Summary
Germany updated its travel advice for the US after three German nationals were detained despite holding valid visas or entry waivers.
The Foreign Office clarified that holding a US visa or ESTA approval does not guarantee entry, as border authorities have the final say.
Recent detentions include a green card holder held at Boston airport and two others detained at the US-Mexico border.
Germany investigates whether these cases reflect a broader policy shift under Trump’s tighter immigration policies.
I don’t fucking understand why they’d rather detain and deport people than just reject them at the border.
Yes, the for-profit prison companies are making money imprisoning people, but the government is the one spending it. It doesn’t make sense.
Depends on who is buddy with who. If the government money ends up in the right pockets in the end, all players are happy.
Well, except tax payers but they are the peasants in the kingdom.
You’re assuming a single rational actor. The current US government is neither rational nor unified in policy. Whether someone gets in or not is down to the whims of individual ICE agents and whether they’re detained or not is down to the whims of individual ICE agents, so you get one reasonable guy who says “sure, come on in”, and then you get one xenophobe who says “need to get all these damn foreigners out of our country” and then you have this situation.
Normally you have a sane leadership setting and enforcing uniform policies. The current leadership is entirely focused on generating sound bites and demolishing everything within reach. Thus individual agents have been handed almost complete authority with almost no oversight.
Wow, that’s really scary. I wonder if my government will put out travel warnings urging Canadians to stay away, we’ve already had a deportation story make the news and the details are harrowing.
Do Canadians even need such a warning at this point? Between the tariffs and the direct threats to your sovereignty, I’m surprised you aren’t installing trenches, barbed wire, and land mines along the border yet.
No, we don’t, but politically an official warning signals a shift in the relationship that nobody (i.e., Canadians denying that America is now a blatant fascist government) can ignore any longer. I believe Germany recently did so after 2 of their citizens were detained for several weeks.
It would also give us official guidance on how to prepare and keep ourselves safe in the event that we do choose to travel or are forced to enter due to a layover. We do this for other countries where there may be diplomatic or democratic concerns.
At present, the official travel advisory website says there are no immediate concerns other than the normal risks of travel. I think that’s misleading.
I’m surprised you aren’t installing trenches, barbed wire, and land mines along the border yet
It’s a really long border. In fact, it’s all but impossible to defend, and greatly favours an invader to pierce - due to its size - than a defender trying to keep people out.
Canada understands its best option is a France ploy, with politicians toeing the line and letting the barbarians in, while sniping and burning and counter-attacking and fomenting civil war on the nightly.
The purpose of the Trump Government is to distribute tax dollars to their donors. Spending is only wasteful when a non-white, non-rich person would profit .
non-white, non-rich person
And for those wondering, that’s definitely an “AND” filter and not an “OR” filter. Lol
The government is taking tax money from citizens and giving it to the oligarchs running the for-profit prisons.
The only part of that that doesn’t make sense is the citizens voting for it.
The only part of that that doesn’t make sense is the citizens voting for it.
Racism. These policies are generally put forth with an implied wink and nudge that this will be used to target minorities. Unfortunately, they consider anyone outside of their tiny class and brainless minions to be a possible minority.
I’ve been wondering that too. Why not just say “nope” and have them take a plane home?
But then how do you make them suffer if they leave?
the republicans have the seats they need to impeach this guy and throw him out. they can do it any time they want.
The cancer is Americas entire political and corporate oligarchy, and its terminal.
if they worried about their seats because republican voters all started jerking off at the same time, maybe they would at least pretend
So the cancer just continues to grow under the surface? Sounds terminal…
they can do it any time they want.
With a toothless Judicial and weak legislative? Honestly, who’s giving the order to whom to have this guy removed if they impeach him, and how do they enforce it?
If Congress actually removed the guy they could easily get the military to enforce it.
I recently vacationed in Germany and the immigration polizei agent asked me, in English, “what’s the purpose of your visit here?” and I said something like “Urlaub machen und Bier trinken, naturlich!” He applied the stamp and waved me through without incident.
