HN Reader

Americans do not understand how much press there is outside the US about tourists from Ireland / Germany / Canada getting locked up in ICE jails for weeks on end.

It's one thing to refuse entry to someone who doesn't have the right documents. The fear goes to a completely different level once people see tourists getting locked up.

As someone who lived in the US for 22 years legally and most of my social and business network there, I an not taking the risk of getting locked up in ICE jail any time soon, no matter how unlikely it is.

> And I rolled it over 30 days to be able to show any recent changes while not getting lost in the noise of daily change.

small thing, but learned at work that often there's a weekly pattern (and I'd bet there is for airplane travel) so you ought use a rolling 7 day average instead of 30 because there are different numbers of weekends in each day's 30 day number.

This is why there's a slight zigzag in the line charts in the article.

Same here. Canceled my plans for US visits for the near future. Absolutely zero desire to have part in that. Will spend my money elsewhere.

After several tourists were detained for weeks in terrible conditions, it’s little wonder why

I've cancelled my planned visits outside of the US for fear of being unwelcome and fear of difficulty getting back into the US.

Beyond the recent chilling effects from people being detained, the idea of having your digital presence scanned and judged by a flaky arbiter at the border, or having your devices imaged and/or backdoored are big turnoffs for me.

I feel like I'm spinning, hitting the spiral of the drain where civilization is to inevitably pass through, gone. The many who suffered and continue to suffer from iniquities of the human race carry the tonnage of likewise experiences, know a truth that is so impossible to know:

"It was useless to close one's eyes or turn one's back to it because it was all around, in every direction, all the way to the horizon. It was not possible for us nor did we want to become islands; the just among us, neither more nor less numerous than in any other human group, felt remorse, shame, and pain for the misdeeds that others and not they had committed, and in which they felt involved, because they sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable. Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species - we, in short - had the potential to construct an infinite enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act."

- Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved

If non-US citizens can be deported to El Salvador without due process for having a tattoo that an ICE officer deems to be "gang-related", you're immediately going to alienate most of the World's population from wanting to visit for any purpose.

The lack of due process and the threat of extradition on a whim is one that feels less likely to happen to me as a caucasian with US citizens as family, but the impact of it would be life-changingly poor. I'd rather just not travel to the US, for tourism, family or business reasons.

I'm not sure anything done in the last 3 months is much of a surprise to people who listened to his campaign talking points. It seems to me that people just thought he was a lying politician who lies, and this was just more lying. What's caught people out is that he's doing it all, and believes SCOTUS will never condemn or find illegal a thing he has done so due process is an abstract concept only, and others consider themselves immune for actions covered by Exec Order.

It's all quite sad and worrying.

So this period last year the visits went up 300K, and this year they are down 200K. So compared to the two year ago it's still up 100K? Am I missing anything? It would be interesting to see the data over a multi-year period.

edit: they actually even say that the data "go back for 3 years", but only show 1 year of data.

I completely understand why. It is difficult to comprehend how much damage is being doen to America's reputation and soft power. I feel it necessary to give the following advice:

1. Erase your phone before entering the US. Restore it from backup after arrival. CBP has the right to inspect your phone. While you may be able to refuse, likely this means you'll be denied entry and there's nothing you can do about that unless you're lawful permanent resident ("LPR");

2. Don't post on social media under your real name about topics that are likely to get you into trouble. The big ones are anything pro-Palestine or anything critical of Trump;

3. If you are an LPR, do not sign anything they want you to sign if you're detained. What they're trying to do is to get you to voluntarily surrender your LPR status [1]. You have the right to be paroled into the US. Only an immigration judge can forcibly revoke your status;

4. There's stricter enforcement of rules that always existed, particularly abandonment of residency. A green card isn't (and was never intended as) a way to visit the US freely a few weeks a year while living somewhere else;

5. If you are a visa holder you have fewer rights. If you live in the US on a valid visa, I would be extremely hesitant to travel outside the US at all; and

6. Notify friends and family of your travel plans. Additionally, if your country supports it, register your travel with your embassy. The US version of this is STEP [2]. You want someone to make enquiries on your behalf if you are detained and are unable to make outside communications. It's wild that this is where we are.

