytime soon.
The tr*mp administration seems to think they are inviolable, that they can solve every problem with the military. They'll be caught with their pants down. A $400 drone can now take out a $2B piece of equipment. That waters the mouth of any adversary. A great humbling is coming.
Aren’t you actually arguing for these kind of enhanced vetting measures with this realization?
If anti-US sentiment is high and if the barrier to sabotaging a $2B system is a meager $400…why wouldn’t you do everything you could to prevent people who might be inclined, supportive, or even publicly indifferent to doing your country harm from entering with your blessing?
We've had a very serious problem with mass immigration over the past few years, I'm fine with anything to deal with it.
EDIT: for those of you who are upset by this and down voting: you should have tried to have this conversation with us years ago instead of just calling us racist. If you continue to do that instead of trying to work with us to solve these problems this kind of dysfunction is only going to get worse.
I can tell you some positive impacts:
- Most western countries are concerned about economic cliffs around retirement benefits due to falling population. The US is not because so many people, used to(?), want to move here.
- Our food is subsidized by those willing to work awful hours at awful wages. As a humanitarian I hate this but I suspect most people would be upset to have to eat food picked at wages white Americans are willing to work.
- Most studies show more people equals more production equals more economic prosperity.
The solution to an illegal immigration problem is to loosen immigration rules and create pathways to citizenship.
- US is special because it is by far the richest and most entrepreneurial (big) country in the world; it gets the creme of the crop of the world, and corresponding economic growth, which no other Western country can replicate; many people want to move to all Western countries (e.g. Europe is experiencing an immigration crisis) but unfiltered (low-skill) immigration doesn't result in economic growth
- illegal (slave?) labour on farms is simply delaying automation, which is ultimately detrimental to economic growth [1]
- in fact, recent studies (and public data) show that non-Western immigrants are not net taxpayers, therefore they result in the opposite of economic prosperity (see graph in [2])
[1] https://x.com/Indian_Bronson/status/1933725059837014066
[2] https://archive.is/Kaqrp
The one where these people don't have work papers, so they can't work the kind of above the table jobs you need to work to fully support yourself so they wind up being a drain on our social safety nets.
The average working American in my state can't even afford "good" healthcare but we're happy to let these people in sign these people up for state healthcare and benefits (at least in my blue state, perhaps the red states have stringent criteria that makes them ineligible) and doll out millions of dollars of contracts to all sorts of entities that facilitate this process. It's absolutely nonsensical policy. And this is without even examining the effects on supply and demand of labor, cheap housing, etc, which I'm sure aren't great.
I don't hate the immigrants. They're mostly fine people. But I would enact the most unspeakable horrors upon the people who actively created this situation were I given the opportunity.
And the people who really ought to be pissed are the people who are in favor of adjacent political policy (broad safety nets, permissive legal immigration policies, etc) because the peddlers of the illegal immigration situation cast shade upon all them.
Edit: Some of you really need to re-read that second to last sentence.
Legal immigrants and many undocumented workers without employment authorization pay Social Security taxes, analyses show. Some undocumented immigrants use fake Social Security numbers or ones they may have had before their work permits lapsed.
In 2022, for example, undocumented immigrants paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state and local income taxes, including nearly $26 billion in Social Security taxes and $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. (The report takes into account both employer and employee contributions to Social Security and Medicare taxes.)
But they are not eligible to receive Social Security benefits if they are not lawfully in the US.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/01/politics/undocumented-imm...
> The average working American in my state can't afford "good" healthcare
You're going to blame the complete lack of affordable healthcare in the US on...immigrants? Ok.
You're blaming the wrong people for this. Illegal immigrants are not to blame for shit healthcare and if anything, they make things cheaper for you. No one in your state wants to work farms for less than minimum wage.
> I don't hate the immigrants. They're mostly fine people. But I would enact the most unspeakable horrors upon the people who actively created this situation were I given the opportunity.
