The numbers at the aggregate level are steady, as per the CBC article linked early on. If you are proposing that there is an increase in “Muslim and brown” people being turned away that is being offset by a corresponding decrease in all other religions/shades being turned away, then I expect you to provide that link. Or admit it’s only your perception, either one. I’m done here.
Bu-bye!
All y’all might wanna read the article, not that it will make any difference in your opinion.
Numbers are growing: “Ryerson, Essex County schools cancel U.S. Trips amid travel ban.”
Ryerson: hey kids, let’s pick between our regional neighbours for our sesquicentennial trip! Montreal – a vibrant world class city with a very different culture and language than Toronto, or Buffalo that was regionally interesting a hundred years ago but today is representative of the rust belt and known for its fires.
Essex County: hey kids, let’s pick between our regional neighbours for our sesquicentennial trip! Toronto – a vibrant world class city with many very different cultures, or Detroit that was regionally interesting fifty years ago but today is representative of the rust belt and known for its shootings.
How does that play out in reality? One of my clients and her fellow Girl Guide leader took their group to Paris (France, not Ontario) last year rather than New York City because they had greatly enjoyed Paris the previous year and wanted a repeat. Last week I asked her if her group was finally going to get to New York City this year. She laughed and rolled her eyes derisively, and shook her head no. Her group is not even slightly interested in dealing with the crazy that the USA is suffering, so they are deciding between either Paris or London for this summer’s trip, and have removed New York City from their list.
I ski weekly with a brown Muslim. Although we skied together in the USA last year, I have not skied in the USA with her this year, and instead have been putting more time on my Canadian ski passes than my American ski pass. Good skiing here, good skiing there, but only one country raises the possibility of getting hung up at the border for a brown Muslim. Who needs that shit.
Sure, folks can argue that the odds of being stopped are miniscule if you do not have any direct or indirect connection with Trump’s ongoing attack against Muslims and his Muslim pays du jour, but when there are equally nice places to visit that do not have that problem, the USA loses out.
Tourism is competitive (for example, the dominant competitive issue that tipped the scale to award the nationals to my hill this season was the distance from the airport to the hill), and tourists – particularly kids’ groups – are often risk adverse, so any country that wants to encourage tourism had best deal with whatever barriers it has that inhibit tourism. With the crazy that has infected the USA – its growing fascism, ongoing racism and ongoing and growing religious bigotry – it should recognize that tourism will take a dip in comparison to tourism in other first world nations.
As far as it goes with right leaning Americans and their assertions that there is no problem, that’s no more than gaslighting by people who have drunk too much of their own cool-aid. Trump suddenly stopped many Muslims who had visas or who had green cards from entering the USA, the next day a Quebecoise bigot felt so empowered that he murdered half a dozen Muslims, and on the third day Trump’s mouthpiece in the White House press briefing room blamed it on Muslims, and our Prime Minister’s Director of Communications had to tell one of Fox’s presidents to quit with its “false and misleading language.” Almost sixty-three million Americans elected a stochastic terrorist, and think that what he is doing to their flawed democracy is a good thing. That crazy is dangerous. There is a problem. Don’t believe for a second that there isn’t, despite what the gaslighters say.
When you come across a Trumpist saying that even if one person is turned back at the border, the rest of the group would still be able to have a nice trip, point out their own Marine’s adage “No man left behind!”
For the Girl Guides of Canada, it’s “No girl left behind!”
And now Canada’s largest school division, the Toronto School Division, is winding down school trips to the US. They’ll finish the ones that have already been booked, but won’t book anymore.
Not a surprise: half of Toronto’s population is immigrants, so there’s likely to be kids in Toronto schools that will ping the US Border Service’s radar as terror threats.
Canada’s Largest School District Stops New Trips to U.S. Over President Trump’s Travel Ban
This is all a major nasty slap in the face to the United States, and well-deserved it is.
I’m actually worried about the other border right now. I have a Mexican friend from high school who decided to take a trip back home. She is a US citizen, but I worry she’ll have trouble coming back. She’s been upset about Trump and racism, so I’m very surprised she decided to go.
Have there been situations where actual brown US citizens had trouble getting back into the US? I’m pretty sure there have, but I’d like to know for sure.
I think we have some of the most unpleasant border guards anywhere, along our northern border. Returning from Canada, we too get grilled with questions such as “why did you go to Canada?” and “what did you do there?”. When returning from Mexico, the volume of traffic is much greater and the questioning is so perfunctory, through the window of a car, that there’s no opportunity to be rude or officious.