The Off Topic Topic

[Josquius]

Second Barcelona date announced. Assholes 

You want to be special?

[celedhring]

Second Barcelona date announced. Assholes 

You want to be special?

If they had sold both shows at the same time (and the promoters knew they were going to have a second show, since they announced it minutes after the first was sold out) I could have got better seats.

[The Larch]

Aussie tourist in the US severely mistreated upon entering the country and deported due to little known travel rule.

Australian traveller strip-searched, held in US prison and deported over little-known entry requirement
Jack Dunn was detained for 30 hours with no access to phone or family because onward flight from US went to neighbouring country

An Australian traveller was denied entry to the US, cavity searched, sent to prison alongside criminals and subsequently deported 30 hours after arriving, due to a little-known entry requirement for the US.

The Victorian student Jack Dunn applied for a visa waiver for his trip to the US in May and planned to travel on to Mexico. He had been warned about the need to prove his plan to exit the US, but was unaware of the rule that requires those entering on the waiver to have booked either a return flight or onward travel to a country that does not border the US.

After arriving in Honolulu Dunn was refused entry to the US and detained at a federal prison until he could be put on a return flight to Australia.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed several Australians have been caught out by the rule and sent back at the border.

Dunn said he had since suffered panic attacks over his detention and called on Dfat to clearly advertise the entry rule on its Smartraveller website so others can avoid his experience.

US government websites explaining eligiblity for the visa waiver program, which Smartraveller advises Australians to consult, do not mention the specific entry rule that resulted in Dunn being deported.

Dunn, 23, had spent more than half a year saving for his trip, and by May had enough for a three- to four-month adventure. He planned to start in the US to see the NBA playoffs, then spend most of his trip backpacking across Mexico and South America.

At the beginning of May he quit his job as a youth worker and boarded a Jetstar flight to Honolulu.

After landing at 6am on 5 May, he was interrogated by a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, who refused him entry after determining that he had not booked onward travel beyond Mexico.

He was put in an interrogation room with no wifi. Because he did not have a local sim card, had no access to the internet.

At one point, Dunn claims, an airline worker offered him his phone to book a flight from Mexico to a third country.

Dunn tried booking a flight to Panama, but did not have enough money in his debit card account, and as his own phone was not connected to the internet, he could not transfer money from his savings account, which held several thousand dollars. He then tried to book a cheaper flight to Guatemala, but the CBP officer re-entered the room and ordered the airline worker to take the phone back, Dunn claimed.

In a transcript of the interrogation seen by the Guardian, the officer also questioned Dunn about his inability to book the onward flight out of Mexico, and whether he had enough money to support himself in the US.

He was ultimately denied entry to the US because he did not "possess a ticket, valid for at least one year to any foreign place/port other than a contiguous territory or adjacent island unless they permanently reside there".

"You are inadmissible for admission into the United States ... because of your inability to overcome the presumption of an intended immigrant. You have no ties or equities to your home country or sufficient funds to support yourself for your intended period of stay," he was told at the end of the interrogation.

Dunn said about six hours after landing he was handcuffed and taken to the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu, where he was told to strip naked and was twice searched under his scrotum and anus for contraband before being admitted.

He had no access to his phone or contact with his parents in Australia, and claimed he was placed in a cell with another prisoner who had smeared blood and faeces on the wall. He was told to sleep on a concrete floor with a paper bag for a pillow.

"Once the police dropped me off, you're in a prison, so the guards and inmates there have no idea what you're there for, they just assume this kid has done something bad," Dunn said. "They treat you like a criminal, they treat you like shit."

Dunn spent about 30 hours in the detention centre, before being taken back to the airport and put on a flight to Sydney. Throughout the whole episode, Dunn's parents were told by the CBP and Dfat officials that he was safe. His family has lodged a complaint with the CBP about his treatment and the behaviour of the individual officer.

Dunn has since attempted to go on a different holiday in Thailand, but he had several panic attacks while there and had to return home.

Dunn said it was clear Dfat should list the rule.

"Obviously it should be added to the Smartraveller website, because everyone goes there to check the rules. I don't want anyone else going through what I went through, it's just not right," Dunn said.

When Guardian Australia asked Dfat if it was aware of the entry rule, a spokesman said it was "aware of a number of cases where an Australian citizen has been deported from the United States" but was unable to provide further detail.

