by proberts 11 hours ago
You are within your rights to say no but if you say no, almost certainly CBP will assume that you are hiding something and deny you admission.
Can they deny you admission when you are a US citizen?
They can not. Neither US Citizens or Green Card Holders can be denied entry.
Sources: https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/what-do-when-encounter...
https://www.aclunc.org/our-work/know-your-rights/know-your-r...
A country can not deny entry to its own citizens.
They can immediately arrest you, however.
But not for not giving them access to your phone.
What the will arrest you for vs can arrest you for are very different things. Really. This isn’t cynicism, is empirical knowledge. If they want to arrest you, you’re getting arrested. They can arrest you because they can arrest you. This is the strict literal sense of can.
In America, Europe, etc.
They are not legally entitled to deny you entry.
That doesn't mean they can't deny you entry. It means you might win a court case some day.
ICE cannot legally arrest people who are citizens for no reason, and yet they have done exactly that 30% of the time by their own admission.
"Knowing your rights" is meaningless if the public chooses to vote for people who don't care about those rights, and celebrate when you do not get your rights.
It doesn't matter what the paper says, it matters what CBP feels like doing, and what their management lets them get away with. The constitution is just a magic circle we all agree to play in, and isn't real if enough people disregard it.
If the border agent doesn't want you to come into the country, you are fucked. Nobody's job is to get between that agent and you and ensure the border agent follows the law on the paper, and the border agent will not go to jail or even lose their job for completely ignoring the law.
> If the border agent doesn't want you to come into the country, you are fucked.
You are seriously inconvenienced, but assuming your paperwork is in order, you will be allowed into the US. This isn't just against US law, it's a violation of international law to render a person stateless.
This ignores the real point, which is that while you cannot be refused entry to the United States, you can be arrested at the border. ICE these days has mastered the art of making people's detainment so uncomfortable that even those with a right to be in this country end up deciding to leave.
yes sure you can come into america, straight into a holding cell until you hand over your pins/passwords or go back home.
> ICE cannot legally arrest people who are citizens for no reason, and yet they have done exactly that 30% of the time by their own admission.
Where are you getting that statistic (honest question)?
I overstated, but it's murky.
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/05/despite-medias-claims-ic...
Why would ICE leave the number as low as "70%" if they could be higher? Every illegal alien is a criminal as far as the law is concerned. Every illegal alien arrested is "charged with a crime". Otherwise ICE is openly stating to its supporters that they arrest illegal aliens and then release them, something their supporters are vocally against, and the administration believes and claims to be a serious problem.
Meanwhile, the Cato Institute a libertarian think tank, claims they have been leaked far worse data https://www.cato.org/blog/5-ice-detainees-have-violent-convi...
A direct reading of ICE's claims (that seem to be contrary to information obtained through FOIA?) is that 70% of the people they arrest are criminals, which by their own definitions, would imply 30% of the people they arrest are not illegally here, but that's reading between the lines and it's hard to lend any credence to anything said by an administration that treats public statements as a fun gaslighting game.
But essentially, if ICE COULD claim everyone they arrest is an illegal alien (and literally a criminal they are legally allowed to arrest and deport), why wouldn't they?
Flag my claim if appropriate.
I think this is a misinterpretation of the document. The claim is:
> 70% of ICE arrests are of criminal illegal aliens charged with or convicted of crimes in the U.S.
I believe the claim here is that 70% of the people ICE arrests have been charged with or convicted of crimes other than being present in the USA illegally. I don't think this is at all meant to imply that 30% of arrests are of people who are present in the USA legally. I think it's just sloppy writing.
I mean, you didn't just overstate, you flat out just made it up. The opposite of "illegal alien" is not "citizen".
So basically bring a burner phone.
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Foreign countries have no obligation to admit you within their borders.
There’s many points you could make about the United States and immigration, but I don’t think this is one of them.
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He's not talking about other nations, he's talking about the US and saying if you are not a citizen of a nation, its a foreign nation to you and they have no obligation to let you in.
> Foreign countries have no obligation to admit you within their borders.
That doesn't sound relevant.
Nobody said that they were obliged to admit you, they complained that the reasons for declining admittance were unfair. Unless you think "no obligation to admit" means carte blanche to decline for any reason, and to treat you however they like?
