In his latest column, Bruce Arthur specifically addresses how Trump's Amerika is a nation that should be avoided at all costs, and notes that many are already boycotting travel there.
Travel from Canada the United States is not just falling: it is plummeting. According to the flight information site OAG, year-over-year bookings of flights from Canada to the United States are vanishing: down over 70 per cent in each of the months between April and September. Airlines are changing routes. Canadians are changing their habits. And not just Canadians: all foreign travel is falling in real time.
News like the above, I must confess, absolutely delights me. But the economic pain we can inflict on Trump's Amerika is almost incidental.
Avoiding the United States is not just a matter of patriotic principle; it’s a matter of simple safety. Canadians were willing to risk American gun culture, and more. But this American government does not recognize fundamental rights, and you are no longer protected by the law if you set foot in that country. Canada should join other nations in issuing stern travel advisories. We have not, yet.
The frightening landscape that is emerging should serve as a bracing warning for all of us:
People are simply being disappeared off the streets for wrongthink. A Columbia University graduate student named Mahmoud Khalil, in America on a student visa whose wife is a U.S. citizen, was arrested for leading pro-Palestinian protests. A Georgetown University researcher named Badar Khar Suri who was born in India, in America on a student visa, was arrested outside his home in Arlington, Va. A Turkish national named Rumeysa Ozturk, a student at Tufts in Massachusetts, was arrested in daylight by four plain clothes officials for writing a pro-Palestinian op-ed in the student newspaper.
Then there was the Russian dissident, Kseniia Petrova, a scientist working at Harvard Medical School, who may be deported back to Russia, which sounds like a death sentence. The French academic who was asked for the contents of his phone, to look for anti-Trump content. And, of course, there was the case of Canadian Jasmine Mooney, who was detained in terrible conditions for two weeks by ICE over questions about her visa. Canadians born in Iran and Afghanistan have been denied entry at the US border.
And don't expect the rule of law to protect you,
Judge’s orders are being ignored, so people can be shoved on planes and used as the backdrop for an Instagram-style, influencer-modeled fascist mode of cruelty porn. Or too-online AI-as-the-aesthetic-of-fascism taunting. Or a more cinematic version of the same. Friday, the U.S. government resisted implementing a unanimous Supreme Court order to return a wrongly deported man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. It’s a truly dangerous moment.
Canadians intemperate enough to risk travel to the U.S. need to take precautions.
If you must go, you need to register if you will be there more than 30 days, or face criminal charges.
Bruce Arthur advises Canadians to travel to other countries or vacation here. Never has Canada looked more like a safe haven than it does now. We should cherish it, and do everything we can to cultivate our own country, while avoiding the perils and pitfalls endemic to our southern, increasingly hostile, neighbour.
You are fortunate not to have close relatives living south of the Medicine Line. We have stopped vacationing in the US but are still committed to family ties. It looks like we will have to cross at Checkpoint Charlie.
ReplyDeleteI understand completely, Toby. What I left unsaid in the above was that I vowed never to visit the U.S. unless there was a very compelling reason. Having family in the U.S. would certainly be one of the compelling reasons.
DeleteI have no intention of visiting the USA, except for family matters, which are unlikely. If I am going to travel, my old friend France looks good or for new adventures St Petersburg or Shanghai
ReplyDeleteThe world is large, Anon, and the U.S., metaphorically, is growing increasingly small. I think many people now understand this new reality.
Delete"Then there was the Russian dissident, Kseniia Petrova, a scientist working at Harvard Medical School, who may be deported back to Russia, which sounds like a death sentence. "
ReplyDeleteA death sentence?
Who is writing this crap? If the Russian Government wants and she gets deported to Russia, Petrova could be prosecuted and get a nasty prison sentence (5–7 years?) though from Jasmine Mooney's story Petrova might be better off in a Russian prison than in an ICE detention centre. I think the Russian prison service gives you a real blanket.
Given that she is not a famous figure the police or the FSB or a court are more likely to give her a strong warning and tell her to get lost if they even notice her.
Maybe we can find her a post-doc? I think we are accepting refugees from the USA. IIRC the Cabinet has held meetings on the issue.
Not sure what would await her in Russia, Anon. Neither a Russian prison nor an ICE detention centre seem like palatable fates..
Delete"Not sure what would await her in Russia"
DeleteThe same thing that hit a number of other Russians. A nasty prison sentence if the police or FSB can be bothered.
Generally speaking, unless you are a fairly prestigious name I don't think anybody really cares unless you are really persistent. If you start showing up on major Western media then you are likely in trouble.
I have not heard anything particularly good about Russian prisons but my impression is that they are, at worst, no better than US prisons. Mind you, Canadian prisons are not exactly luxury spas either.
We're not talking Stalinist times in the USSR or the McCarthy era USA.