"All of Dfat's Smartraveller travel advisories, including for the United States of America, observe that: 'Every country or territory decides who can enter or leave through its borders. For specific information about the evidence you'll need to enter a foreign destination, including Covid-19 vaccinations and test, check with the nearest embassy, consulate or immigration department of the destination you're entering'," the spokesman said.

The entry requirement is not listed on the US embassy's website, nor on multiple US government websites that it directs travellers to.

A CBP spokesman told Guardian Australia by email he could not discuss individual cases, but said the agency "regrets any inconvenience or unpleasantness a passenger may have experienced during his/her CBP processing".

"Under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), applicants must have a round-trip ticket that would transport the traveler out of the United States to any other foreign port or place as long as the trip does not terminate in contiguous territory or an adjacent island; except that the round-trip ticket may transport the traveler to contiguous territory or an adjacent island, if the traveler is a resident of the country of destination," the spokesman said.

"In addition, applicants should be able to demonstrate access to sufficient funds to support themselves for the intended period of their stay and to proof [sic] sufficient ties or equities to the home country," the spokesman said.

[Josquius]

Little known rule?
Thats pretty well known no?
When I went to Thailand I was questioned at the checkin to prove how I was leaving as I was going out by another airline. Fault lies there I think.

[celedhring]

Yeah, "prove you are leaving" is a common requirement for tourists.

[The Larch]

Little known rule?
Thats pretty well known no?

Umm, no? I mean, I never heard of it and I've travelled twice to the US, having perused the visa waiver program website extensively both times due to being scared to death of doing something wrong.

When I went to Thailand I was questioned at the checkin to prove how I was leaving as I was going out by another airline. Fault lies there I think.

Problem is that the guy was travelling to Mexico after the US, and that was not enough for the US border officer. If I read things right he should have a booked ticket beyond Mexico for everything to have been fine. Why going to Mexico was not enough is beyond me.

[The Larch]

Yeah, "prove you are leaving" is a common requirement for tourists.

Apparently leaving for a country bordering the US is not enough.

[Josquius]

Ah, yeah, the not bordering the US part I missed, that is weird. Originally read it as just not having solid proof he was going to Mexico.

[DGuller]

US invasion plans of Canada and Mexico confirmed?

[garbon]

Problem is that the guy was travelling to Mexico after the US, and that was not enough for the US border officer. If I read things right he should have a booked ticket beyond Mexico for everything to have been fine. Why going to Mexico was not enough is beyond me.

I would guess because the border is porous and thus not exactly proof he'd stay away?

That's not to negate that everything that happened to him was unnecessarily brutal.

[Josquius]

Maybe some kind of NAFTA  thing?
Like when travelling in the EEA its not enough to leave the country where you are, you have to leave schengen?

[Oexmelin]

It's not a NAFTA thing. It's a USA thing.

[Sheilbh]

RIP Paula Rego:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jun/08/paula-rego-artist-dies-aged-87

I love her work and was able to see the Tate Britain retrospective. Incredible artist.

[crazy canuck]

It's not a NAFTA thing. It's a USA thing.

Whatever the rule was, the really horrid thing was the complete absence of judgment by border guards in this case.  The had a discretion to exercise and this case those how that can go very wrong.

[Sheilbh]

Another obit - fairly extraordinary Damascene moment halfway through this man's life:

Ray Hill obituary
Former neo-Nazi activist who changed course and threw himself into campaigning against racism and rightwing extremism
Andrew Bell
Sun 29 May 2022 17.18 BST
Last modified on Mon 6 Jun 2022 19.19 BST

Ray Hill, who has died aged 82, was a leading member of Britain's neo-Nazi movement who underwent a profound change of heart, becoming a celebrated mole operating inside the extreme right, determined to make amends for his earlier misdemeanours.

Over a period of five years in the early to mid-1980s he inflicted serious – sometimes terminal – damage on some of the most dangerous far-right organisations in Britain, and then devoted his time to campaigning against racism and rightwing extremism.

As a young man in Leicester in 1967, recently married and with few prospects, Hill joined a local branch of the Anti-Immigration Society (AIMS), believing that recent large-scale immigration had reduced his work opportunities. But AIMS was just the first step on an insidious conveyor belt of recruitment to the extreme right. From there he was ushered towards the Racial Preservation Society, run by former Blackshirts, where the politics were hardened up. Then he was nudged in the direction of fully fledged far-right extremism, joining Colin Jordan's neo-nazi British Movement in 1968.

