According to Susan Glaser with Cleveland.com, 19-year-old Aimee Schneider, from Marburg, Germany, was sent back to her home country after U.S. customs refused to let her get on a flight from Philly to Cleveland Hopkins, for claiming, “Who would vacation in Cleveland?”
Reportedly, the teen was planning to visit Vermilion, Ohio, to spend time with her family, take a few side trips, and work on her English. Her mistake? She offered to watch her relatives’ children once in a while when they were at work – the true “violation” of her tourist visa.
Glaser reports:
A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said foreign visitors are welcome here – provided they have the right documentation and are honest about why they’re coming.
Border officials just couldn’t grasp anyone would come here for a vacation, and believed her to also be coming to make money babysitting, yet the family claims that was never the case:
Nothing definite was worked out; there was never any discussion of money. Babysitting was never the primary reason for the trip, which was planned back in January. “She mentioned helping out with the kids, to give her something to do,” said Holmes.
How is Schnieder spending her summer now? Glaser states she’s working at a movie theater in Germany, too scared to try again, though she really wants to.
Check out the rest of the story and details here.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2015.
By her own admission, as well as the family’s, she would watch the children ‘occasionally’. The family states that she would not be paid to babysit. Also, she was going to watch other people’s children.
Under the law, the amount (or even lack) of direct remuneration is not the primary consideration/ She would be receiving room and board, therefore she can be identified be a nanny – which requires a work visa, not a tourist visa.
I found the tone of the article to have a negative slant, with statements such as “casualty of a hostile, unwelcoming America.” There are literally millions of people who travel to the U.S. each year, and while there are thousands who are refused entry, it is a very small subset. How do you justify the negative picture of the most welcoming country on the planet?
Obviously, your ideology is showing…
This seems like it could have been clarified by explaining the limitations to the teen and the hosts in further detail.
It sounds like she was staying with faculty… who presumably can afford other childcare?
She works for the Daily Beast. Not BuzzFeed.
Wondering if the U.S. Customs personnel who made the snarky comments about my hometown have ever visited Cleveland? I would be happy to be the tour guide. The Cleveland jokes are quite passé.
Moral of the story,don’t tell authorities more than they need to know. “Visiting family” is good enough of an answer. The irony.. Is this Nazi Germany now?
Foreigners who work as Au Pairs often abuse the tourist visa system, so it’s something that customs officers are looking out for. It was all over for Ms. Schneider when she mentioned the babysitting thing.
I’m glad that our front line of defense uses such foolproof methods to detain possible threats.