If so, then that is unreasonable. It is a much stronger condition than "I don't have to let you in".
Yes, "no obligation to admit" means they don't have any obligation whatsoever, and that includes doing so for any reason they see fit and not having to disclose those reasons (if any) to you.
It is exactly the same as "I don't have to let you in".
No, it isn't.
For example, I do not have an obligation to let people into my house. I can choose to let them in or decline them entry. But there are certain preconditions I cannot apply. I cannot, for example, say "you may come into my house only if you murder my neighbour". That's because I'm legally bound not to induce people to commit murder. It would obviously be disingenuous to say this means I have an "obligation to admit" them.
It's the same with immigration. They actually are legally bound in certain ways - an immigration official can't assault you for instance. It's not hard to imagine them being legally bound not to search people's phones. That doesn't mean "they have to admit people".
You're confusing yourself with irrelevant analogies. You can say, "you may come into my house only if you give me your unlocked phone," and an immigration official can't assault you because there are certain protections granted to foreigners against being randomly assaulted. It's also not hard to imagine them NOT being legally bound not to search people's phones, and if you're trying to say someone's breaking the law here then it's your burden of proof.
> But there are certain preconditions I cannot apply. I cannot, for example, say "you may come into my house only if you murder my neighbour".
How is that a relevant argument?
There are many contexts where this comment would apply, but border crossing is not one of them. If you're a foreigner trying to enter another country, then by definition you have less rights than natives.
There is a solution to this. You can become a US citizen.
* terms and conditions may apply
And then wonder if they'll try to take your citizenship away anyway - the exact boat I'm in. Naturalized after almost 20 years of holding a GC, because I expected trouble with this administration - and now wondering they'll try to take away my citizenship because I did it recently.
I actually expected to leave and have my right to come back not dependent on GC status (which expires after 6 months), but due to family have stayed so far. by the by - I'm a citizen of that dangerous country bordering the US - Canada.
Didn't realise it was that easy. Why don't all the illegal immigrants just do that?
It doesn't have to be easy to be factual. You simply are not owed entry into any country if you are not a citizen of that country, that is a fundamental part of what things like "citizenship" and "sovereign state" mean in the modern world.
Very hard process though.
Another option is that we can treat our guests better.
Are you talking about Australia or Canada?
https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/edd-ean-eng.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/18/returning-trav...
Progressive utopias indeed
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Who said anything about a “right to enter”? This is just about not massively invading visitors’ privacy for no good reason.
Of course, if you just don’t want anyone with intelligence or dignity to visit the country, this is great policy.
As explained upthread,
> You are within your rights to say no
Given that you don't have a right to enter, if you say no (which you are within your rights to do), and you are denied entry, then nothing wrong has happened.
If you believe that they shouldn't make entry conditional on something, then you are asserting a right to enter. That's what "right" means.
This argument is absurd.
If someone comes up to me and asks for food, I am not obliged to give it to them.
If I say to them, "I will give you food, on the condition that I can punch you in the face", and they decline to be punched in the face, do you really believe "nothing wrong has happened"? That I, applying an unethical condition, did nothing wrong?
If someone else says "You must not make punching someone in the face a precondition of giving them food", does that create a "right to food"? Of course not.
I'm not who you're arguing with, but I'd also take the opposite side of that argument.
Your analogy does seem workable, though - let's examine:
> If someone comes up to me and asks for food, I am not obliged to give it to them.
Yes! 100% agree. They probably have a right to ask for food in countries that protect free speech, but they have no right to have requests fulfilled.
> If I say to them, "I will give you food, on the condition that I can punch you in the face", and they decline to be punched in the face,
Sounds great. You have the right to say no. You did say no basically, but you did make a counteroffer. (This is arguably also especially true due to free speech, though that's unrelated to our points.) Your exact counteroffer doesn't seem relevant to me, it could also just be that you'll give it for $50, or $1,000,000 and nothing changes.
He thinks it's a bad offer and gets none of your food.
> "nothing wrong has happened"?
I do think nothing wrong has happened! Is it only because you used food, which a necessity, that you think it's wrong? What if it's a PS5? Would this be ok if the asker is seeking a free PS5? Visiting a foreign country is much more like a PS5 than it is a potato.
> If someone else says "You must not make punching someone in the face a precondition of giving them food", does that create a "right to food"? Of course not.
