US citizen deported at Ezeiza

[steveinbsas]

Agreed. I wonder what Argentina gains and loses (particularly financially) due to this crackdown. Since they turned a blind eye for so many years to the perma-tourists, they must have thought it was a boon to the economy or worth it to be considered an expat hot spot.

This once again raises the question is this deportation (denial of entry apparently based on too many visa runs) the beginning a the "long awaited crackdown" or, as Dr. Rubliar has often warned, the action of one official who may or may not be xenophobic? I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I don't think it has happened more than a few times in the past nine years (since the law/decree regarding abuse of the tourist visa took effect), at least not to "pseudo-tourists" from Europe, Australia, or North America.

 

[perry]

There is a sea change in Argentina that happened recently under the Macri government . Just recently we had some members of the pakistan cricket team deported, a colombian olympic bmx champeon and her team were detained at the airport and many more .
I have been here over 14 years and certainly under the prior government these incidents were extremely rare if non existent .


https://www.clarin.com/sociedad/dep...uestiones-seguridad-nacional_0_VGQ5yAupx.html
https://mundod.lavoz.com.ar/ciclism...colombiana-de-bmx-en-el-aeropuerto-de-mendoza

 

[steveinbsas]

He had overstays but was never warned by a border agent that he was in danger of being barred entry before yesterday.

Even if he never made any visa runs to Colonia, it would be interesting to know how many overstays he had and over what period of time.

PS: Assuming he was completely unaware of the possibility of being denied entry because of the overstays, blaming the border agents for not warning him he was "in danger of being barred entry before yesterday" is remarkably astonishing (and that's a polite word for it).

 

[Pensador]

I had one long overstay waiting for all the paperwork to get married. My lawyer told not to worry about it since I was getting married. I remember the girl at the counter starting on me, my wife just whipped the marriage document. Total change.. Oh congratulations. Everything just went right into motion after that.

 

[semigoodlookin]

I had one long overstay waiting for all the paperwork to get married. My lawyer told not to worry about it since I was getting married. I remember the girl at the counter starting on me, my wife just whipped the marriage document. Total change.. Oh congratulations. Everything just went right into motion after that.

Same happened to me. I agree with those who say this does not neccesarily highlight a general clampdown in tourists abusing the system, but does show that it has been a risky strategy to overstay for a few years now. As Steve says, I can recall only a few situations like this over the last 10 years. That said, it does happen so those doing a regular visa run, be warned.

 

[ben]

Agreed. I wonder what Argentina gains and loses (particularly financially) due to this crackdown. Since they turned a blind eye for so many years to the perma-tourists, they must have thought it was a boon to the economy or worth it to be considered an expat hot spot.

Look, nations tend to at least try to enforce their laws.

I personally am aware of few cases, particularly in this country, where a government functionary willingly looks the other way with no incentive whatsoever. Quite to the contrary, every bureaucrat here tends to view their small corner of the world as their private fiefdom, where he/she lords supreme over (that little pathetic corner of) the universe.

My guess is that the information systems were previously simply not up to the task of readily identifying abusers of the tourist facility. Even to determine whether one had overstayed, this forum has endless stories of rummaging through the passport to find the entry stamp, and manually counting the days.

In that setup, establishing that someone was a de facto resident abusing the tourist facility would mean spending at least a few minutes going through the passport and calculating the length of every past stay. One can readily understand why agents would be loath to do that.

But the immigration system backend seems to have been substantially upgraded in the past few years, and my guess is that that is at least one major reason for the stricter enforcement. With the last several entries/exits on the computer screen, it’s simply far easier to spot repeat offenders than it was previously.

 

[mmoon]

There is no reason on xenophobia, it is irrational.

Although it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that visitors or perma-tourists from certain countries were being targeted, is there any evidence that this is the case? We mostly hear on this forum about situations involving visitors or expats from “western” countries. In this particular case, when we probably all know people who have overstayed or done visa runs, it seems like a case of bad luck. Times are changing.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Well, this case throws down the ethnicentrist argument that says only Chinese, Senegalese and Bolivians are deported.

 

[semigoodlookin]

Well, this case throws down the ethnicentrist argument that says only Chinese, Senegalese and Bolivians are deported.

Was the person this week deported or denied entry?

 

[London2Baires]

We have the numerator (1), but what is the denominator? The statistic is almost meaningless without the denominator. If we have 1 deportation for this every 6 months, and we have 100,000 entries, then we have 0.001% deportations. You can adjust the denominator as necessary to get the statistic you want. For example, if we know 1000 "permatourists" enter every 6 months, and 1 is deported, then we have 0.1% deportations of permatourists. But I doubt this last number is published.

This is exactly right.

Another interesting statistical analysis would be: in a forum with X amount of rich expats. How many clients per immigration scare story can be accrued by a poster with vested interests. Not speaking of anyone specifically of course. I'm merely posing a general abstract statistical question... I guess we would need more data to know...

I wonder if you need a fishing licence for this sort of thing, they are available here:


https://www.maa.gba.gov.ar/sistemas/pesca/licencias/licencias00.php