[1]: https://www.uscis.gov/i-407

[2]: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...

As a Middle Eastern Canadian, I’ve been harassed at the U.S. border more times than I can count—often detained and questioned for hours, leading to major delays and unnecessary stress. It’s happened so frequently that I've completely stopped visiting the U.S. and avoid any connection that involves touching U.S. soil. It makes travel a bit more complicated, but honestly, it's worth it.

These days, my favorite place to visit is Europe. Even the UK, which can sometimes be tricky for travelers, has never been an issue for me. I’ve only ever had polite and respectful interactions there. And when crossing into Germany in particular, I’ve found the officials to be consistently professional and efficient.

America's unwavering support for a lunatic country openly and joyously committing acts of unspeakable horrors probably not helping. Your president boasted on twitter about mass murdering a village tribal gathering. Wonderful country you got there

The US used to be the coolest place I'd do anything to visit growing up. In the last decade or so it's become way more unattractive and not worth the effort compared to alternatives.

It matches my anecdotal experience here (from Germany). When talking about travelling to the US, previously the discussions of the drawbacks would circle around climate impact, expense or flight time. Recently, this has shifted to feeling unwelcome or unsafe. I talked to two different people last week who had gone to the US regularly in the past years, who have decided to not go this year (attending a wedding and the other for touristic reasons), due to the current political climate.

Me and my wife had the plans of visiting the US every year for vacation before our daughter starts with school in a couple of years. Not anymore. I think this administration will not only destroy a lot of goodwill and business relationships, but also the dreams of many people who had a positive attitude towards the US.

I'm one of them! I decided against a US trip in early March, and attended by video instead.

I'm not eager to visit a country where a psycho border agent can decide to detain people for multiple weeks.

Flying to NY for a long weekend was a thing. Now people here only say it sarcastically.

Good. Stay away. People that have been here for years are getting picked up off the streets, given no due process, and deported.

Some sent to a super max prison in El Salvador [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/20/deported-bec...

US-CA bookings have dropped 70%:

> Using forward booking data from a major GDS supplier, we've compared the total bookings held at this point last year with those recorded this week for the upcoming summer season. The decline is striking — bookings are down by over 70% in every month through to the end of September. This sharp drop suggests that travellers are holding off on making reservations, likely due to ongoing uncertainty surrounding the broader trade dispute.

* https://www.oag.com/blog/canada-us-airline-capacity-aviation...

* https://thehill.com/business/5218113-us-canada-airline-booki...

Remember that many (most?) people coming from Canada go thru US immigration there, so these numbers (from US airports) likely represent non-Canadian visitors.

With so many fewer people coming the ratio of fliers to immigration people is going to be lower, chance of getting hassled is going to be that much higher.

Personally I'm unlikely to return while these stories of bad things happening to people at the border continue

(this isn't a new thing, in particular because the US has no exit processing infrastructure - people get tagged as overstaying even though they've left, get popped into detention when they return - always keep your boarding passes when you leave).

I have friends who were asked about their social media accounts at the US border. I.e. like you have in Russia, where they can check your Telegram for the subscription to opposition channels.

It's not surprising that people are reluctant to travel to the US now.

The 'sea' of data is huge - I am doubtless entered into it multiple times with all manner of associated data. The ICE casts it's net (with a pack of valid as well as a far number of non-valid associations) through this sea and when it lifts it there are number of 'fish' therein. I will be in there, among the silvery bodies and the attached associations. I am 'by-catch' as I have no crime ever - but millions of tons of bycatch die even if discarded. There is an old French Canadian poem, that says, in essence - 'The wind might roar, and the waves they might dash, but you will not drown on Lac Sainte Pierre - so long as you stay on the shore.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Me, can I come in?

I don't know, come in and we'll find out.

...ok

WHAT THE HELL WHY DID YOU COME IN YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE

...sorry but you said-

I DON'T CARE WHAT I SAID.

...OK fine I'll just be leaving.

OH YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST LEAVE? YOU CANT LEAVE! You'll be locked in my dank basement for the next five days while I fill out the paperwork for you to be dragged out of the house!