That is the worst policy I could imagine since it's vague and undefined. Can one ask for a kick to the groin? An elbow to the funny bone? If you did the policymaker's job correctly you'd need to make the policy like "No one may deny a request for food/PS5s" -- that exactly creates a right to food/PS5s. Or you could make the policy "No one may deny a request for food/PS5s but one may require compensation, which may only be less than $50 in US Currency. Compensation in the form of a service or a trade may not be required."
That creates a right to pay $50 or less for food/PS5s.
> That is the worst policy I could imagine since it's vague and undefined.
Every ethical problem is vague and undefined. If you can't find an infinitely precise specification of the ethical problem, that doesn't make it invalid.
However, even at the level of policy, your analysis does not go through. It is routine and unproblematic for laws to exist that prohibit "you can't enter this bar if you're black" or "I won't hire you because you're a woman". It simply does not follow that employers are "forced to hire people". They are forced to apply consistent, legitimate rules when hiring people. Whether a rule is consistent and legitimate is usually decided by a judge. This is not an unusual thing.
P.S. are you writing this with an LLM? If you aren't, I'm sorry. But it really sounds like you are. If you are, please stop.
Sorry, I don't know any LLMs that would argue politics without using their own heavy bias and getting caught up in trying to not harm people, I'm afraid you just hate my writing style. Maybe you don't like the inline quotes? idk. Also I can't imagine wasting the effort to have a bot debate people online if I don't care enough to do it myself.
The whole reason we have those types of employment and public accommodation laws is a special case though. In terms of employment, we prefer this to a world where black people or women can't get jobs, because jobs are necessary, or can't enter half the establishments because people witnessed that Jim Crow was a shitty and shameful situation. And I do stipulate that that doesn't mean the same as "all women have the right to a job at my company upon demand."
But why don't we also have laws criminalizing things like refusing to be friends with $SKIN_COLOR people? I think it's because it's only in those specific realms like employment and public accommodation where we have created rights. The right to shop in a place that is open to the general public is a right Black people got from a law. And the right of people to be considered for a job without regard to their membership in certain protected classes is something the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 created. There is no right of foreigners without a green card to enter in the first place - CBP can completely legally say no to anyone, so no 'counteroffer' of conditional admittance could be inappropriate. The only exception I can think of is misconduct of the officer, e.g. 'I'll admit you if you give me $10,000' or a more unsavory favor. But with that already being illegal, I don't think it is too relevant here.
> But why don't we also have laws criminalizing things like refusing to be friends with $SKIN_COLOR people? I think it's because it's only in those specific realms like employment and public accommodation where we have created rights.
Not just that, at least in my understanding of American political theory. It's because of the existing right to freedom of association. If it is criminal to refuse association, that association becomes compulsory, and thus not free.
> If I say to them, "I will give you food, on the condition that I can punch you in the face", and they decline to be punched in the face, do you really believe "nothing wrong has happened"? That I, applying an unethical condition, did nothing wrong?
Yes, of course nothing wrong has happened. The other party decided that the food was not worth a punch in the face. The other party is no worse off than if you had made no offer. The other party is no worse off than if you had responded to "may I have some food please" with "no".
Downthread:
> It is routine and unproblematic for laws to exist that prohibit "you can't enter this bar if you're black" or "I won't hire you because you're a woman".
This is completely irrelevant. "I will give you food, on the condition that you change your immutable characteristics" is incoherent. "You can't enter the country because you didn't submit to this violation of your privacy" is a) targeted at someone who definitionally doesn't have those constitutional protections in the US and b) not an expression of any kind of identity-group prejudice.
Well, by offering food for punch in the face you changed it from charity to free market transaction. Basically you gave them a chance to earn their food instead of just giving it to them. If they deem the price too high and refuse your offer then again, nothing bad happened.
Not all free market transactions are reasonable. Selling yourself into slavery is a "free market transaction" I hope you would not consider legitimate.
Being offered something unreasonable, given free reign to decline that offer, does not cause harm.
Not op and may not agree with them but the original comment was how I read it "...we ostensibly have rights but the exercising of rights is ...".
We're talking about a non-citizen on a visitor visa and there is just simply no legal right to enter if the port of entry official don't like their answers or behavior. They can't say "you have to let me in, it's my right".