In the United States, non-US citizens entering the country for work purposes are generally required to get a visa. There are a few (and very few at that) business exceptions to this process, as listed here: http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/without/without_1990.html
He stated that he was: Trying to work several unpaid shows, he would receive meals and tips as compensation at one or more shows, and then he was going to write articles for Noisey (http://noisey.vice.com/) about it.
Bringing musical instruments with you (and admitting you are a musician - even if just as a 'hobby') on a supposed tourism visit and going to one or more cities where you did not have relatives or explicit non-business reasons to be there probably immediately triggered an investigation as to why he did not have a visa / whether he required a visa for his visit.
Yes - our border control system is horrible. I totally grant that. But this person was also explicitly not playing by the work visa rules either.
But even if he did made a mistake wouldn't it be easier to inform him before he enters the plane? And avoid interrogating him without letting him know what the problem was? The process he got ranks pretty high on the crazy paranoid side. I'm sure there are ways to solve the security and visa issues in a way that does not leave traumatic memories in every casual traveller that maybe or maybe not misunderstood the rules.
It's obvious that the border control knew what the problem was. Why not tell him the problem in a polite way? Or why is there no process that avoids that the person has to fly overseas in order to be scared and not allowed entry? I'm sure there are legitimate security related cases where such a behaviour would not catch a few illegal immigrants but all these stories read like they tuned their ROC curve to maximize the true positives and forget about false positives at all. It's the same idea behind the NSA spying an the no fly lists. A huge false positive rate no matter what the costs are.
Looks like this decisions are not the result reason and careful consideration but instead full paranoia mode. But it's easy to say that from the outside. We don't know.
Their overall reaction seems way out of proportion here, I agree. But the general tactic of questioning someone seems sorta like the entire point of having these agents in the first place.
Some airports in EU countries (eg Shannon in Ireland) have pre-clearance for passengers to the US at the departure end, ie you go through US passport control first and when you get on the plane it is legally a domestic US flight. This is unusual however, just as Americans typically deal with EU passport control at the EU end rather than before leaving the US.
If you want to avoid dealing with these problems in the airport, the solution is to apply for a visa from the US embassy before departure.
Do you mean, the US should open border offices in all international airports? :)
The article you linked says: "participation by amateurs in musical, sports, or similar events or contests, if not being paid for participating"
It sounds like he would solidly qualify for that, considering it does not sound like these were shows contracted specifically for pay.
And even if, somehow they suspected that he was in violation of these rules, it does not justify their actions.
No one here is justifying the draconian actions of the border guards. We're merely pointing out that, based upon what he said, any border guard in a bad mood would refuse him entry.
If US were to open its borders for anybody who wants to work, it would collapse your labor market instantly. And it won't be the poor mexicans looking for low level jobs. It will be Indians, Chinese, Russians moving in millions to get a piece of that pie.
That's US has an H1B work visa program. It's not perfect, but it lets the government control the influx of highly skilled and cheap labor that will take most skilled Americans out of business.
But somehow enforcement of rules, some of which are highly questionable has taken center-stage over creating a sense of order. It appears that US government and the security forces are operating out of paranoia, hitting those who cant hit back. This is sad.
America is a good country, many people will still give an arm and leg to get migrated to this country yet, with passage of time, while we all love America, we have began to despise the government. In the longer run it will have serious implications.
Indeed. It is quite the serious problem.
It's "anarcho-tyranny." The paradigm governs much US domestic exercise of power. John Corzine walks free, but sellers of unpasteurized milk to willing and informed customers go to jail. Self admitted illegal aliens write op-eds unmolested, but a zero risk short term visitor is denied entry.
I don't care what this guy "did", he shouldn't have been treated this way. If he broke the rules and we need to deport him, fine. Then do it. Don't strip search him, threaten him, go through his personal effects, harrass his friend, unjustly limit his ability to contact his people, and generally abuse someone who's trying to visit our shores who comes in peace.
The worst thing they should have done to him was force him to pay for a work visa and a "processing fee", and let him into the country.
Going through his "personal effects" is one way to determine is someone is lying. Strip search seems ridiculous unless they felt he was smuggling something.
And I know our local (US) maritime music festival didn't bring in a Canadian duo the organizers love because of the expense of getting them a Visa to work here. (And when I later talked about it with the duo, they told me they now also have to deal with the IRS to play American shows!?)
In western democracies, we have this notion of "the punishment should fit the crime". All this harassment and intimidation at the border accomplishes nothing useful. It is power for the sake of power. It is entertainment for people who enjoy having power over other people (like CBP).
Secondly, this all misses what I think was the real point of the story - that this is an outcome of the surveillance dragnet.
