I don’t quite remember and would have to ask. I think he was detained for 5 days, maybe?

> Because two weeks in jail what could be a simple flight home sounds fishy.

The inefficiency of American institutions is nearly limitless. Don’t put too much stock in the glacial pace of our bureaucracy as being malicious when it happens everywhere else out of broad incompetence.

> That’s not hysterical it‘s cautious.

Again, I agree that there are a few stories of deportations that are legitimate causes for concern about hosting a conference with internationals in the US. But if you use people getting deported for overstaying their visas as a part of justifying that concern, then that is hysterical. It conflates issues that are effectively totally unrelated to one another.

It would be like claiming it’s not safe to travel to Italy because the local justice systems will charge you with trumped up charges and quote both the Amanda Knox case as well as cases where Americans actually broke the law and got charged justly. Only the Amanda Knox case is actual justification for the claim!

I've known people get caught up for months in immigration detention over simple snafus. I've also known several people who were literally just turned around at the gate and shoveled straight onto the next flight home. There are thousands of border points, and thousands of border agents, so I'm guessing there is an element of luck depending on where you appear.