Clever, witty and a charismatic public speaker, Hill soon rose in the organisation, sitting on its national council, acting as bodyguard to Jordan (in which capacity he picked up a conviction for assaulting a press photographer) and serving as Jordan's election agent in the 1969 Ladywood byelection in Birmingham, in which he won 3% of the vote.

His activism got him into trouble and, facing criminal prosecution after a fight with some leftwing students, he decided to leave the country. Having been employed in various factory jobs, but also as a firefighter and as a bus conductor, at the end of 1969 Hill and his young family emigrated to South Africa, where he worked as an insurance salesman, in the gold mines, and as a houseparent in a boys' school, while also re-engaging with extremist politics by joining the South African National Front (SANF).

By the time he returned to Brtiain in 1979, however, he was a man transformed by an aggregation of experiences that had slowly eroded his extremist beliefs.

There were times when he and his family had been struggling, and when he received help from the most unlikely quarters – from Jewish people who became lifelong friends.

Then, one Sunday afternoon in the Hillbrow district of Johannesburg, he saw an Indian family desperate and destitute, thrown on to the street with all their possessions, evicted from their home as a direct consequence of a campaign he had run with SANF.

Consumed with shame, he went home and spent a sleepless night agonising over his past – and his future. That night, he decided: "It's over."

Back in Britain and resolved to make amends, he contacted the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and for the next five years operated as a mole inside extreme right organisations and groupings.

Hill's standing within that milieu was such that he was welcomed back with enthusiasm, and soon occupied positions of influence in the British Movement and the fledgling British Democratic party, a Leicester-based breakaway of one of the National Front's more successful local branches.

From those positions, Hill provided a stream of useful intelligence about their activity, much of it criminal, but also disrupted and frustrated their activities on an epic scale.

Both organisations were more or less destroyed by his efforts: the BDP imploded when Hill co-operated clandestinely with ITV's World in Action programme in 1981 to expose gun-running by some of its leading members, and the British Movement was split in 1982 when Hill challenged the leadership of Michael McLaughlin and was expelled. He promptly launched a legal action for reinstatement that ruined the organisation's finances and forced Mclaughlin to shut it down.

These were extraordinary achievements, carried out with intelligence, wit and bravery. But he had also waded into much more dangerous waters, implanting himself at the heart of a European network of neo-Nazis and fascists who had been responsible, in 1981, for bomb attacks in Bologna, Paris and Munich.

In doing so he was able to avert a planned bomb attack on the Notting Hill carnival that same year, and he was central in exposing a network of safe houses that had been used to conceal wanted Italian and German fascists in Britain during the early 80s.

When Hill finally revealed himself in 1984 it was with a bang: he told all in a 75-minute Channel 4 documentary, The Other Face of Terror, which was met with speechless, then apoplectic, rage by those whose activities he had done so much to undermine.

He followed this up with a book, of the same name, which I co-wrote with him. Inevitably, death threats and vicious attempts to exact revenge followed. But through it all he was undeterred.

Hill was born in Mossley, Lancashire, to Frank, a carder in a woollen mill, and Marion (nee Clarke). He went to Stamford secondary school in Ashton-under-Lyne, and although he moved to Leicester when he was in his mid-20s he never lost his rich Lancastrian burr.

After national service in the army, he married Glennis Shapcott, a waitress, in 1966, shortly before his move into far-right politics. When in Britain as an adult, he always lived in Leicester – until his revelations on Channel 4 made it prudent to move elsewhere.

While operating as a mole within the far right, Hill had worked in a textiles factory that he had run with Anthony Reed Herbert, leader of the BDP. After 1981 he was largely self-employed, including as a taxi driver; he also ran a betting shop and then, with Glennis, a guest house. In the mid-90s he studied history at Lancaster University, gaining a 2:1.

For the rest of his life, Hill threw himself into campaigning against the extremism of the far right, in particular by touring the country talking to audiences in schools and universities.

He was a hugely entertaining speaker and his attacks on his former comrades were wickedly funny.

But he would never attack those young white working-class people who, like himself, had made the false equation between immigration and their own life problems. He understood, he said, just how easily this could happen, and how easily it could be exploited.

He is survived by Glennis and their children, Suzanne, William and Charles.

Ray Hill, anti-fascist activist, born 2 December 1939; died 14 May 2022