Why I’m Thinking Twice About Traveling to the US
It feels like cruelty to foreigners is the government’s intention.
We're vulnerable at US borders now.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
In the months and years after 9/11, going to the US was scary for many of us. Border security became harsh and unforgiving, and we could feel our rights drop away upon entering American airspace. Novels were written and movies were made about how an encounter with hostile, suspicious border officials could radicalize even those who previously loved America.
Today feels worse. During George W. Bush’s administration, we could tell ourselves that the country was confused, suffering and lashing out. In Trump’s America, it seems to outsiders that cruelty to foreigners is the point of politics, not a byproduct of trauma.