Commentary: Why I’m thinking twice about travelling to the US

NEW DELHI: In the months and years after 9/11, going to the United States was scary for many of us. Border security became harsh and unforgiving, and we could feel our rights drop away upon entering American airspace.

Novels were written and movies were made about how an encounter with hostile, suspicious border officials could radicalise even those who previously loved America. Today feels worse.

During George W Bush’s administration, we could tell ourselves that the country was confused, suffering and lashing out. In Trump’s America, it seems to outsiders that cruelty to foreigners is the point of politics, not a byproduct of trauma.

I can’t stress enough how different that makes America feel, above all to those of us who hold it in affection and look forward to our trips there. A well-justified suspicion that the government hates us will naturally keep potential visitors away. Fear doesn’t attract tourists.

I’m no exception. I have frequent-flier miles saved up for a trip to the US this year, and – like so many others – I now believe that they will be better spent elsewhere.

GROUNDLESS FEARS?

Are such fears groundless and irrational? Perhaps. But the stories add up. We read about long-term residents sent off to prison camps in El Salvador, and researchers deported for attending a protest or writing an op-ed.

That’s awful enough. But it’s even weirder to hear from innocent tourists who found themselves in jail for minor problems with their travel plans. Many of us know people who have had border officials demand their phones and cross-examine them about emails they have sent.

It’s depressing to learn that European officials are now issued burner phones if they’re going to America. Or that the US Embassy in Tokyo has reminded Japanese travellers that they must include details of all their social media accounts over the past five years if they don’t want their visa application rejected.

But it is positively absurd that we now ask friends arriving in the US to message that they’re safe after clearing security.

NO RIGHTS AT ALL

Going through the US border was already an intimidating experience, and now it has gotten terrifying. I may never feel as vulnerable, as exposed, when I stand in an immigration queue at an American airport, clutching the flimsy shield of paperwork I hope will protect me from the baleful gaze of the federal government.

In no other country and at no other time is there so great a gulf between public principles and officials’ attitudes. A country founded on rights wants you to know at your moment of arrival that now you have no rights at all.

Some testimony from those detained at airports is particularly concerning. Two German teenagers deported from Hawaii told the media back home that immigration officials fixated on the girls’ statement that they would continue to occasionally freelance remotely for companies back home while they backpacked through America. That was illegal on a visit to the US, they were told.

What does that mean? Everyone knows that visiting the US means you can’t work there. But is it the case that someone on holiday there can no longer answer work emails, or edit a shared spreadsheet, or participate in a conference call at their workplace a continent away? Will I have to remove my work email from my phone the moment I land in the US?

The number of overseas visitors to the US is already declining. There were 12 per cent fewer arrivals in March than in the same month a year earlier. The Financial Times found that the decline in travellers from some European countries was particularly sharp: Visitors from Germany fell by almost 30 per cent, for example.

DAMAGE TO THE US

Going after visitors in this fashion damages the US most of all. Companies will suffer if ordinary business travellers worry that they will have to answer confusing questions about what counts as “work”. Tourism accounts for 2.5 per cent of the US economy, and it will struggle if fear keeps away high-spending Europeans.

And deporting students and researchers isn’t a good idea, either. America has led the world in science, innovation and industry precisely because it attracts the best people.

Harvard’s Kseniia Petrova isn’t working on cancer detection any more, because she’s in a facility in Louisiana with her visa cancelled – for an offence, travelling into the US with biological samples, that is normally accorded only a minor fine.

The US worked as the centre of research and innovation because, even as a visitor, you had rights there. Take that away, replace it with a system where you constantly feel at the mercy of apparatchiks who take pleasure in tormenting you, and American universities will be as attractive to foreign talent as, say, China’s. I started avoiding trips to the mainland and Hong Kong some years ago, but I never dreamed I would one day put the US in the same category.

A US that cuts itself off from the world will be one that is less vibrant, less understood and less loved. An America nobody wants to visit would no longer be the centre of the world.