So ridiculous! Why are they cracking down on this? Are young French and German girls really posing such a risk to US employment rates? I have offered the same thing while asking if I could stay with relatives in other US cities (I'm American). Next, are they going to go around accusing 16 year old American girls of tax evasion since their bank accounts "fit the profile" for someone who's done babysitting?

Sorry, but the living standards are high enough and tuition costs low enough in France and Germany that I'm not really sure why any French/German college-aged kids would be sneaking into this country for real jobs.

It's reasonably straightforward au-pairing legally in the US. You just need to be represented by one of the officially sanctioned au pair agencies, and you get a J1 visa.

So I guess they're miffed that girls are trying to cheat the official (rather inflexible IMO) system.

There are huge numbers of American girls in Europe doing a similar thing -- legally and illegally -- and in some countries you'd get the same hard-assed attitude.

In Germany, au pairs don't need a visa at all.

France, being France, they require a work permit (unless you're from CN, NZ or AU).

Spain is easy (just apply to the nearest consulate and it's rubber-stamped) and you can work there for up to two years.

In the UK, it's super-complicated. The UK authorities simply don't want non-EU workers under any circumstances (but what's the point in au-pairing in another English-speaking country?).

However, French and German girls are awesome, so please keep it up and with any luck, more will come here to Spain.

;-)

The irony is that anybody who's likely to go over to illegally work as an au pair is likely to know this, unless they're very naive. So the USCIS is probably not catching the actual au pairs - only the girls coming to visit legally!

What sort of "correspondence" was this?

It was an email thread. In part of it we had given her our address and directions to our house and phone numbers on how to reach us when she got here. She had printed it out and was carrying it with her in her carry on. She allegedly fit the 'profile' and every woman travelling alone on her flight had their bags searched apparently.

Your failure to mention the printout in your original post is deceptive considering we are discussing internet "wiretapping." Of course possessions are searched upon entry, it happens every day in every country. If you're a Malaysian with a visitor visa and show up at customs in Australia with a bag full of resumes, you'll be turned away too.

It's not deceptive - he never indicated that the correspondence was seized, illegally or surreptitiously snooped on, or even that it was electronic until the message where he clarified it was a printed email. Until then, it could have been postcards for all we knew. His point wasn't about the wiretapping or even the search of her luggage - it was on the trivial reason they sent her back. She didn't have anything like a "bag full of resumes".

Your response seems very hostile - apologies if it's not, though in that case you may want to work on your phrasing. Nobody here discloses everything perfectly all the time, and there's no indication the parent was intentionally deceiving anyone.

I think "deceptive" is a poor word choice, but it was certainly confusing.

Considering the subject of this post, the resulting discussion, and the larger discussion that's been going on across HN and much of the media and the internet for the past week, exactly how the authorities learned about what she said is critical in understanding how his point fits into the broader context. That his point was about the reason they sent her back, and not how they learned it, was not clear to me until he responded.

Yes, this is well said and what I was trying to express. "Deceptive" was a poor choice of words and I think "confusing" says it better.

You are absolutely correct, I was not thinking about that aspect of it, rather the fact that the merest implication in anything that you might be coming to the US under false pretenses (even when the authorities have all the information which clearly shows both the intent and motivation for the trip) is that they will deny you entry.

Yeah, this is something everyone needs to understand. Intent is very important when entering countries on visas. If you enter the US with a non-immigrant visa such as a visitor visa with every intent to remain in the country indefinitely, a finding of visa fraud may be made against you and you could receive a long (multi-year) bar from readmission into the US.

And even if you have no such intent. Hence the cautionary tale.

The fact that the details were on hardcopy with her at the border sort of changes the context of your comment -- in a pretty important way.

Let's not conflate standard (even if objectionable) border entry policies with digital surveillance policies.

What is the logic or basic reason for this level of extreme prejudice against people doing basic work in another country? It seems to me that someone working in a country is going to be contributing.

Someone working in another country is doing work someone in the country could also be doing, depriving them of a potential job. That's why you need a visa.

Or rather, enough members of the public believe in the lumb-of-labour fallacy to make these kinds of policies fly.

... and the someone in the country is more valuable than the someone outside the country, because xenophobia.

What? No. Because it's the whole point of a government to take care of its citizens. American gov takes care of Americans, Brazillian gov takes care of Brazillians.

and the Iraqi government... no, forget it.

And here goes the popular "I did nothing wrong, I have nothing to hide" sentiment :)

Was it messages through Facebook?