Why do Americans continue to go to countries on the Do-Not-Travel list?

[UniqueUserName]

I don't want to derail a current conversation about a citizen detained.

Will someone explain why what seems to be an ordinary citizen takes extraordinary risks?

Are these intelligence operatives? If not, even if I assume that a person is going to see a dying relative, It's hard for me to imagine a dying relative would want their loved one to take such a risk.

Is it naivete? Do people tell themselves they won't be detained? --I just don't understand.

[RandySF]

1. Stupidity

[bottomofthehill]

26. Winner, Stupidity

Putting the US government in a difficult position because of your own hubris

[BlueInPhilly]

2. Necessity

[UniqueUserName]

7. Yours has been the kindest response so far

Could you expand?

Do you mean actual necessity or subjective necessity?

I understand mistakes. I can see how one's brain can be confused by everything happening to them at the moment and they might feel, "I really have to see my dying uncle. I have to make it right. . ." To me that would be a perceived necessity but not actual.

I can also imagine someone being a perfect kidney match to a loved one and that the person perceives it as necessary to donate. In such an instance, I would admire them and understand. I would think that it absolutely was necessary for them -----but it would be totally understandable for an average individual to feel it's too great a risk. I think most people could understand someone trying.

I can't imagine an invariably objective necessity. Do you have an example?

[Hekate]

12. Family necessity is actual necessity

I had a friend from Japan who settled here, got married, and was having a very difficult pregnancy. She couldn’t travel. The story of the death of her father was just heartbreaking. She told me that night after night leading up to his death she dreamed of travel. She flew. She took a bullet-train. Ship. Freeway. She never got to see her father. And yes, she did lose that baby anyway.

[LeftInTX]

15. Yeah, the stats aren't good on "who" is traveling...

Are they adventuresome Americans or do they have family and/or important business in the countries to which they are traveling?
There are often advisories for Mexico, but there are lots of dual citizens.


It literally says on the state department website:

Do Not Travel To:

Colima state due to crime and kidnapping.
Guerrero state due to crime.
Michoacan state due to crime and kidnapping.
Sinaloa state due to crime and kidnapping
Tamaulipas state due to crime and kidnapping.
Zacatecas state due to crime and kidnapping.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/mexico-travel-advisory.html




Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros etc are in Tamaulipas. I can't imagine people not traveling there. People live and work on both sides of the border at those locations. Lots of Americans have business in Nuevo Laredo. People are still gonna cross the border to get dental care.

[UniqueUserName]

21. I agree with you. . .

. . .with the caveat that if I went to a country on the Do-Not-Travel list for family reasons; I would understand that the risk was mine alone. The responsibility is on the person and the rogue government of the country visited. The responsibility is not on my home country of the US.

The US should totally use extraordinary means to secure citizens unlawfully detained in countries not on the do-not-visit list. The US should protect its citizenry abroad in countries.

I just think the resources spent on someone visiting a banned country should be significantly less than other circumstances. I hope the person is freed. I don't want anyone to become an example. Everybody makes mistakes.

[Emile]

3. I wish they would stop traveling to Russia.

[DeepWinter]

4. Yep

Reminds me of the idealistic American young couple killed by ISIS while biking around the world.(Along with 2 Europeans) Believed all people were good, evil was a made up concept meant to divide us. Murdered in Tajikistan. Life cut short in their 20's.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/young-couple-trying-to-prove-human-kindness-among-cyclists-killed-by-isis-565055

[yardwork]

10. Extremely idealistic people who take extreme risks tend to die young.

I think of the young man who tried to survive by himself in Alaska, the young man who went to an island full of cannibals who told outsiders not to come, people who climb into zoo enclosures with tigers and polar bears, people who try to reach the Titanic wreck in an inadequate vessel, etc.

Surviving extreme risks requires careful preparation and even then it's... risky. Depending on magical thinking is likely to end badly.

[doc03]

5. I assume it is money. nt

[NewHendoLib]

6. Hubris

[kimbutgar]

8. Before the pandemic cruises were offering stops in St Petersburg Russia

Now I see no itineraries showing that stop in the cruise brochures I receive weekly.

I loved going on cruises but almost everyone I know who has gone since the pandemic ended up with Covid. So I’ll pass for the time being.

[republianmushroom]

9. Dumb and dumber.

Jeez, how stupid they are.

[LeftInTX]

11. Three year old Lina Sardar Khil was almost killed in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021.

Her family had returned for some reason, then the Taliban took over. They barely made back to the US.

A few months later, she disappeared while playing at her apartment complex here in the US. (Not the topic of the thread, but Lina's disappearance was a big deal. During the course of all of this, it became knowledge that the family had returned to Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. They may have spent several months there. I believe there was a death in the family? )

https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/lina-sardar-khil/@@download.pdf

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/22/us/missing-girl-afghanistan-texas.html

snips.....
A Girl Survived a Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan. Then She Vanished in Texas.
SAN ANTONIO — For years Riaz Sardar Khil, a soldier with the Afghan army, assisted U.S. troops during their mission overseas. He was rewarded with an immigration visa to start a new life in America. Three years ago, Mr. Sardar, his wife and a newborn daughter resettled in a sprawling apartment complex in a working-class neighborhood in San Antonio.

The Sardars were reminded of the dangers they left behind during a visit back home last summer that coincided with the chaotic exit of American armed forces. Mr. Sardar’s wife, Zarmeena Sardar Khil, and daughter, Lina, found themselves feet away from a suicide bomber who killed 13 U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Afghans. Lina fainted near the blast but later regained consciousness, and the family was flown to safer surroundings back to San Antonio.


