An individual who has been living in New York Illegally who happens to be a citizen of Canada had been updating his blog while he was an illegal alien in this country. Well seems this individual went to Toronto for a few days and when he returned he was stopped at the border and the guards actually did a Google search for him. Finding his blog revealed he was violating immigration laws, he was ultimately turned away and cannot re-enter the United States for six months.
Personally I have no sympathy. If you want to come to this country apply for a visa and a work permit and pay taxes.
I am glad to see the Immigration agents are using a little technology on the border to help turn away those that are abusing our immigration system. [hoder.com]
For a second I thought it was one of those actions where Google and Yahoo actively handed otherwise unfindable information to the authorities (like what happened a few times in China).
But if the guy is dumb enough to give out the info into the public domain, where any surfer can find it, it’s fair game. If you need to stay under the radar, don’t blog like that (you could at least make it look like you were in Canada all the time).
The border agents do have their own system. It’s good thinking to add public sources to that, that’s a way to prevent illegal immigration.
Actually, it’s kind of scary that the border agent needs to rely on Google to check someone out; should they have their own system.