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shadowkatOkay both Canada's Visa/Green Card requirements and the US's should be smacked upside the head on this one?
R.E. Burke - famous British Cartoonist is detained by US ICE after being detained and refused entry into Canada due to a Visa mixup
I saw this initially on FB and was confused by it. I thought that travelers from the UK did not require VISAs for Canadian or US travel?
This article kind of explains the gist of the mix-up. RE Burke was staying with a family, and paying for her room and board by doing household chores.
"Ms Burke, an artist from Portskewett, Monmouthshire, began backpacking around the US on 7 January.
She had flown from New York to Portland, Oregon, where she spent time with a host family, helping with household chores in return for accommodation.
At the end of February she travelled to Seattle with plans to travel to Vancouver in Canada to stay with another family.
However, when she reached the border, Mr Burke said the Canadian authorities denied her entry as they were concerned she may try to work illegally.
She described how she spent six hours at the border, waiting while officials were "trying to determine if what I had been doing in America counted as work".
***
She said she was "interrogated" and, despite explaining she was "not paid at all", it was decided she had "violated" her visa."
Canada has always been nasty about working illegally in Canada - they only want Canadians to work there, or people who have an approved work visa, which is really hard to get. (Work Visas are also known as Green Cards in the US. And even if you are married to an American - you have to have citizenship to be able to work without a VISA.) Nationalism will kill us all (I swear).
Many countries strictly interpret what constitutes compensated work - even if no money changes hands. And under the best of circumstances, processing within by the US immigration system can move slowly.
Circumstances are far from usual in the US at the moment, however. The Trump administration has stepped up immigration enforcement across the US, so these experts caution that anyone entering the country should be careful to ensure that all their documents are in order and that they are clear about their intentions upon entering the country.
American immigration policy and enforcement is changing under the new administration, and there is less tolerance for even seemingly honest mistakes.
Such advice comes too late for Ms Burke, who is currently caught in a bureaucratic limbo. She's trying to stay detached from this, trying to see this as an experience to talk to the people in there and share their stories as well.
It's an unusual circumstance - she says she is unlike most of the more than 100 detainees in her building in Tacoma - many of whom have been held for months or even years. She wants to travel back to her home in the UK as soon as possible, while others she speaks to, from places like Mexico, Brazil and Russia, have family in the US and are unwilling or unable to return to their home nations.
That's scary. I wonder if Canada and the US realize their idiotic VISA practices could kill Tourism dead? We kind of all depend on it?
R.E. Burke - famous British Cartoonist is detained by US ICE after being detained and refused entry into Canada due to a Visa mixup
I saw this initially on FB and was confused by it. I thought that travelers from the UK did not require VISAs for Canadian or US travel?
This article kind of explains the gist of the mix-up. RE Burke was staying with a family, and paying for her room and board by doing household chores.
"Ms Burke, an artist from Portskewett, Monmouthshire, began backpacking around the US on 7 January.
She had flown from New York to Portland, Oregon, where she spent time with a host family, helping with household chores in return for accommodation.
At the end of February she travelled to Seattle with plans to travel to Vancouver in Canada to stay with another family.
However, when she reached the border, Mr Burke said the Canadian authorities denied her entry as they were concerned she may try to work illegally.
She described how she spent six hours at the border, waiting while officials were "trying to determine if what I had been doing in America counted as work".
***
She said she was "interrogated" and, despite explaining she was "not paid at all", it was decided she had "violated" her visa."
Canada has always been nasty about working illegally in Canada - they only want Canadians to work there, or people who have an approved work visa, which is really hard to get. (Work Visas are also known as Green Cards in the US. And even if you are married to an American - you have to have citizenship to be able to work without a VISA.) Nationalism will kill us all (I swear).
Many countries strictly interpret what constitutes compensated work - even if no money changes hands. And under the best of circumstances, processing within by the US immigration system can move slowly.
Circumstances are far from usual in the US at the moment, however. The Trump administration has stepped up immigration enforcement across the US, so these experts caution that anyone entering the country should be careful to ensure that all their documents are in order and that they are clear about their intentions upon entering the country.
American immigration policy and enforcement is changing under the new administration, and there is less tolerance for even seemingly honest mistakes.
Such advice comes too late for Ms Burke, who is currently caught in a bureaucratic limbo. She's trying to stay detached from this, trying to see this as an experience to talk to the people in there and share their stories as well.
It's an unusual circumstance - she says she is unlike most of the more than 100 detainees in her building in Tacoma - many of whom have been held for months or even years. She wants to travel back to her home in the UK as soon as possible, while others she speaks to, from places like Mexico, Brazil and Russia, have family in the US and are unwilling or unable to return to their home nations.
That's scary. I wonder if Canada and the US realize their idiotic VISA practices could kill Tourism dead? We kind of all depend on it?
no subject
Date: 2025-03-12 05:37 pm (UTC)it’s not actually a visa for the UK, it’s a visa waiver. The US has the same for people visiting as does Canada, as will the EU soon too.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-12 10:23 pm (UTC)The reason everyone is freaking out about the US - is up until 2016, the US didn't. Our Immigration Policy was pretty loose, and it was looser during Biden. It was easier to immigrate to the US than just about anywhere else. China doesn't let anyone in, nor does North Korea. Russia has hefty restrictions. But so do a lot of the Scandinavian countries. Europe used to be looser - but the EU tightened restrictions, and Brexit - resulted in the UK tightening restrictions. It was never completely loose? But it's tighter post-9/11 than it was pre-9/11.
The orange menace isn't really affecting day to day life in the US all that much? If I were to turn off the news and avoid social media completely? I'd probably be unaware of it? It's not affecting my agency at the moment - its State, and our Federal funding is still intact. And if you were travel elsewhere, most likely the same.
The US is a huge country. To put it in perspective? Germany is about the size of one tiny state. All of Europe could most likely fit on one coastline.
It's not like Germany or Italy during WWII, those were smaller countries. It's not even like China. I can say I hate the Doofus, and not have any ramnifications. Also NYC? It has anti-trump posters on subways.
It takes 7 hours in a plane to get across the US. It's about a week by car, maybe more depending.