From 2013 to 2019, Mr. Sardar, an Afghan soldier, worked alongside the Americans in the Khost Province in southeastern Afghanistan. For his efforts, he was given a special visa to start a new life in the United States.

The Sardars visited a little more than a year ago and were reminded of the dangers they thought they left behind. Ms. Sardar recalled rushing to the airport in Kabul moments after learning that the U.S. forces had abruptly left the country, allowing for the Taliban to regain control. The scene at the airport was chaotic, with thousands of Afghans trying desperately to flee.

And when Lina collapsed feet away from the blast of the suicide bomber, her mother and relatives feared she was another casualty until the girl opened her eyes.

[Hekate]

13. Innocence. Star women basketball players are paid very little in the US, and can earn more in the...

…off-season by playing in Russia, where their sport is quite popular. They don’t imagine they could be framed for a crime just so Putin could use them as pawns in his hostage exchanges.

Teachers who want to experience cultural enrichment for themselves and give cultural enrichment to Russian students likewise can’t imagine being framed.

I have not read up on the ballerina, but just to let you know — Russia still has premier ballet schools and theaters.

The American government has to make it abundantly clear what the risks are at this moment in history. It’s bad. For awhile it was not so bad — but it certainly is now.

[Fix The Stupid]

17. Hmmm...average WNBA salary is $102,000.00 US per year...

I wouldn't call that "paid very little.."

Especially to play a kids game.

YMMV.

[Torchlight]

18. As opposed to an 'adult' game?

Especially.

[Hekate]

19. Compared to the men, women in pro sports are paid pocket change.

Compared to the men, women in pro sports are paid pocket change.

I’ve never been an athlete or a fan, but even I know that pro sports aren’t a kid’s game.

[hunter]

23. How long can you play professional basketball before your body wears out or something breaks?

After that, how much is a teaching or other professional certification going to cost so you can have a regular career with health benefits and eventually retire with an adequate pension?

Pro sports is a windfall, not a lifetime career. Best get while the getting is good.

$102,000 ain't that much. I've suffered hospital bills larger than that, only partially paid by insurance.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

27. Ask LeBron James, who is almost 40...

Although he is a rare phenomenon. There’s also these swimmers who swam in the Olympics in their 40’s - one was 46. As a former competitive swimmer, I can’t imagine basically giving up my life to train for the Olympics into my 40’s, for basically no money.

[Johnny2X2X]

14. Family

People have family in these places. Woman convicted in Russia this week has dual citizenship and was visiting her grand parents back home in Russia. Paul Whelan was attending a wedding.

[Hekate]

16. When you are wrapped in a cloak of innocence, you don't imagine being framed by a gigantic government...

[Torchlight]

20. Until as recently as 2022,

Russia had been among the most popular tourist destinations in the world. And then Ukraine, and tourism in Russia plummeted in 2022 by over 96% from pre-invasion data. (Al Arabiya English).

Given that, my guess (guess) is the majority of reasons people still traveling there would comprise family, religion, medical, and business purposes. Though any risk-benefit analysis for those reasons would be too subjective (for me, anyways) to argue for or against with any real confidence.

[former9thward]

22. I have been to many countries which were on the "Do Not Travel" list at the time.

Countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos after the war. Countries that have governments hostile to the U.S. like Syria, Cuba, Lebanon and the West Bank area. I am not naive, and I know how to handle myself. If one listened to the State Department then you would hide in home all your life. The world is full of different cultures and experiences other than the U.S. If you don't want to experience any of these then don't go. And no, I never expected the U.S. to do anything if I got into some trouble.

[Zoomie1986]

24. Because those countries are there

It's really that simple.

Americans never stopped going to Cuba or Russia when the government banned travel to them; people merely found ways around the restriction. In the old days, a trip to Cuba was as easy as catching a ferry from any of the many foreign countries nearby that had no restrictions for travel. Cuba would issue an old-fashioned paper visa to keep inside your American passport, and then you could toss it when you returned to the 'allowed' country.

I know literally dozens of people who visited Cuba that way. Yes, it was risky, but if you weren't so stupid as to break any laws, Cuba actually did a great deal to make sure foreigners left unharmed. With all of your possessions was another matter, but you could be reasonably sure of leaving without a scratch on you.

[hunter]

25. My wife's uncle was teaching in China when the Japanese invaded at the beginnings of WWII.

He was some kind of crazy altruist called by God to raise money and feed the starving children there.

Not choosing to flee China he evaded the Japanese occupiers for a time until they caught up with him and put him in a prison camp. When the Japanese Empire was defeated he was able to reconnect with his family and he was one of those skeleton people you see in the "horrors of war" pictorials.

No, he did not take the hint that maybe it was time to come home. He felt that China still needed his help so he stayed.

He had a few good years and then he got into trouble with the Communists and ended up in prison again.

He came back to the U.S.A. during the Korean War, exchanged for a few Chinese prisoners the U.S.A. had taken in Korea.

Sadly he turned to alcohol to deal with his PTSD and that's what eventually killed him.

I understand that sort of altruism but I'm not willing to go all the way. I never wear shoes I can't run away from trouble in ,and I've got a knife scar on my arm that reminds me of my own mortality and that the basic goodness of all people is buried far too deep in some for my efforts to expose.

Some people really do want to kill you.

Nevertheless, I'm not going to let my boundaries be dictated by fear.