The most conservative voices are the ones who hire illegal immigrants under the table including the current POTUS. Illegal immigration is a solvable issue and if you look closely at Texas government you'll see that. You will occasionally get a Republican who puts forth a real solution for illegal immigration and other Texas Republicans tank it because they like to campaign on the issue. You can't campaign on illegal immigrants if you fix the problem.
You need to separate the politicians from the people. There is always someone willing to say anything to get elected. Of course they never really solve the issues, so long as not solving the issue harms their chances of reelection less than solving it does.
The root cause is the hordes of people who are unable to think several steps ahead, think about then 2nd through Nth consequences of policy and yet still vote, many of them in these comments. Because at the end of the day that's who elects the politicians. And on the other side of the equation are voters who don't actually demand results. You can blame media and whatnot but those are small factors, not the dominating factor of the equation.
>You just have to not get distracted by false narratives
I'm not getting distracted by false narratives. I've witnessed the degradation of my own states safety net services as they became inundated over the past ~5 yr as a result of federal policy. It wasn't like this under Obama or Bush. I'd happily go back to whatever that was.
This is the fault of the people putting them in those positions and what I mean by getting distracted by false narratives. If you keep voting for the people who fail to solve the issue then this is what you get.
> I've witnessed the degradation of my own states safety net services as they became inundated over the past ~5 yr as a result of federal policy. It wasn't like this under Obama or Bush. I'd happily go back to whatever that was.
I would love to know your state because I can promise your social programs are not degrading because of immigrants and are degrading because of tax cuts to the rich.
Run the numbers on the five bluest states. No matter what definition of "bluest" you use you'll get mine in there somewhere.
You'll never see the issue unless you actually look at nation of origin stats, which are not collected by much of anybody. These people have all been issued state IDs and are state residents as far as the state government cares. But ask any social worker, any administrator, and they will tell you that the demographics being served have changed hugely over the years.
I have people that work for these agencies in my household. I'm not shooting from the hip here.
Setting everything to “public”, likewise, has potential implications far beyond a visa, since scraping can happen real fast. Then, things on the Internet live like… more than forever, potentially resurfacing later.
That could be a potential employer, romantic interest, etc.—and just consider how things from 10-20 years ago have already resurfaced for some high-profile individuals, under some new social cause or just attitude change. The same thing can happen to any of us under these circumstances, ready to ruin lives.
That time we did not have to worry about setting everything public, we figured US officials will have access regardless, if they really want to. ;)
Other than that, your example of using temporary accounts for some secondary platform functionality is yet another reason why this policy is terrible.
HN is primarily a news site that allows discussions - I wouldn't classify it as social media. Heck, Reddit barely qualifies as social media for me.
My internal definition is probably two decades out of date, however.
https://ie.usembassy.gov gives 504 so I can't check the primary source, but it seems like the new part is a requirement to make accounts public and applies only to F, M, and J student and exchange visas.
[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
This article uses the word "required" but it doesn't give a direct quote saying that it truly is mandatory, it reads a bit waffly.
What if you get flagged because someone else used your username to post stupid things? Will you even be informed of the offending posts and have opportunity to defend yourself?
This requirement doesn’t make any sense.
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In American movies dictatorships are portrayed as regimes that are able to control every aspect of their citizen's lives but in real life dictators don't do that. This is why there's the myth among the alt-right about how free Russia is. In real life, only the relevant people are bothered and the rest do whatever they want, say whatever they think. Just don't say it at the wrong place.
USA is going for the US style dystopia and the American dystopia is totalitarian.
I'm sure some will think "This is only for the foreigners, it makes sense to know what they are up to". Once you are done implementing it for foreigners you will want to know what citizens are up to because the rhetoric of these people is not only about the "dangerous aliens among us", they talk about traitor all the time. They will want to know who are those traitors to keep them from infiltrating key positions and you have all kind of traitors already. It's not just national traitor, it's also gender traitors, race traitor, language traitors, fiscal traitors, history traitors, religion traitors, traitor traitors.