He just got a different education than he was expecting.
The simple fact is, if they have and reason to suspect you might be doing something a little wrong, they will deny your entry. Every country can and will do this. This is not an innocent until proven guilty option, this is ANY suspicious activity. You don't have a right to enter any country except your own.
It's the Anarcho-Tyranny thing Sam Francis wrote about. Be a middle class, law abiding euro with some undotted i's and get instantly deported. Hop the southern border as an illiterate with criminal convictions and it's "no problemo" as an apparent matter of national policy. Hell, illegals rally on the National Mall on a regular basis. As a border jumper it appears you can often get away with vehicular homicide and still not be deported. There are multiple publicized cases.
The US treats people suspected of being illegal immigrants pretty badly. Heck, I'm a US Citizen, born in California, but raised in Australia. When I moved to the US in 2002 I had to wait six months (and provide all kinds of ridiculous documentation beyond my birth certificate and valid US passport) to get issued a SSN (and thus be able to work). Why? I was in Arizona and look kind of vaguely Hispanic.
Interesting claim. Can you describe them? Do they look like brown skinned native americans?
That idea just doesn't work. Worse, it creates more incentives for people to try to come under a false premise, as they can just backtrack at the border and still get in.
This case sounds mishandled, for sure.
For my money, TSA is right after HSA as far as FUBAR government agencies go. Seems like quality control is right in the shitter. As for solutions, I'd like to see a customer satisfaction survey implemented across the board. You might actually be able to implement something like this in a favorable political environment (there's no law saying that TSA has to attempt to piss off every person that comes through our borders). I've noticed that some of these completely dysfunctional agencies seem to attract the worst sort of bad eggs, so with something like that you could at least weed out some of the most underperforming TSA mob squads.
Law or not, I don't think that makes sense.
The shorter version: jackasses getting around a law cause more laws, ruining things for everybody.
Now, imagine that happened with his gf. Imagine its your gf being strip searched, having done nothing to warrant that.
For a country that's worried sick about 'terrorism', some agencies sure like to piss off people. Somehow, I don't think that's the correct approach.
It needs to have teeth.
All of these problems are the result of giving people responsibility without accountability.
As it is now, the only accountability they have is whether or not something 'bad' happens. But the actual chance of something bad happening is so low that it is no more than statistical noise. So no matter what they do, they can claim it is necessary and effective because, see nothing bad happened!
Adding additional dimensions of accountability is the only way to reign in the bullshit. Customer satisfaction surveys would be a step in the right direction, but the organizations who currently enjoy the carte blanche of zero accountability will fight any meaningful reform tooth and nail.
Often people behave very ethically without supervision.
You can't work in the U.S. without a work visa. The rules are pretty clear about that.
And performing for free is still work.
"participation by amateurs in musical, sports, or similar events or contests, if not being paid for participating"
However, the infraction is so minor compared to the penalty. The guy wants to travel around the country and play music for free at a variety of venues. He can't do this because that's considered work.
That really shouldn't be grounds for detaining, rough interrogation, strip searching and finally deporting the guy, all the while not allowing him to communicate with the people who are waiting for him.
Such rules really shouldn't be considered acceptable in a free and open country.
Care to explain how?
If the definition of what it is to be American is warped, specifically, that it takes more than citizenship to be welcomed home, then that should come into the discussion of these cases of mistreated foreigners.
I'm having trouble understanding what was so deplorable about this story besides the reprehensible treatment by the officials (which, again, seems exaggerated)? Am I misreading the story or is refusal to enter the country not the proper response to not having the correct documentation?
"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
I didn't even go through secondary at customs. No issues.
As the game progressed I found myself "just following orders", even as they got increasingly creepy, and now I think I have a much better understanding of what life is like for these people. There are rules, and you follow them because your job is to carry out the rules. You may occasionally think hard about whether what you're doing is wrong, but you don't stop doing it because you've got a family to feed.
Spooky stuff. I felt like I had a much better understanding, after 30 minutes in the game, of what border agents are actually doing when I give them my passport.
It is an account of how an even more extreme situation is utterly soul-destroying for the people working those jobs, no matter how good their initial intentions are.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.4/oded_naaman_israeli_defen...
John was visiting the United States from London. He was planning on traveling through California with his girlfriend, then traveling through the south on his own, eventually meeting up with his aunt in Alabama.
After landing, he had a problem in customs. He had a guitar with him and told the agent that he would be playing some shows in the US.
He was then sent away from the US because he didn't have a work visa and he was here doing work.
It sounds like this was a perfect storm of shitty situations. Take an overworked/stupid/bad (take your pick) security agent, someone who doesn't speak native english and may have had some trouble explaining his situation, an expired student visa (adds to confusion) and a weird "working" on vacation situation and you have a recipe for a bad time.