But I just said I'm willing to leave voluntarily!

Act crazy and people stop coming to your house.

Finally the Republicans have done something good to help fight climate change. Less flights, less jet fuel exhaust.

It also happens to be ridiculously overpriced for what you get as a tourist, and in tough economic times satisfying one's curiosity about the US may not be as high on the list. But yes, there is also the political climate.

"Trump says he'd 'love' to send American citizens to El Salvador federal prison" - https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/donald-trump-hed-love...

This doesn't surprise me in the least. I wouldn't want to get locked up in a ICE jail either. Not to mention support an immoral administration or country that is essentially blackmailing the rest of the world.

There was a post on HN a few weeks ago from the Recurse Center immigration advisor, and a decent proportion of comments were about the alarming situation in the US. I probably would have applied, but I won't travel to the US while conditions are as they are.

Can anyone explain why the number of US passengers increased in a proportion at the same time? Perhaps airlines dropped prices due to the lower demand, causing US citizens to snap up tickets?

People of my family are flying in in March. New restrictions are in place for people who visited specific countries. My only advice to fellow Europeans who want to travel to the US is to get issued a new passport and, if you have to, lie on your ESTA if you spent any time in Cuba or in the Middle East since 2011 (Your trips are linked to your passport ID)

I mean, I'm a US citizen and I'm not doing foreign travel any time soon because I don't want to fly into the US either. With the way ICE is acting, I'm not going to count on my citizenship to protect me from violations of my constitutional rights.

the people who've stopped coming are the ones you want coming too

I look like a latino, although I have no tattoos I'm not risking it right now. Not even for tech conferences.

I think it's relevant to consider the baseline.

Based on a quick online research, I estimate there are about 30-40k visitors landing from Europe in the US on any day. So roughly 3 million people in the last 3 months.

I have seen maybe 5-10 very prominent cases in the last 3 months.

Are these numbers roughly correct?

Do we have any knowledge that this number is higher than before?

APIS I-92 data is a way better source. Includes all the airports, not just top 8: https://www.trade.gov/us-international-air-travel-statistics...

The latest month available is still February though.

The most concerning aspect of these stories are the ones where there's never an explanation of _why_ the person was detained. I don't know if they ever found out what happened. In some cases its clear but others seem like an administrative error.

Global depression is going to result in a whole lot less of all kinds of economic activity.

Might be worth telling the tourist harassment department at the border to not behave like the gestapo?

> I went to the CBP’s Average Wait Time website and found a rich dataset

Its days are counted now that they know about its existence.

I'm waiting to see the effects of the brain drain

A lot of US undocumented immigration is not people jumping the US-Mexico border but instead people from India, the Middle East, and China intentionally overstaying their Visas. Obviously they don't want to come during an administration that is hard on immigration.

I think it’s a reality for sure, but aren’t the graphes showing the reverse, that downwards trend started before all of these US politics changes and news and +80k in April 2024 -80k in April 2025 just mean we are back to the April 2023 numbers?

There's a shocker.

Why would anyone fly to a country that's proud of shackling them and keeping them in detention without notifying their families? With the added bonus that next week they might be rendered to a slave gulag in El Salvador?

Maybe related - I noticed that hotel room prices in New York dropped, they used to start at $350/night just a few months ago, now you can get them for $150/night.

I guess in the 1930s, Americans had similar thoughts about Germans.

russians will make up the shortfall comrade

Can DOGE therefore justify cutting a whole lot of jobs that process tourists?

Or has that already been privatised?

You have cooked yourself

Are these changes long term trends?

Is the reporting and media coverage on this, going to contribute to the potential harm of this being a long term impact? (is the hype creating the conditions?)

Same here. Hoped this year to visit my collegues from the US, I won’t travel there at these conditions.

2md order effect, Hotel bookings!

Also there is big question what is expected out come for being denied entry. Waiting on airport for next open outbound flight? Spending days or weeks in some inhumane facility? Later one doesn't seem reasonable risk to take...

I mean it's not surprising. US Immigration seems to have been told to reject whoever they feel like, interrogate for hours in hopes of finding anything no matter how random to deny entry.

https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/an-australian-w...

