To not want to go to USA?

Unless the USA invades Greenland, I am going in a couple of weeks. I don’t expect to feel any less safe than on our previous many visits, and we enter via Dublin so the risk of anything bad happening at the border is infinitesimally small.

If the proposed changes to the ESTA involving intrusive questions about our families are ever implemented we will not go again, though.

The USA is a beautiful country with an incredible variety of landscapes and wildlife, and in our experience, friendly, welcoming people (including the border official on our last visit). I will be very sad if we can’t continue to explore.

I was commenting on a news report about a woman from Wales being denied entry to Canada. I'm sure she had an unpleasant time, but this thread is about holidaying in the USA, not deportation after failing to get through Canadian border control.

I wouldn't without having a good reason. It's easy for people to say they wouldn't go somewhere they probably wouldn't be going anyway, but I wouldn't go for a holiday.

I feel so sad for my adopted country. It's a beautiful country and so many good people. When I go home to England to see my family there are places in their city that They stay away from because they don't feel safe, when I asked my cousins in London if they were going out for the NY celebrations they laughed and said no way, because they didn't think it's safe. I don't write UK off as being inherently dangerous. ICE isn't new it's been in force since 2003, border security isn't new. In lots of countries if you don't have the correct visa or you lie on your visa you will find yourself in trouble. My husband is Asian, we don't go to bed at night worried he's going to be taken away, neither do our neighbors because that's not what's happening.

Canada has visible drug problems too, we didn’t feel safe quite often in Ontario last year

This! No one is safe there right now. As someone who is mixed race, I definitely wouldn't feel safe there under this administration. Nevertheless, cases like the one highlighted above, and the horrendous events in Minneapolis demonstrate that not even white people are safe there under this administration.

You think that the other detention centres are models of human rights?

I've seen testimony everywhere from Arizona to Chicago.

She was about as far away from Florida as you can get. Washington State is on the West Coast up by the Canadian border. I'm sure the USA didn't want to hang on to her any longer than necessary.

I have lived in countries where they just dump people over the border to get rid of them but I imagine there is some kind of process for deporting people in the USA.

How does it take ten days when they could just have driven her to an international airport?

If you accommodated prisoners of war in the conditions that ICE/CBP incarcerate their detainees, you'd find yourself in the International Criminal Court in The Hague. 24/7 fluroescent lighting left on and other conditions in these places legally amount to torture.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/12/estados-unidos-nuevas-investigaciones-revelan-violaciones-de-derechos-humanos-en-los-centros-de-detencion-de-alligator-alcatraz-y-krome-en-florida/

The research concluded that people arbitrarily detained in “Alligator Alcatraz” are living in inhuman and unsanitary conditions including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy – including cameras above the toilets.

Wouldn’t go near it.

The US is losing billions in tourism and I'm taking my money elsewhere as well. Not a chance I would spend a penny in that country whilst such an inhumane regime is in control.
Of course there will also be those that have no problem visiting the US. Wouldn't expect any different and they are usually easy to spot. Just watch all of those tying themselves in knots justifying the actions of the madman in charge, or ICE, or any of the other unethical, immoral and corrupt actions going on daily.

Another take on this story could be: Canada denied her entry, and that was bound to cause problems for her. She was housed in basic accommodation for 10 days while they sorted out the legalities of her voluntary exit from the US.

It would make a rather boring news story though.

Nope. You would be supporting a hostile regime. Plenty of places to holiday in the world and it might widen your horizons.

I didn’t mean you personally think it’s ok…..just that people seem to have this weird “anything goes” attitude towards Las Vegas, what with it being an adult playground. I’ve seen some debauchery in my time, but living in Vegas really takes the cake. And those who suffer for it ultimately, are the most vulnerable people (usually women). Not even just trafficked victims or street prostitutes, but cocktail waitresses on major casino properties, strippers, street performers etc treated like dirt by folk who’ve got money to throw around.

Unless you’re seeing people you know in the US, surely Canada can offer the same scenery and “vibe” without the anti-foreigner worries?

Statistically the UK is much safer. That's just a fact. It can be verified.

Has Meloni sucked Putin's dick like Trump is doing?

Has Italy invaded a sovereign country in the last week? Or at any point since 1945? Has Italy spent the last year threatening to make Austria its 21st region, and threatening to annex Corsica?

Are there documented human rights abuses in Italy at anything like the extent and scale of those in the US?

Is Meloni putting troops on the streets of cities who voted for her political opponents in order to intimidate the citizens?

Has an innocent Italian woman been murdered by an immigration officer in the last couple of days? Or ever?

Has Meloni threatened opposition politicians with death for saying that soldiers should not follow illegal orders?

Yeah, they just aren't equivalent.

Be free to travel the world.

With no bounds at all?

Well a tour operator in Wigan did do a successful trip to Iraq so...

Im going to visit family in the East coast at Easter. I don’t know anyone who supports Trump and happy to support local businesses while there. I’m not going to let my disdain for the government stop me from seeing family.

Palermo and Syracuse are both beautiful cities.

There are around 200 sovereign states in the world. Plenty to chose from even after discounting the dictatorships and active warzones.

I'm not sure they'd let me in.

My DF lives there but we both understand that outside of any emergencies, I won’t be visiting until the current administration has ended. It’s crap but personally it doesn’t feel like a risk worth taking.

It is up to you whether you want to travel to the U.S. for moral reasons but it is perfectly safe to do so, ICE aren’t not rounding up tourists in the street even if they aren’t white. What is happening is not excusable but hasn’t made the whole country unsafe to visit. And while I appreciate not wanting to give the Trump admin your money, if you are visiting a blue state the majority of the revenue ypu are generating is going to the state via hotel taxes, sales tax etc so may well be going to a state government that is actively against Trump. As a proud Californian I want to support my state more than, especially since Trump hates us so much anyway!

I am not going. And we really all want to go to NYC. But not until his time has passed.