ESTA
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So, I just filled out the application for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization for our upcoming visit to the US.
That process is just bizarre. It took me around 45 minutes to fill out the forms. The kinds of things they want to know - my social media handles (!), the address of my employer, the address of the hotels we are using - no other country wants to know this when you enter.
Worst of all is the pathetic engineering of the web forms. I applied for a family of five, and had to reenter every bit of information 5 times, even though it was almost all the same. Some web forms require you to write the word "UNKNOWN" 6 times in a row and enter a 00000 phone number if they don't apply to you - rather than having a single checkbox for that purpose. Any of my Bachelor students could write a better web app in their Bsc thesis.
It cost me $120, too.
This whole process is the opposite of an invitation for tourists.
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This is something I do not understand. Both sides of the political aisle know we need to do something about visas, green cards and a guest worker program...the legal entrants to the U.S.
This is not a bone of contention in the immigration debate. Why can't we fix this agreed upon problem?
“Cry havoc and let slip the DOGE of war!”
Those who cheered as J-6 American prisoners were locked in solitary for 18 months without trial, now suddenly fight tooth and nail for foreign terrorists’ "due process". — Buck Sexton
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This is something I do not understand. Both sides of the political aisle know we need to do something about visas, green cards and a guest worker program...the legal entrants to the U.S.
This is not a bone of contention in the immigration debate. Why can't we fix this agreed upon problem?
This is not a bone of contention in the immigration debate.
Aren’t you the guy who wants to stop, at least temporarily, all immigration to the USA altogether?
Four years of MAGA-ing also did not help to make the USA more inviting to foreigners, be they visitors or would-be immigrants.
The way I look at it, before 9/11, the USA are skeptical about foreigners coming in to take the jobs away from Americans. After 9/11, the USA are skeptical about foreigners coming in to commit acts of terrorism on US soil. Lots of Congress critters fund raise off messages on making the US border more secure (mostly by making it harder for foreigners to get in), no one fund raises on making the USA more accessible to foreigners. Every once in a while, business lobbies will get legislators to do something about letting foreign workers in to do jobs the businesses are unable or unwilling to pay the rates to hire Americans to do, but these are pushed by the businesses rather than campaigned by the politicians. Even when the news report widely on labor shortages and record low unemployment rates in the USA, you never see politicians propose “let’s get more foreigners in here” as a policy solution.
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So, I just filled out the application for the Electronic System for Travel Authorization for our upcoming visit to the US.
That process is just bizarre. It took me around 45 minutes to fill out the forms. The kinds of things they want to know - my social media handles (!), the address of my employer, the address of the hotels we are using - no other country wants to know this when you enter.
Worst of all is the pathetic engineering of the web forms. I applied for a family of five, and had to reenter every bit of information 5 times, even though it was almost all the same. Some web forms require you to write the word "UNKNOWN" 6 times in a row and enter a 00000 phone number if they don't apply to you - rather than having a single checkbox for that purpose. Any of my Bachelor students could write a better web app in their Bsc thesis.
It cost me $120, too.
This whole process is the opposite of an invitation for tourists.
