I will be entering the US in October to work for about a year and half as a visiting researcher. I will be accompanied by my partner and his two children.
I am very scared on what to expect at the border because of all the stories I hear about detentions, refusals, etc.
My concerns are:
- Do they ask everyone to unlock their phones and download EVERYTHING in there for later analysis?
- Related to point 1., refusing to unlock and give access will make you suspect and they refuse entry?
- Do they also ask you to unlock your laptop? I have stuff encrypted there as I often have to process sensitive patient data for a project I am working.
- Do they do a complete biometric data collection of you and the kids?
Also, how do we conduct ourselves at the border entry to avoid getting absolutely shafted?
P.S.: I am not in a position to call off the trip. Visa is ready and tickets are brought.
As a US citizen, I personally welcome you. But, out of concern for your safety, if it’s at all possible for you to stay well away from here, I would strongly advise you to do so.
To quote Subnautica, “Are you certain whatever you’re doing is worth it?”
If you absolutely must, purchase a burner phone and travel with that. Mail your real SIM, phone, and SD card to yourself or someone you trust
For cameras, purchase brand new storage or take none with you and mail the real SD cards to yourself or someone you trust.
For laptops, remove your hard drive and mail it to yourself or someone you trust. Travel with a new hard drive, a fresh OS installed, and the bare minimum files.
You can also encrypt your storage before mailing it. But, unless you know what you’re doing, you run the risk of losing that data. Make sure you know how to decrypt the drive/files and test your procedure before you rely on it.
Good luck.
Bring a dumb phone or a brand new wiped phone.
Clear out your laptop or bring a brand new laptop.
America no longer has “rules of law” and police/immigration have shown time and time again that they run on emotion. Your questions all depend on a lot of factors. Which airport. Which agent. What color are you.
Even American citizens get “surprise” checks, and demand they unlock their phones. It’s fucking stupid.
As a US citizen I welcome you here but with that said if there is any way to not come choose it. The risk to you and your family is too great and with the coming mid-term election looking like it will go south bringing civil unrest. I don’t know what opportunity you are being given but truthfully with the shit getting ready to go down I can not see it would be worth it.
- Do not bring that in
I think the most important thing would be to work closely with your employer to make sure all paperwork is in order for your entire party. The border guards are mainly looking for people who look like they are a risk to overstay whatever permission they have. It will be better for you if you emphasize the “visiting” part, and you make sure they are aware that you all intend to go back on time. (You don’t mention your gender, but expect a lot more attention if you are a woman, with your male partner - the current administration is putting a priority on keeping people out they think might get pregnant and have kids with US citizenship while here)
Yes, they do retain the right to rifle through all of your electronics, but my understanding is that they don’t do that all the time. Still, it’s prudent to come with a temporary phone at the very least. You don’t want them to find some errant email thread and decide to deny you based on that. It’s sad that it has come to that here, but there you go. You may also want to look into the process of sanitizing the sensitive data from your laptop. See if your employer provides a secure cloud service to put it instead. There is no reason to risk patient data because we have gone crazy here.
But, sadly, you may be singled out regardless. I’m American, and work with a lot of Europeans. One from Spain in particular got pulled aside for enhanced screening every time he came to the US, which is unusual. Finally, on one trip one of the agents mentioned that he had the same name as some South American bad guy. What can you do at that point? He just plans for a few extra hours everytime he comes to the US now. He should probably just find a job that doesn’t require travel to rhe US…
You are coming here for work?
Please have your job get you a new laptop, and sensitive patient data is stored on secure servers, yes? Having it with data they can’t see puts you in an impossible position. If your job is sponsoring you, you are safer, in a better category so less likely to see trouble.
With phone, if you’re aren’t super political online just open it if they ask. Wiping it or having a burner just looks more suspicious. No they don’t all go through everyone’s phone, it’s not as bad as the alarmist media sells it BUT it is unusually bad right now, and there are believable reports of people being made to unlock so they can browse your Facebook or whatever. I hate to give that advice, but your goal is to fly under the radar. You are absolutely legal. Don’t borrow trouble. Your work brings you here, you know when you are leaving, all your paperwork is good, you are not a risk. Assume everything will be smooth. The customs guys at airports are not the same as the ones bounty hunting immigrants. They are local people in a bad situation right now too, at least half of them don’t like what is going on.
As sad as it is having to bring this up in regards to US immigration: how Caucasian looking are you? I unfortunately feel this will have bearing here.
You can create another profile on your phone, make it look lived in but sanatize it. Your laptop will be tougher but encrypted cloud services exist. Any country you enter will get the biometrics of your passport picture on the chip. Additionally, they take fingerprints, I think, and there is nothing you can do about that.
Most people don’t have problems getting in. If you haven’t been to Iran lately…
Also straight, how anti-labour rights you are, etc…
Working for billionnaires is stupid.
Also having public social media accounts that contain anything critical about US politics can be a problem.
Caucasian looking
Not sure if many people outside Usa know this hypocritical term for a white person…
(OTOH: How many people inside Usa know where the Caucasus is? Hint: it is not very far from Irak)
I always thought it was in Russia
It was, until the USSR broke up. It’s now in Georgia, Azerbaijan and… Part of Russia. Not that far away from Irak
Be prepared for the worst. Deportation. Remember you are moving to an unintelligent part of the planet that’s basically third world without health care.