>This newsletter doesn’t delve into politics, and the reason for this change is both pretty obvious and not in need of further discussion here.

Can someone state the obvious for me please?

The two thoughts in my head were "this is because tourism is down" and "this is because migrants/asylum seekers aren't crossing the border at the moment".

I would think you'd draw different conclusions if it's one or the other, but, regarding the latter, I don't know how many of them cross the border at the border and how many typically do it with a plane ticket.

I see all these articles about Canadian and European hate for the US, and anti-US sentiment in general. They all sadden me.

The US is made up of 350 million people. Only one of them is Donald Trump. Most of the country didn’t vote for him. We still value our friends and allies, even if the stooge Putin got elected does not.

See also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43610246

Fewer Foreign Passengers Are Flying to the US (jasher.substack.com)

212+ points, 128+ comments (posted slightly earlier)

Part of that is they seemed to start aggressively denying visa applications, after Trump.

Countries all over the world are issuing US travel warnings. If there's an error or mistake on your visa you risk being detained by ICE for weeks on end or even end up in the Gulag in El Salvador.

For European visitors, they can see the fascism miles away. A lot of Europe was occupied by Hitler while the US wasn't. The extraordinary claim that Musk's salute wasn't a Nazi salute is mind boggling. Even when people have seen it side by side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Zwiv8erk0

this is a perfect "no shit, Sherlock"-headline

Makes sense. Anyone with even half a brain wouldn't take the risk of getting caught up in this ICE nonsense.

As a US citizen who despises Trump and has international travel in the near future that was booked long ago, even I almost consider cancelling just due to the fact that basically anywhere I go will almost certainly have immediate negative thoughts about any US citizens now.

Trump has ruined basically all our credibility on a global scale.

The US, Trump, is trying to "refinance" global trade with the united states. The short of it is that the Trump wants countries to pay more to be part of the west's "protection blanket". Most of the "paying more" will come in the form of a weaker dollar, devaluing foreign held treasuries and making US industry more competitive with local manufacturers.

Trump seems to be going nuclear with this plan, and because he obviously is not particularly smart or diplomatic, I don't think he grasps the immense second and third order effects this will have on perceptions of America. American goods might get cheaper, but maybe no one will want to buy them. No one will want to travel to the US. No one will want to live in the US.

So dumb.

thank you mr. Presiden D(r)umb. I cancelled my plans.

So, less greenhouse gases?

I'll have a better look later at the methods and sources used, but given the US crack down on border policies from the previous minimal effort achieved by the Biden administration in securing our borders, this is to be expected. It's been less than three months from Trump taking office. Like the stock market this will swing back over the year. The US voted for change with borders being a top issue. It is going to take a while to come back to center from the actions to effect the change. Axios is not exactly a great objective source as rated by third-party media watchers as being left leaning, Soros funded. It would be great to see comparable stats from the UK and Canada and Germany where I'd expect the graph to be like the US Biden-era policies. Seeing how the UK and the others have been flooded with immigration this past decade, I'd expect to see similar "falling off a cliff" stats once they tighten their borders and policies. I see this as a necessary counter swing of the pendulum when you go from almost no scrutiny to normal scrutiny at the borders. It will stabilize to a norm, so I am not concerned. I had very bad border experiences in the late 80s in England and France, so I have some emotional experience to temper my opinion here. It sucks to be singled out unfairly or due to operator error in filling out forms, but how just how many Canadians have had this bad experience in the past 3 months compared to the 17 years of data previous? Was the reporting and SOPs of the border equivalent for statistical purposes?

Why would a foreigner visit the US when you may be detained and treated like an animal at any time for the most trivial of reasons? Furthermore, why would you visit a country that's actively undermining others around the world? Why would you provide your financial support to that? It's the same reason Tesla sales have fallen off a cliff. You can only mistreat people so much before they push back.

A few years ago, when US ESTA and visa process started to require that you declare your social network accounts, a lot of people were in a mind like "who cares? I have nothing to hide so I don't see the problem"

And now we can see the problem that this can create you huge problems just by posting lawful content that is not positive to Trump and his policies...