To not want to go to USA?

[DalekStarmer]

DH and I used to go to the states every year on holiday. Different places each time - we loved it. This stopped during Covid when our holiday to Montana was cancelled. After Covid we planned to go back but ended up cancelling due to various things. Anyway, DH is keen to get back to our US trips and wanted to go last year. I said I didn’t fancy it due to Trump and the new hostile attitude towards foreigners. I said I’d consider it this year … now I’m even less in favour of it. It just doesn’t feel safe at all. DH is disappointed. AIBU?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Wouldn’t go near it.

Just want to add here I do travel around a lot and have seen a lot of the world - it’s not just America or Uk for me 😂 didn’t mean to give that impression

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.

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.

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

I've seen testimony everywhere from Arizona to Chicago.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

You only have to open your eyes with the recent news around the ICE immigration crackdown to know it's not mental to be concerned.

Wait until Britain and the rest of Europe does nothing to stop him seizing Greenland and makes it US territory.

Yeah. Not happening to you. Until it does.

I grew up in the height of apartheid in South Africa. We didn't know nearly any of what was going on. We heard rumours and the obvious was in front of us in terms of segregation but it was normalised so as children, we didn't know any better.

In the words of Emma Thomson - careful there.

Blimey you mean the US has a border force that actually stops undesirables coming in? Contrast that with the UK where our border farce actually ship them in!!

Would you go to Russia? To China? To North Korea? To Saudi? the USA imo is now more akin to those places than say Canada, France or Australia to pick a random three “normal” countries.

He will die soon hopefully and we will all be ready with the champagne.

The USA is one place I am certainly not want to visit until that narcissist, rapist, bully, conman, demented, lying, petulant, destroyer thing called Donald Trump goes and all his rules go. He has completely ruined the country and the world. Plus the way he shoved his name on the Kennedy Center is awful.

He doesn't deserve any presidential style funeral or late presidential stuff such as statues etc.

The White House are concealing his health issues. He has dementia. The leaning forward, the walking not in a straight line (classic example is a speeded up clip of him before he meets Putin in Alaska with the Benny Hill tune over it) thinking Mattel is a country. Plus they keep saying he's 6ft 3 and 240lb (17st 2). No he is shorter than that as standing next to other politicians, royalty and famous people who are 6ft3, he looks shorter. Plus he's more like 20st. Also the WH claim he has bruises back of his hands from excess handshaking. No they are from IV injections. We can see the cover ups about Trump's health

Went to USA 4 times - 3 times as a child in the 90s to Florida doing all the Disney and other theme parks then a 12 day tour central USA late 00s. They hold special memories in my heart

Careful now, JD Vance could be even worse.