It sucks.
Also: How did they know about his musician alias and his concert dates? From the article it looks like they read his emails. He could also have posted the dates for all to see on Facebook.
Last month a band from Canada I was scheduled to play with was stopped at the border and told to turn around because they didn't have work visas. This group of four women in their late teens and early twenties -- day jobs at bars and restaurants, driving a shitty 1980s chevy van -- might get some gas money at the gig -- which is basically a party in a warehouse -- and free PBRs from a cooler that the bands all share. This is not the sort of commerce that threatens jobs or the US economy.
A musician I know just tried to go the legit route but failed to meet the artistic reputation standards of the Artist (o-1) Visa. US Immigration wanted newspaper and magazine reviews and proof of past shows at recognizable venues. If you're a small artist on a small label, you're not going to have those. You'll have chatter about you on blogs and twitter and facebook, you will have played at house parties, warehouses and bars, and you're on a small label website which, honestly, anyone could spoof to look legit. Nevertheless this guy is a real artist with a great record that a thousand people have bought. The shows he was going to play probably would have drawn capacity crowds at a handful of punk rock venues in the SF Bay and elsewhere. But he can't play or even come to the US because he's not "exceptional" enough.
I have a friend who is on a student visa from a middle eastern country and presently doing the exact same thing as the OP: traveling around the US with a guitar and making friends. I sent this to him immediately with the instructions: "do not ever say you are playing a show. do not ever say you are a musician. if they ask you about the guitar, tell them you're learning how to play."
As for the OP, he's just a student. He's not getting paid. Someone's cooking him dinner and giving him tips because that's what hospitable people do.
Our immigration policies treat harmless people harshly and are absurd.
I agree, but if I were making the case to the INS I would phrase it differently: feeding someone who came to town specially isn't remunerating them, it's covering their expenses. And covering someone's expenses doesn't take money away from Americans who need jobs — because the American who didn't get the unpaid gig because this foreigner got it instead, is now sitting at home and consequently doesn't have travel expenses that need covering.
Volunteering? VISA.
Working for free? VISA.
Might ask someone for change? VISA.
Speaking at a conference? VISA.
Having coffee with someone and may discuss business? VISA.
Friend might buy you a beer? VISA.
You plan on bringing your bags to your hotel room yourself? VISA.
Secondly, your examples are not correct. You're allowed to come over on visa waiver for business (it's one of the options to select), just not to perform work for compensation. You can certainly attend meetings.
The problem: This guy doesn't serve a political interest so he gets hassled. Face it, this country is backwards and caters only to the elite.
So yeah, i'm sure there's horrible ones and troubles happen, but i wouldn't make that a generality just like that.
However, along the increasing rejections of visa for highly talented people + more and more stories like this one are signaling a very very bad trend.
I have noticed both among my peers: visa rejections for founders with funding from US investors, befriended founders who are being pulled into second screening every time they enter the country, my co-founder being rejected to enter the country once and now also being pulled into second screening every time (despite having an O1 visa). It's degrading and simply horrifying. And most definitely not a good trend for the US.
This is a very emotional topic. I get sad and angry every time I read or hear a similar story.
I used to get angry.
But it's not only the arbitrariness that every report seems to claim. It's more than that the behaviour of the officials towards citizens of other countrys and nations.
"America knows everything" - and you're not welcome any more.
It's unfortunate when it is a cool thing for some to be "tough" like this?
"The result was that I was denied entry because I was on a business trip unannounced. The payment in the form of a warm meal at one of the shows in Nashville at a restaurant with ten tables is apparently illegal."
Well, yeah, sorta. If you come to perform a task and be compensated they might construe that as work. I'm not sure what he means by privacy violations - if his name is Googled, are there no results for his stage name? Did he have nothing in his items with his stage name? It seems odd to just assume CBP agents are doing something secret when this seems like public data.
I'm Canadian, and I was detained at the border as one CBP agent felt I needed a work visa (not just stating I'm there for business reasons) to represent my company at a tradeshow. (OTOH the unions at conference centers also agree that lifting a box or plugging in cables is work so...) Fortunately his supervisor disagreed.
Not terrorism or anything. Another example of security state mission creep. Download all your emails now.
Welcome to the land of cops and lawyers.
In the mean-time, I'd like to apologize to the citizens of earth for the horrible behavior of those performing in our security theater.
EDIT: My trips to Germany were very pleasant ... with the exception of having to take goods through customs (for expediency's sake), everyone was pleasant, courteous and relatively efficient.
You see the same exact effect in traditional police, SWAT teams, and so on. All that ends up happening is they terrorize good people.