Not always. In some cases, more civilized border authorities may just retain the person’s passport, and require and trust them to show up for the next available flight in order to get it back.
No, the point of all these stories is that US CPB sometimes exercises their discretionary authority with excessive strictness and zeal, sometimes in a fashion that suggests racial or ethnic prejudice, and often imposes unnecessarily harsh treatment on innocent travellers. Some of them seem to greatly enjoy being part of what is essentially a police force that is relatively unconstrained by constitutional safeguards.
No doubt some are genuinely intent on protecting the national interest, but it’s hard to see how a cat-sitter merely transiting through the US is any sort of threat to national security or the national economy.
I didn’t say anything about the point of the stories - but regardless of what the point of the stories are, in every one the person has clearly done or is planning to do something that makes them ineligible for the visa waiver program and I very much get a “cat-sitting isn’t really work” “the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade should have told me the visa waiver program required me to have a ticket to a country that doesn’t border the US instead of just referring me to US websites” vibe from them. And I still don’t know what CBP was supposed to do differently with the guy who wanted to look for a job and said he didn’t want to return home and had a “minor fear” about returning.
I’m not saying CBP is perfect because they aren’t. I’m not saying they aren’t power mad because I’m sure some of them are. But as far as the stories about the Australians go - CBP shouldn’t have asked specifically about an abortion because the actual written policy refers to women known or reported to be pregnant/postpartum/or to have had a pregnancy loss. But I’m not at all sure anyone on-site had the discretion to let her go on her way once she said she worked ( by cat and house-sitting) on her previous trip to the US. The one who was on a flight to Australia 30 hours after arriving - it’s possible that was the next flight to Australia. And maybe other countries give border agents the discretion to simply hold people’s passports and trust them to show up for the next available flight but that doesn’t mean CBP gives their agents that discretion.
That’s an issue with that website - they shouldn’t be giving advice they are not qualified to give. But then again, they might not make any money if they told people that they don’t know whether other countries will allow the petsitters/housesitters to enter the country and that they probably will be deported if they are truthful about the sitting. Would you pay even $129 a year if they told you the truth, which is that you need to determine for yourself whether/what type of visa is needed to pet or housesit in exchange for a place to stay and if you are wrong you may be deported? Probably not.
And assuming that they aren’t qualified to give that advice is the best-case scenario. There is no way that TrustedHousesitters truly believes that they understand US, UK and Canadian laws better than the border officials in those countries - and the fact that they provide those unsigned, vague explanatory letters says to me that they know people have had issues in those three countries. I just love this line from their website
We’ve produced the letters below for our most popular house sitting destinations which you can show if needed to help border control officials understand that we don’t regard house sitting as work.
Whether this company regards house sitting as work is completely irrelevant - and they know it.
In my opinion they have gone beyond giving advice that they aren’t qualified to give and have crossed over to actively misleading people like you to believe it is 100% legal for you to pet sit in those countries when entering as a tourist. And as their response to you shows, they couldn’t care less about what happens to their customers - they’re just going to stick with “we know better than the immigration officials” , and if you get deported , that’s your problem as far as they are concerned.
There is probably some government agency that regulates this behavior, but as the company seems to be based in London, I couldn’t tell you which.
Sorry, this was a bit flippant of me. It is a real problem if this company is giving advice that hasn’t been properly vetted. Innocent travelers (and I think you’ve gone into this with the best intentions) are getting hurt. It’s difficult to navigate all the rules about travel and work in multiple countries.
I am trying as many journalists as I can to cover this angle, with emails from the company refusing to admit even partial responsibility for their involvement in this. If anyone has any journalist connections, please let me know.
Yes, I have learnt MY lesson. But other people are still at risk and have been ’told’—on a webpage a lot of people wouldn’t look at or even know exists—it’s not a risk at all.
Exposing the misguided information is good, but to most country’s border control agents the onus will always be on the traveler to know the rules. Just like you are responsible for everything in your luggage, you’re responsible for knowing the regulations around your visa. Getting poor advice from a website doesn’t change your responsibility.