The worst isnt deportation, its being separated from your family and imprisoned for an unknown amount of time without access to a lawyer or phone.
Right after you get deported to a new country without anything even knowledge of where. The worst is being deported because you are already in this situation where any day you can rip any family apart.
Regarding your concerns.
- Yes, your phone will almost certainly be examined upon entry. There are likely guides online as to how to protect your data so you can safely remove it before entering on YouTube or available via civil rights groups like the ACLU. I’m guessing you’ll need to create a backup, delete everything that might hurt Donald Trump’s feelings before you travel, and then restore it once you’re in the country from the cloud.
- Probably.
- Your employer almost certainly has a policy and training for you if you’re traveling internationally with confidential data. I work for a law firm myself and those resources are available for people traveling to other countries. Check with your IT department.
- This I cannot speak to, but maybe speak to your peers at work who travel internationally or if you know anyone who traveled to the US recently for the World Cup they may be able to provide more guidance.
I’m sorry our border crossings are so stupid.
Seriously? Even China doesn’t check your devices on entry
Funny enough, Australia checks! I was told England also checks but I’m not sure.
I’ve never entered England via a foreign border, but I’ve entered both Ireland and Northern Ireland by the border, been no issue. Although it’s probably because I’m a British and Irish citizen.
- Not 99.99% of the caes
- Yes
- Not 99.9% of the cases
- They’ll take your picture and fingerprints, but didn’t they already did it when you applied for the visa as well?
I have traveled very often to the United States, and the biggest challenge is that the custom guard that you meet at entry is like a little dictator, who makes all the decisions on his own. It helps to be friendly to listen to him, but even then, if they decide that you should strip down to your underwear, there’s nothing you can do about it (I’ve heard that this happens). The worst thing is, that this was pre-Trump, so you can bet that it has gotten much worse. On the other hand, many people still enter the United States, so successful entry is still possible. My advice to you, make sure that all your papers are in order, double check that you have everything with you. They most likely would like to take a look at your phone, so you may consider getting a burner phone with a few apps and an email account installed, perhaps a Facebook app (It shouldn’t look too empty, that would be conspicuous). You could even get a brand new SIM card. Concerning your laptop, the fact that you have patient data, that is encrypted won’t impress them much, If they want to see it, you have to show it, and if you don’t, you won’t get into the country. Can’t you put the data into a cloud, and once you are there, download it? In short, prepare well, double check that you do not bring anything with you that could lower your chances of entry.
if they decide that you should strip down to your underwear, there’s nothing you can do about it (I’ve heard that this happens).
This definitely happens, but it’s nothing new. I have a piece of steel supporting my ulna after a bad fight (and I can’t fight anymore). It sets off metal detectors, or it used to in the 1990s and 2000s, and definitely the ones that cropped up after 9/11 in NYC.
TSA people are so great; very focused in their efforts to kinda be power-trippy dicks at times. I can confirm that if you want to be swimsuit-level strip-searched in an out-of-the-way corner in full view of everyone, just flying into America is how we do it; ask to skip the cancer box for extra fun. CALL it the ‘cancer box’ if you really wanna be sure. I’m thankful for my brief military stint as it has removed all shame from my being and I was able to get processed quickly enough each time.
I’m super-rural and super-white, so that may be the super-power helping me avoid the worst of problems, and I’m sorry their racism makes everyone else’s experience that much worse than even mine.
Best advice I have for you is you look into soccer groups. That sounds odd, but we just had the World Cup here. Ask them how difficult or easy was to go through customs. As somebody else said how Caucasian do you look, Well, if you’re concerned about then Contact groups of fans that look basically like you and find out If they had any problems.
The problem is you were asking lemmy . The problem here is there’s way too many people that have this mentality of US bad . You’re going to get a heavily skewed Perspective.
That one comment even said I feel sorry for you. The vast majority people visit this country or come here for one year have no issues coming in. And the country is not that bad. So I would seriously contact World Cup fans and see what sort of issues they had.
Not all visits are the same, and that’s not really a good comparison. There’s a huge difference between visiting as a tourist temporarily for the world cup (a high profile event with extensive news coverage where any refusal is going to attract attention and be very internationally newsworthy) and the relatively routine process of actually immigrating for long-term work (dirty immigrants taking our jobs! /s) which is exactly what they are fighting against, whether any of us agree with that or not.
The latter is much, much riskier in today’s political climate. It shouldn’t be. But it is.
Making it through immigration is one thing, avoiding ICE is another
Bro’s a masochist 💀
It is risky to carry encrypted devices across the border which you are not prepared to give them the passwords to.
In most cases they won’t ask you to decrypt anything, but they do sometimes randomly and when they do if you refuse then you can/will be denied entry and/or they’ll keep the device(s) indefinitely.
One approach to avoid this problem is to create an encrypted disk image (your operating system hopefully comes with a program to do this, you shouldn’t need to install anything) and then store it online somewhere and then download it after you’ve crossed the border. Read about how to pick a strong yet memorable passphrase.
It was reported last year that the US was going to start requiring that you disclose all of your social media accounts used in the previous five years, but that did not actually go into effect in December as it had been announced that it would. Something along those lines could still happen later this year though: Here and here are articles from March and May of this year about it.