So… Thanks for being cool, Germans!
As a non-German speaker, I’m fairly sure this says: “Lubing machinery and beer drinking, naturally!”
Vacationing/ Lubing machinery, those are synonyms in German xD
As a dual EU/US citizen, I cannot get over how fucking dumb this whole thing is.
As a US citizen, I cannot get over how fucking dumb this country is.
As a US citizen, I can’t get over how envious I am of your EU citizenship.
Just remember that you’re not expected to pay US Taxes as a resident of another nation under several very specific circumstances such as spending 330 full days during any period of 12 consecutive months in a foreign country, but you may otherwise be expected to.
One method to avoid the attention of the IRS which might seem enticing is to renounce US Citizenship, which is intentionally not an easy task, but there are plenty of foreign earned income exemptions you could claim instead.
As an American citizen I wish so badly to get citizenship somewhere else.
Some countries have a grandparents rule if that’s any use to you. Ireland is one.
Unfortunately, I was adopted (possibly government kidnapped given recent news) from SoKo and have zero info on family relatives.
I’ve been looking at Germany since I could get a job there pretty easily and it seems relatively easy to get into. But it’d be a stepping stone.
If you need information from a German citizen, feel free to contact me
Any chance you could help me make a German style resume?
I can try, yes.
Just a reminder to fellow Americans even, that this crap has been going on way too long before this point. There’s a rather huge area around our borders dubbed “Constitution-free zones”.
Yeah, the “sworn to uphold” types are funny-quiet when it comes to “We can do whatever we want, cry about it.” Within 100 miles of ANY land or coastal border.
Americans and visitors (God be with you both), might be wise to get a cheap “travel only” phone with only the bare-necessary logins and information on it, as they move about. Don’t bother with your laptop if you can help it.
Don’t anticipate basic encryption to do anything against this either. (Although , YES, DO ENCRYPT!)
People have been detained and coerced into unlocking their phones so agents could basically just dump the device to a drive and look through whatever they want.
(No, simply deleted files are not unreadable unless securely wiped, and evidence of wiping your phone beforehand would probably lead to more questioning.)
Within 100 miles of the border of the “land of the free”, you have no say in this, and if you try to muster up the courage to resist in the “home of the brave”, you’ll just face further punishment.
It’s unlikely you will get stopped for this purpose unless you have a certain profile-of-the-week or whatever they’re looking for, but it’s best to keep this in mind.
Keep in mind, “land borders” includes any airport serving international flights, so if you’re within 100miles radius of such an airport, you’re technically in a constitution-free zone
Woah, that’s insane, thanks for adding that.
So basically “You have these rights. . .unless you live within 100 miles of somewhere populated” basically…
Yeah, according to this it’s around 2/3rds of the US falls in this range - https://www.aclu.org/documents/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
Border Patrol cannot search vehicles in the 100-mile zone without a warrant or “probable cause” (a reasonable belief, based on the circumstances, that an immigration violation or crime has likely occurred).
So, hypothetically, what stops Mexico from removing ICEs rights to search at all within that 100mile zone?
America is a sick joke.
Not that they owe my country any favors or anything, but given their own history I would have hoped this German government agency could do something a little stronger than “this is not a travel warning, just reminding all you plebs to listen to border guards if you don’t want to be tortured”
It’s not an agency it’s the ministry of foreign affairs and right now they’re operating in maintenance mode as we don’t have a government proper, only a caretaker government until the Bundestag constitutes itself on the 25th where a new chancellor can be elected.
The change looks like it does because it’s the kind of change a ranking civil servant can do without checking in with their minister, it’s considered non-political.
That is important context, thank you. I still kind of think that taking an assertive stand against what the United States is doing to Germany citizens is the kind of clear call this minister probably ought to feel empowered to make, but on the other hand I have a deep appreciation for government workers who feel their obligations to upholding democratic systems, so this is a hard call to make I suppose.
