I'll trade a slightly slower border crossing for faster trains and airplanes.

I'm nostalgic for the pre-9/11 flying experience well except for one thing: anyone being allowed to wait at the gate.

Imagine the mad house if friends and family could accompany a traveler to the gate, or wait for their loved one to arrive?

Nope, they are not, but they are bound to eventually join as they are obligated to by their Treaties of Accession[0].

Seems like the grandparent comment just didn't bother checking their facts first and jumped the gun on blaming the US for this, while the US doesn't really have anything to do with it.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

No, thanks to us being second-class EU members.

They're both in Schengen, so you just do that

Like if you're in Mexico and you just feel like hoping on a train to the US on a whim.

Felt effortless to me, too, but I would still call it a visa.

As instructed on the website we didn’t print anything out, so we just brought our passports and immigration was completely without any problems in Miami. Our passports also weren’t stamped as seems to be common now.

When we got into an immigration check near White Sands national park (closed road and checkpoint next to the road) the guards checking us were nightly confused that our passports weren’t stamped and we didn’t have a visa or any kind of printed documentation. And we were confused that we needed any of that?

One guard went to check on us with his computer, I guess, and everything seems to have checked out. So we didn’t need anything after all, it just seems that when you get into an immigration check those checking you might prefer to not go check with a computer, so printed documentation of some kind can get you going faster. (The guard also told me that we should have printed out documentation that we paid for ESTA?! Which seems confusing to me since presumably if we didn’t have paid we wouldn’t have been let in.)

Yes it is sort of simple. But you need to be aware of it, remember it, fill it in time (some processing can take 2 weeks), carry reference number.

I'm somewhat organised, but didn't really knew I need for for AU. Filled while checking in, but got it 8 minutes after gates closed.

Edit: kinda feel should be integrated with flight booking. The amount of bureaucracy, esp. during covid era, travelling across many countries, with a big party - it's maddening.

I was not suggesting it was complicated or expensive, just that it is in almost all ways effectively a visa, including that people may be denied for no particular reason (though they can then attempt to get a US visa).

To add to your point: Aren't there countries that have "online visas" for short stays (I'm thinking central asia and I hear russia has done the same) that are equal to this "not-a-visa"? Do people think visa by definition requires an in person meeting?

That...doesn't define a visa at all? Like that straight-up describes such a wide range of documents as to be completely useless as a definition.

You've picked on a single part of my comment, which was more as an informational part to clarify that the headline doesn't tell the whole story. At no point did I make it a complaint.

It's funny how everyone framed this as US vs. EU. It really didn't have to be framed that way.

Canada has required its own eTA garbage for EU citizens since late 2016 or so.

But only when flying commercial.

Europeans also have to apply for an electronic thing to go to Canada.

It was only recently that Americans could visit Canada without a passport. It's amazing how every country has clamped down.

DeGaulle's observation that "nations do not have friends, only interests" comes to mind.

my voice is my passport

Yes, my bad.

Nope, I spend as little time in the airport as possible. For domestic (US) flights, I target arriving ~30mins before boarding begins if not checking a bag. I typically find security takes around 5 minutes (TSA Pre-Check). I typically fly out of SFO although of course at least half my flights are coming home so I'm flying out of some other random airport. When things are REALLY bad, it's 15 minutes, which still leaves me 15 minutes with nothing to do. And that's before boarding begins. There is still around 30-45 minutes before the gate close, of additional buffer time.

I typically fly United and have their lowest tier frequent flier thing (silver), which means I get priority access baggage check for when I am checking a bag (go to kiosk, scan boarding pass, tag bag, drop at baggage drop). But even without that, you sometimes wait 5 minutes for a computer to print your bag tag.

For international flights, of course, it's more. Usually 1h+ before boarding begins.

Amusingly, my 3 worst experience were when I arrived super early and still barely made my flight. One was an Uber driver from Valparaiso Chile to the Santiago airport, who could NOT find where to drop me off, and I was trying to guide him, but I didn't know any Spanish. No joke, we drove around the runway multiple times.

2 others were on the same trip and both in Germany. Berlin Brandenberg, arrived exactly 2 hours before departure as EasyJet told me to do (counters do not open until 2h before). Bag drop took all of 2 minutes, and then I stood in a security line for at LEAST 1h20mins. Absolutely pants-on-head-insane. Other one was flying out of Frankfurt, opted to splurge on a taxi instead of public transit because I was excited to begin my journey home. Arrived at least 2 hours before the flight. Stood in a Lufthansa bag check line for well over an hour, it went absolutely nowhere. Panicked, found baggage check to have moved to another terminal for international flights (the adjacent bag check windows across the hallway were closed for construction) .. checked bags quickly, and still ended up having to navigate MULTIPLE lines for security that appeared to be correct but were so long (hundreds of meters) that they curved past other signage directing me to other places. What an ordeal.

This. It’s basically tit for tat by the EU.

Its also great timing for them with the massive uptick in tourism they’re seeing

It's not that simple. Same regulations affect citizens of Balkan counties who don't need visa at the moment.

And the ESTA absolutely is a visa. I hate this double-standard of _saying_ you've got visa-free travel, you just gotta fill out this form with all your details so we can decide whether or not you've got permission to visit.

They already have your facial biometrics. And if you've had to apply for a visa to another country, you might have been required to submit your fingerprints, which you do through a facility in your home country (so both countries end up with the biometrics).

I fly often. 2 flights ago coming home to the US the border patrol flagged me into “pilot/flight attendant lane” as it was open.

I walked up and within 1 second of getting to the US border agent he said “hello Mr.botos, passport please.”

I’m here on hacker news so I’m both not surprised at the speed of technology but it’s jarring.

He knew who I was before I could even read his name badge. I don’t have global entry, but I do have precheck.

If you are a naturalized US citizen the government has your biometrics already, you can't become a citizen without giving them up.

If you are a natural born citizen and have a passport the government has your picture. If not, there's the one in your driver's license. If not, a Google/Facebook search might dig one up.

So if you don't have a passport, or DL, or social media presence at all then I agree, don't sign up for Global Entry. But otherwise...

Well, then the USA doesn't issue any visas in this case.

Because the only thing that my US tourist visa allows me to do is to show up and ask politely to enter the country.

A US visa also does not give you permission to remain within the country, an I-94 does.

Not just a semantic trick, but a legal one. A lot of euro countries have treaties with US, Canada, etc. for mutual visa-free travel that pre-date EU.

Soooo, they just create something that walks and talks like a visa without calling it one because the treaties never bothered to define what a visa is or isn’t.

Well it's quite different isn't it, because you can't leave your retinas or fingerprints behind, these are irrevocable details about your personhood. These details could be abused by a foreign or domestic government and could also be leaked in any number of ways or used to target individuals.

Obtuse non-sequitur. No one is talking about traveling with a gun. Chrisco already explains why.

Countries can make whatever restrictions they like; we don’t have to support them. That’s the power of choice. Has nothing to do with entitlement.

Not fingerprints or live facial recognition between trusting countries, no. It’s rather new.

I’m also taking about a tourism, not immigration.

The sane thing to do would be to discount fingerprint evidence in any judicial (and other) proceeding.

It just doesn’t mean much when everyone has a copy of everyone else’s.

You mean a COVID proof-of-vaccination?