66

I will be entering the US in October to work for about a year and half as a visiting researcher. I will be accompanied by my partner and his two children.

I am very scared on what to expect at the border because of all the stories I hear about detentions, refusals, etc.

My concerns are:

  1. Do they ask everyone to unlock their phones and download EVERYTHING in there for later analysis?
  2. Related to point 1., refusing to unlock and give access will make you suspect and they refuse entry?
  3. Do they also ask you to unlock your laptop? I have stuff encrypted there as I often have to process sensitive patient data for a project I am working.
  4. Do they do a complete biometric data collection of you and the kids?

Also, how do we conduct ourselves at the border entry to avoid getting absolutely shafted?

P.S.: I am not in a position to call off the trip. Visa is ready and tickets are brought.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 5 points 4 hours ago

Bro's a masochist ๐Ÿ’€

this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2026
66 points (100.0% liked)

No Stupid Questions

49048 readers
936 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS