Is USA safe to visit?

[perellonuts]

I can’t even believe I’m asking this but is it safe to visit USA now? I’m concerned about the social media issue, I’m pretty sure I’ve liked one or two anti-trump posts each time I’ve doom scrolled since his first term. Could this be used against me? I definitely feel free speech is not tolerated there now. I’d be travelling with my neuro diverse son, age 7. He is perfectly capable with full autonomy and we travel a lot but being separated with no due process would be a disaster and scares the hell out of me. We’ve been invited to go to collect a prestigious award and they put you in a hotel for a few days etc. We have American friends and family and the first hand ICE stories are horrific.

I was in California last month it was perfectly safe.

Of course it’s safe. We’ve been twice in the last two years and are going twice this year. All the Americans we met were absolutely lovely and so friendly. In fact, the nastiest and most ignorant person we met was a British GP on the transfer bus to Gatwick. He was talking about the murder of Charlie Kirk and stated how ‘funny’ he thought it was. Luckily the bus was just pulling up but when he tried to make conversation after we got off I just walked off in disgust.

Where does op mention a ‘husband’?

When d moved to America she said that she was interviewed by border staff and they were okay with her. She had all the correct paper work for moving there and for going to marry her fiance. She said it was robust but they said they liked her accent and they liked the Brits much better than from XYZ countries. She also said they asked a lot about her life in Britain.
She NEVER mentions you know who though when we speak or on Whatsapp.

No of course about it! I did Camp America nearly 40 years ago and went back for years after, hitching across the country. I absolutely would not go now.

I’ve been yelled at (well the whole queue was) by both TSA (LA) and immigration (NY).

“SHOES OFF, LAPTOPS OUT” (the opposite of what the sign said BTW). “SINGLE FILE DOCUMENTS OUT”. There are a bunch of unpleasant, power-hungry, uniformed arseholes in airports in the US.

Not a chance you would get me to visit the states. I am flying up to Canada in feb to see our kids and grandkids, could have saved 300 dollars to have a connecting flight in miami. NOPE. Not risking that! I have never posted anything about Trump personally, but have liked some others posts, and I am from Belfast before living in Canada, now living in Dominican Republic, and whilst I have never been involved with any terrorist activity in Belfast, my cousins (protestants) are active in the UDA , and one of my best friends since childhood, lives in Canada now, fell in with the IRA in his teens (catholic boy, but my dad always said, children are children and let them play, the only way the troubles are going to end) If they looked at my facebook and saw who some of my friends on there are, ya I would be in an ICE detention . Not worth the risk. Trump and his policies and insanity have really hurt the american population as many are not going from Canada at all. My father in law and his wife did not travel to their winter home in Florida this year as he has a bankrupcy of a canadian business with 2 bounced checks. He is afraid he would be detained or sent back so not risking it.

Correct.

Not safe for me because I’m not a colour Trump prefers. Also, it wouldn’t take them a second to see my SM is anti-trump, anti-Vance, anti-ice, anti-farage…you get the idea 😊

I’ll go when he’s out.

I say boycott the place. Their tourist industry won't be getting a penny of my money.

I wouldn't go to the US, especially with a small child, unless I really had to. An award ceremony is important but not life and death.

Yelling instructions is not the same as being yelled at personally.

The border control and security staff at JFK are notoriously aggressive, but then they have an incredibly stressful job in one of the busiest airports in the world, dealing with a lot of clueless people in a very noisy environment, many of whom don't speak English. The number of people who have no idea what they're doing and try to get through security with stuff that it clearly says they can't take through still staggers me every time I travel.

They don't just come up to you as an individual and start yelling in your face.

The OP is worried about getting through the border after landing in the US anyway - so she wouldn't be dealing with this side of the airport to get into the country. Getting through the border at JFK is just a lot of standing around in a queue, shuffling forward very slowly...