The Internet is awash with old, inaccurate information. Rules and policies change frequently so it is wise to only use only official sources.
Sometimes, if you do enough digging, you can find the official current advice to immigration officers. They are obliged to follow their own rules, though there may be areas where they can exercise discretion. This can work in your favour sometimes or on a bad day undo your travel plans.
An immigration officer once told the top two countries for visa irregularities in the UK are Nigeria and Australia.
Australia may be surprising, but there are a lot of travellers overstaying and breaking the terms of their visa. It works both ways, a lot of Brits overstay in Australia as well. The Border Force and Immigration like to appear stern and uncompromising in their interpretation of the rules. It makes their political masters chasing the anti-immigration vote look as though they are doing something.
‘TrustedHousesitters secures USD10m in Series A round’ … to ‘ grow its membership base, with a particular focus on California.’ (state I was deported from):
CBP called yesterday to ‘update’ me on their findings. Sounds like the lady read off a script and she wouldn’t let me ask any questions. The one question—which prompted another—I pushed ahead with asking created an epic silence before she responded with referring me back to some website.
As I said earlier, you shouldn’t have been specifically asked about whether you had an abortion - but the fact that that policy doesn’t specifically mention “termination of pregnancy” is just poor wording and you aren’t going to get anywhere pointing out that the policy doesn’t use those words.
For “pregnancy loss”, it says “examples include miscarriages and stillbirths”. It doesn’t say that pregnancy loss is limited to those examples. The policy as a whole is meant to apply to pregnant women, women who have recently given birth or recently experienced a pregnancy loss , and women who are nursing. Could the policy have been written more clearly ? Absolutely. My employer’s policy referred to “experienced a pregnancy outcome” which covers any outcome. Or the CBP policy could have listed " abortions, miscarriages and stillbirths" as examples of pregnancy loss.
There isn’t really any reason I can see why a woman who recently had an abortion should be treated differently than one who recently gave birth or had a miscarriage according to that policy - does the woman who had a miscarriage require welfare checks every 15 minutes while the woman who had an abortion does not? Should the woman who gave birth be placed in the least restrictive setting possible, while that’s not required for the one who had an abortion? Same thing with the access to juice , snacks, water, a place to sleep and not being required to stand for long periods of time - no reason why pregnant women , women who recently gave birth and women who recently had a miscarriage or stillbirth should be provided with those things while a woman who had an abortion should not be. Especially since there is no way for a doctor to distinguish a medication abortion from a spontaneous miscarriage.
It seems like you are focused on the wording used both by the agent and in the policy and aren’t seeing that someone who said “yes” to the abortion question would possibly have been treated better in some respects than someone who answered “no” , just as someone who was pregnant may have been treated better in some respects than someone who wasn’t. Again, they shouldn’t have used the word “abortion” when questioning you - but do you really believe it would be better if CBP didn’t have to make every effort to ensure that women who have had recent abortions have an appropriate place to sleep and aren’t required to stand for long periods?
If this were a U.S. based site, you might try a lawsuit to require it to show accurate, current information and get your travel expenses + covered. But I don’t know the details here. You could certainly consult a lawyer, but don’t expect them to be eager to take on your case. If you lose, you could also be out lawyer fees.
What I expect is that anyone who would ask that question when not told to is some sort or pro-lifer and was going to mistreat her if she said yes.
I thought that implication was obvious. That’s why the news that they asked her about an abortion was a bad thing. The climate in this country right now is that people who admit to having an abortion get mistreated by a certain subset of the population, especially since Roe got overturned.
If you’re not required to ask, then you shouldn’t fucking ask, because anyone asked that would be scared of why they were being asked.
CBP have told journalists—after my call and subsequent emails saying it was VERY unprofessional of the special agent to refuse to answer my questions on Thursday’s call—they won’t be commenting on the story/issue anymore No more “public statements”
No more “public statements”