The speed of US descending into darkness is scary.
US wants total control, they don't want to be in full know. It's in line with their intelligence gathering practices, it's the American way apparently.
If the federal government were going around asking for citizens social media I'd be more inclined to agree with you. That's not what they're doing though.
Why do you think that it affects only non-citizens?
2) The vaccine mandates were enforced by having employers fire you for failure to comply with it. It was actually pretty terrible.
3) Visa holders are non-citizens by definition.
Those are private policies, the vaccine mandate was a federal policy. You said you don't live here, take my word for it, there have been far more oppressive policies.
There was a federal policy (not legislated btw, just an EO for all the people complaining about Trump using EOs to undo previous EOs) that said any company with federal contracts (which is nearly all tech companies in the US, not just defense contractors) must have 100% of its employees vaccinated. It had nothing to do with safety since there was no provision for remote workers.
Keep in mind this was very early on before they had any reasonable amount of time to even test the vaccines. Forced medical intervention like that as a federal policy is far more oppressive than just asking immigrants and vistors for social media handles, there isn't any debate to be had here.
Are you upset with the bureaucratic process? On how exactly was implemented? Like the interaction between the officials? Like on lawyer level stuff?
When I was a kid, I had to have certain vaccines or I couldn't enroll in elementary school. Is that oppressive in your view?
Honest question, how would they detect missing info? If they already knew all my social media profiles, they wouldn't need to ask for it. If I wrote some credible threads on any platform, I assume those would have been detected by someone anyway. Also, I surely wouldn't voluntarily disclose the account I used to publish those.
Would that be a permanent ban from entering the US?
This does not (currently) apply to other non-immigrant or immigrant visas. E.g. If you want to visit as a tourist or for a business meeting (B2 or B1 visa), this is not asked for.
On the topic of scanning social media accounts, it is ripe for abuse by either party in this process. The ones who really want to hide their tracks would already have alt handles that are not connected to their real identities and take precautions to avoid having that happen. Meanwhile, innocent people who just expressed a hot take that was long forgotten may be excluded by knee jerk reactions (who has time for nuance?).
The state capture by big tech is getting insane. No national ID because privacy and government overreach but sure force everyone to register an account with a private entity that specifically profits by selling your personal information.
I am curious if they'll reject me for not having any active mainstream social media accounts. I suppose I'll find out next year. Might make a few accounts to automate with LLMs and Stable Diffusion with pro-Trump content just in case when I get time on the weekends.
Basically letting people creating astro surfing accounts that only benefit the social media platforms and politics again.
I don't know. The next president might not like that and deny your visa.
They are literally saying that only those who lie or have garbage security practices can get Visas.
Yes. And if everyone with a visa has lied on their application, anyone with a visa can be deported at any time when it becomes convenient.
Same with every other abuse of government power. Not that that makes it better.
Censorship? Anyone?
Scary times.
It was Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine[1] who commented on fear:
> Moore’s central argument emerges as he explores the role of fear in American society and how it relates to gun violence. He suggests that the American government and media perpetuate a culture of fear, which in turn drives people to arm themselves, benefiting gun manufacturers and retailers. To illustrate this point, Moore compares the United States to other countries, particularly Canada, which has a high rate of gun ownership but significantly fewer gun-related deaths.
Perhaps this is just another form of fear: fear of others.
[1] https://watchdocumentaries.com/bowling-for-columbine/
e: they downvoted him because they hated the truth.
[1] https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/terrorism/pol...
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Yet another page from the alt-right playbook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dBJIkp7qIg
BTW I don't think anyone has ever done a true risk-benefit analysis of such a move, so while it's baseless to say it'll bring any good, it's also baseless to say it'll bring bad. Because realistically, many people going to the US simply don't have an alternative. It'll take decades before Europe decides to hold a meeting to schedule a conversation about improving innovation.
F*ck em. America was built on imported foreign talent, and these stupid games will win stupid in the long term.