Some people INSIST on learning the hard way.

If the insanely armed and stupid US locals don't shoot you, the government might lock you up for weeks for no reason.

I don't know why anyone would want to visit that shithole.

The headline leaves out an important detail -- her husband did not have a valid visa.

They were turned back to Montana on the American side – and to US border control officials. Bill’s US visa had expired; Karen’s had not.

Her visa was valid, but it can be risky in general crossing any border with somebody who has invalid documents. Make of this what you will, but it is important context missing from the headline.

You have to be clinically insane to go to the US now.

So why did ICE detain her, and keep her locked up for so long? A possible answer began to emerge over the weeks she was incarcerated. As Karen got to know the guards at the Northwest ICE Processing Center where she was held, she kept hearing the same thing from them: that ICE officers are paid a bonus every time they detain someone. “Individual ICE agents get money per head that they detain – the guards told me that,” Karen says.

It’s no secret that the Trump administration has been pouring money into ICE. Its annual budget – $6bn a decade ago – is now $85bn; ICE is now the highest -funded law enforcement agency in the US. Since last August, new recruits can expect to receive a signing-on bonus of up to $50,000. Karen’s experience has left her convinced that ICE agents are being given even more incentives – to arrest and detain anyone they possibly can, even blameless tourists who have all the paperwork they need to be in the US.

Knew they had sign-up bonuses, but had no idea that ICE agents were also given a bonus for locking people up - that's an absolutely perverse incentive for a job that should be as objective as possible.

No wonder innocent people are getting dragged off to detention centres (or worse), it literally pays for them to shoot now and ask questions later.

Also, the US government has $80 billion to throw at bloodthirsty hounds, but had to send DOGE to scrounge through various agencies to find a few billion? Something doesn't quite add up there, almost like the incentive wasn't finding money.

So when are countries like the UK (and my own Australia) going to update official government travel advice to warn against travel to America?

I can't wait for the Fifa world cup to start and see how disastrous that's going to be, I'm hoping some countries would boycott and not play.

I think this ladies entire story speaks a bit to how modern day fascism is working and how our analysis of it is flawed in some ways when looking at the past.

Racial supremacy and the core parts of fascism are still at the root of it. However, the fact that an elderly white British couple can be subject to this form of "just doing my job" ICE agents bringing them to these conditions. I think it should be a wake up call to anyone that thinks they "won't be a target".

The current form of fascism is based on the vague notion of a "woke" or "demostic terrorist" or whatever. Any person can fall into these vague definitions.

The "first they came for the communist" in an era when everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Xi Jingping is labeled as one. Well, there is no meaning to it. You will get marked as a dissonant and be treated as such. Not even your MAGA hat will save you if you give the wrong answers. We are truly hitting the false comfort of the "loyal German" when they were asked "papers please".

Well, at least she got the full murica experience. Yellowstone, Vegas, roughed up and thrown in an ICE detention center for 6 weeks...🙃

Currently, I wouldn't want to go to USA even if you pay me. I literally put USA on same shit list as countries with prevalent terrorism and dictatorship that I'd never visit. Like Russia. Imagine being a western country and on that shit list...

man out of all that's wrong with this I couldn't imagine how upset I'd be that I'd have wasted vacation time for this, it wouldn't be the biggest problem but it would be in the back of my head constantly like "wow sure is nice that I took time off work to be grabbed by americia's new slave catchers"

Idk who needs to here it but Do Not Come Here. For your own good, cancel plans if you had them. If you have a work event, tell them you feel unsafe (because you sure af will be if you come to a fascist country).

It is not safe.

The second part of that title isn't needed in my opinion.
"Don't go to the us...for a good decade or so. And only then if they realise just how fucked things were during the orange child rapist years."

Google voluntarily gave his info to ice.

i think even north korea might be safer to go at this point

So if I read this right

They left the states and couldn't return because the guys visa wasn't valid anymore, but Canada turned them away because of the car.

At that point you should probably apply for asylum now and refuse to go back to where you don't have valid papers anymore.

Or have the person with no longer valid papers walk through if they'll let you and the other person go back.

maye with the right kink?

I paid extra to avoid a connection in an US airport

Every week, ICE agents would visit the unit to update inmates about any developments on their cases, and tell them when they were going to leave the detention centre. “Their stock answer was ‘two weeks’ or ‘soon’.” One week, ICE didn’t turn up at all.

They had the concepts of developments on their cases.

Not in my county of interest for many years.

If you come here stay to blue states, otherwise the risk is too great.

For now my EU UK friends, stay away.

Even when Trump isn't in charge any more, I won't go there until sanity returns. I'm quite old so i don't expect to see that happen within my lifetime.

Google voluntarily gave his info to ice.