Maia hasn’t visited her aunt, who lives in Germany, since 2015. The last time her 72-year-old mother saw her 68-year-old sister, aside from on their regular FaceTime calls, was 2019. After the pandemic delayed their travel plans, they had hoped to re-unite this summer when Maia’s aunt visited the U.S. for two months.
But the family scrapped their plans when Germany issued a travel advisory for visiting the U.S. in March after several German citizens were detained at the border. The German foreign ministry warned that even a U.S. visa or approval through the U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization would not guarantee entry. That proved to be the case last month for two teenage girls from Germany who were detained by immigration officials in Hawaii and forced to spend the night in a freezing holding cell.
“I don’t want to think about what would happen to my aunt,” Maia says. “She would be absolutely lost. She wouldn’t know what to do or how to contact us.”
Maia’s mother, Katharina, grew up in postwar Germany and has been married to an American citizen since 1978. As a green-card holder, she is hesitant to take any international trips right now, even to Canada. “I’m afraid to do anything. I just keep a low profile,” she says.
An elderly German woman would not normally top the list of tourists most likely to be detained at the U.S. border. But news reports of the U.S. government detaining both foreign visitors and U.S. citizens have chilled travelers. Some, like Maia’s aunt, have nixed their travel plans. Others are taking what would have seemed like extreme precautions not so long ago, deleting political social-media posts or purchasing burner phones so they can fly under the radar.
During the last election cycle, Donald Trump doubled down on his vow to tighten border restrictions, a campaign promise he has delivered on with an aggressive disregard for the law that has stunned even some of his supporters. At the same time, he has ratcheted up his rhetoric against both our adversaries (with certain glaring exceptions) and our allies, taunting Canada by referring to it as “the 51st state.”
Unsurprisingly, such hardline policies and bluster have turned off many foreign tourists. Already, overseas visits to the U.S. declined by more than 11 percent in March compared to the same time last year. Financial forecasters are predicting a sharp decline in foreign travel to the U.S. this summer. One Bloomberg Intelligence analysis predicted a $20 billion reduction in tourist spending. California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, warned of a 9 percent drop in international visits.
Trump’s foreign-policy moves, combined with Americans’ broken confidence in air safety, following a string of high-profile accidents, could cause a major reduction in travel this summer, although the worst of those predictions have not yet come to pass. According to a recent New York Times analysis, bookings from Canada are down 21 percent from last year, while the number of visitors from the U.K. and France remained steady.
“A Target on My Back”
So far, though, the very rich appear undaunted. Luxury travelers tend to be both better prepared for emergency scenarios and have the resources to circumvent them, according to Erica Jackowitz, co-founder of Rêve Travel Club. “They tend to be less swayed by global uncertainty.”
“Their mindset is often, if they want to go somewhere, they will, provided they feel confident in the logistics and planning behind the experience,” Jackowitz says. “I think the Covid pandemic really fundamentally shifted perspectives, so that many clients have a live-now mindset. There’s a general sense that the world is unpredictable, but that shouldn’t stop us from experiencing it.”
But Americans abroad are feeling the chill. Kim Curtis, a former Associated Press reporter and U.S. citizen who has lived as a legal resident in Mexico since 2018, recently received a job offer back home that she couldn’t pass up. When she heard about travelers wiping their phones before entering the U.S., she couldn’t believe it. “I thought people were being silly and paranoid,” Curtis says, “until I saw an article in the A.P. that listed all the security measures that you should take.”
Now Curtis is removing banking apps and any financial information from her phone. She’s also disabling the facial-recognition feature, which can make it easier for border agents to open a device.
Tyler Hosford, security director for International SOS, helps train Fortune 500 companies, religious groups, and nonprofits on how to mitigate their security and medical risks while traveling abroad and domestically. He recommends doing whatever U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents ask, though he also suggests cleaning up your social media.
“Someone can say, ‘No, I don’t want to show you that,’ and Customs and Border Protection may say, ‘That’s fine, no problem, we’re still going to admit you,’” Hosford says. “They may say, ‘Can you please step aside? We want to ask you further questions.’ There’s no set flow chart or decision tree that says if they say no, they’re automatically denied. It’s all very situational.”
The trip back to the U.S. is more nerve-racking for Curtis’s husband, Emil Varona, who is of Puerto Rican descent and was born in New York. The couple looks like a pair of white Americans; Curtis is blonde and blue-eyed while Varona has fairer skin. Yet Varona is afraid that speaking Spanish would raise suspicions when crossing the border. “I don’t want to end up in a Honduran jail,” he says.
The recent reports of ICE arresting American citizens are littered with Hispanic surnames. U.S.-born Ana Lydia Ochoa-Monaco was planning a trip to wine country in Mexico with two friends. It wasn’t until their text thread about the vacation came to an abrupt halt one day that they discussed their concerns with her in person.
“They’re like, ‘With everything that’s happening with immigration and [the U.S.] government, we’re afraid for your safety,’” says Ochoa-Monaco, who noted that she doesn’t present as a white woman. “‘If you go into Mexico, you may not be able to come back.’”
Ochoa-Monaco subsequently canceled two trips to Mexico and Europe, and has no plans to leave the state of California.
“Being of Mexican-American heritage, I feel like I’m walking around with a target on my back,” she says.
The fear of racial profiling has spread to other American citizens who feel they can’t pass as white. Philippa Hughes, an American who is half Vietnamese and half white, spoke to Air Mail from Thailand.
“If I was a straight-up white person, I wouldn’t really worry about it,” Hughes says. “I’m not typically the type of person being profiled right now, but that doesn’t mean they might not start racially profiling Asian-looking people.”
Katharina’s outward appearance hasn’t allayed her daughter’s concerns. Maia stopped her from attending a protest recently and has even cautioned her about getting traffic tickets.
“No family should be separated, none. If we think we have it bad, imagine all of these families that are being torn apart,” Maia says. “I look at it and I thank God that my mother can pass as the kind of American they want. I just have to tell her to stay low.”
Leigh Giangreco is a Chicago-based freelance journalist. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Politico magazine
