Will there be a day Americans can't live abroad?

It seems that America is trying to completely shut its borders. Art Bell, for example, a military vet and patriot, is now trapped in the Philippines because his wife was refused residency.

As of June 1, it is now impossible to leave or return to America without a passport. Why are they trapping us?

reply to post by Donnie Darko


Simply being required to use a passport to leave isn't trapping people in. It makes sense. Passports are just necessary if you're going to be traveling to another country. When I return to America from Germany, I need one. It should be no different if I'm returning from any other country in North America.

I think it's really funny that people clamber for the borders being secured, and then, when the government does something that would make it more secure, people get upset because it makes things just a smidgen more inconvenient because they'll have to show a book to a guy so that they know you're allowed to be in the country.

Originally posted by octotom
reply to post by Donnie Darko

 

Simply being required to use a passport to leave isn't trapping people in. It makes sense. Passports are just necessary if you're going to be traveling to another country. When I return to America from Germany, I need one. It should be no different if I'm returning from any other country in North America.

It's not so much the passport rule in itself, but it seems so difficult to get in and out of America these days. Far more difficult than any terror concern can justify.

reply to post by Donnie Darko


When was the last time that you left America? What makes it difficult?

Every time that I've gone and come, I just show my passport and I'm either leave or enter.

It's only more difficult to enter the country if you do it legally.

Last I checked our borders were not protected or fenced or monitored - hence the 22 million estimated illegal aliens inside the U.S. border.

reply to post by jjkenobi

It's only more difficult to enter the country if you do it legally.

Are you referring to immigration? If so, that has nothing to do with passports. If you have a passport, you get it stamped and the passport guy says, "Welcome Home".

I don't think it's that hard to get in legally either. I have a friend from Hungary who needed to get a residency visa so that he could go to school in Pennsylvania. He applied and then two months later, he got his visa. He's in the United States right now. It was very difficult.

For the first time in history, anyone coming to the Cayman Islands must have a passport.

I don't have a problem with it, at least as far as the passport goes. As with your story, passports make it difficult for illegal travelers to do so.

Now, of course, your passport, and that data is a tracking of your international movements also. Again, if a person is travelling legally, shouldn't be a problem.

If you are a U.S. citizen and a citizen of another country, the U.S. wants you to ONLY travel via a U.S. passport. In general the U.S. frowns on dual citizenship, however it's allowed. for now.

I will resist when it comes time to be chipped under the skin, however.

They still have the borders wide open. They've only made it more difficult for the Americans to travel by making them pay for and jump through hoops to get a passport. I see people in C. America crossing borders everyday without passports to get back into their country. We shouldn't have to have one to travel in and out of ours.

reply to post by octotom


Funny you say that "welcome home". We hadn't been back to the U.S. in over six years. A lot has changed in that time, and we wondered what sort of intrusion we might be subject to. We walked up to Immigration in Miami..... the officer looks at our passports, looks at our faces, stamps them, says "welcome home, guys."

Nope, I wasn't worried. Not a bit. *cough*

reply to post by Sundancer


Well, I see your point, however surely you see the sense of having to show your passport to get back IN the U.S., right? So, if you left without showing it, you'd just incur more grief at re-entering the States, because your passport wouldn't reflect your having left.

reply to post by argentus


I haven't been back in over five years and the more I see what's happening with the gestapo cops and government the less I want to.

reply to post by Sundancer

They still have the borders wide open.

This is true and it's not a good thing. Hopefully, making US passport law the same across the board is the first step in securing the border.

They've only made it more difficult for the Americans to travel by making them pay for and jump through hoops to get a passport.

It's only "more difficult" if you're traveling in the Carribean/Canada. Before, you could show your driver's license. Now, you need a passport. Before, anyone going to Germany, Japan, Brazil, etc, still needed a passport. The hoop is rather easy to jump through to get your passport, too. Send them pictures, the application, birth certificate, and then eight to ten weeks later, you have you're passport. [With that dandy radio chip thing! Glad I got my passport before they started to chip them!]

reply to post by argentus


Ha. I remember, when I was studying in Hungary and I came back to America at Christmas time, the people at the pass control started telling me jokes.

I did notice though that the foreigners actually had to talk about what they were going to do in America and such. I felt bad for them. It's kinda like the interrogation that you have to do at Frankfurt International, here in Germany, when you're flying to America, if you've ever had to go through it.

reply to post by octotom


Yep, I got mine replaced before the handy dandy chip thing also, most in my group didn't. Problem now is that I'm getting low on pages, they'll probably be chipping our extra pages soon - If they don't already.

reply to post by Sundancer


Man, that'd be quite a chip to fit in one of the pages! I don't think that you'll have to worry about that though. As I recall, passport pages have to be similar. The new chipped passports have different page designs. So, you would get the old style, with all the state seals.

They'll probably recommend that you get a new passport, but that's not necessary unless yours has expired.

along those lines,,,,
i was thinking to mself the other day,,,,,

when does the USA become a rogue state,,,,,,or what will define crossing that line

as a US citizen,,, we and i, myself, have the image of us as the peacekeepers,,,, the do-gooders,,, giving aid, medical help, emergency help,,, a level headed,peaceful nation etc etc.

however at home we have a police state, massive corruption and coverup

now we torture,,, and we pre-emptively attack nations,,,, based very much on lies, and disingenious intelligence


are we already there,,,,, near it???


a good question, right,,,,, certainly one i'm not sure of the answer to