World Travelers Are Rethinking Vacation Plans to the US
As anecdotes of detentions and deportations reverberate, early signs point to a worrying spending slump from Europeans and Canadians.
Days into President Donald Trump’s second term, a German woman crossing into America from Mexico was held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for more than a month. A few weeks later, a Canadian actress was kept for 12 days in detention centers on the southern border after bureaucratic troubles over a work visa. A French scientist on his way to an astronomy conference was detained at the airport in Houston for a day and ordered to return home.
Friction at the US border, especially disagreements over paperwork, isn’t strange on its own, say overseas diplomats. But the harshness and length of the detentions in the brief time since Trump returned to Washington are bizarre, they say. So are the headlines, which the new administration either doesn’t mind or has been unable to control. “The border agencies are under new orders, so they’re a bit stricter,” says one European consular official who asked not to be named. “But it does seem as if the American government wants to send a warning.”