I would suggest the OP needs to prepare her son for the fact that the border control staff might yell instructions at people, but this doesn't mean they're angry, they're just trying to ensure that as many people as possible hear their instructions and comply with them. If he understands that before he travels, he is going to be less likely to have a negative reaction.

The irony of you writing this when your username is a quote from America's most famous and well beloved poet..

I wouldn’t go for moral reasons, even if it was safe for me - for others removed by ICE to countries they have no connection with …yikes! It’s a terrifying nation. I wouldn’t support that administration in any way ..including tourism figures

No you're right. Having instructions shouted for a few seconds is a diabolical attack and abuse of human rights. Honestly, get a grip.

As others have said, US border control officers have always been like this. Nothing to do with Trump.They are also like this in lots of other countries too. Though most other countries don't have the sheer volume of people trying to get in every day.

Stay Home! Never leave Jolly Old England!

In my view, the issues for you are:

1. the stakes are too high should something go wrong
2. the benefit of going is not worth it compared to the potential catastrophe if things go wrong
3. you CAN control what is on your ESTA application and what is on your social media, however
4. you CANNOT control whatever wild swerves in policy are brought in with no warning under the current administration. And wild swerves in policy are constantly being made

Look at Trump's travel ban brought in during his first term, for example. Zero warning, and people arriving and being detained upon arrival.
The likelihood that such a thing would happen to you is remote but, in your shoes, the potential cost to benefit ratio makes not going a more sensible option.

For what it's worth, we lived for several years in the US and I don't feel I have unrealistic views of the place, but the above is the argument I used to persuade my husband not to attend a summer school* in the US this last summer.
He has medical issues that make travel tricky and short delays (just a couple of days) in medical treatment are life threatening. Travel to many many countries are already ruled out as potentially too dangerous, but he had always considered the US safe until now. He is also brown-skinned and has a 'foreign sounding' name which, until now, had not been an issue.

*The summer school has been held annually for a couple of decades. They have never had a problem with attendance. This last year, half of the people enrolled in the summer school ultimately cancelled despite having paid a down payment in advance. There may be loud voices on here claiming that it's fine to go, but in real life many people ARE quietly avoiding travel to the US.

@perellonuts We have American friends and family and the first hand ICE stories are horrific.

It's the violent thugs, the drug addicts, and the gun lunatics that you need to be concerned about. Not ICE.

Yes, well, I doubt that Walt Whitman would have been a fan of Trump.

It's actually a quote from The Archers when a character's dog named Captain died. It might have been a play on the words in the poem but the Arcgers connection is the reason I chose it.

FFS. I hope everyone who says they wont go to USA is not going to places like Turkey, UAE etc where youve more reason to be concerned.

Yes, complete hyperbole and disgracefully minimising to those who actually were affected by and lived through (and those who sadly didn't live through) the holocaust/WW2.

"Arabic name by marriage" (07:29)
"We are invited as a family, they are putting us all in a hotel" (08:09)

I agree, it's not clear, and it goes against the original pitch, which seemed to evoke the struggles of the professional single parent of a neurodiverse child; however with subsequent information the inference is there.

Still no explanation as to why son cannot be cared for by his father at home, while OP travels to collect her award, but 🤷‍♀️.

What a ridiculous statement, among many others on this thread. So much hyperbole and hysteria.
And the poster debating going with her gay son? I despair.
OP, yes, the US is perfectly safe.

I was there a few months ago.
If your only concern is ICE/ poss social media scrutiny, I wouldn't worry. They did ask for social media info at immigration, on the form, but if you left it blank, I doubt anyone would even question it. I don't use facebook (or rather didn't until the last few months) /tik tok, or X and wasn't questioned as to why I didn't provide details.

As a family travelling, you're going to be nowhere near the top of anyone's list.

The Immigration process was straightforward, the guy was nice. That's it really. I even got pulled over for a minor traffic violation in Arizona, cop was perfectly pleasant, let me off with a citation.