Border hardening has arrived

An estimated 1-5% of citizens and legal residents passing through US borders are now being detained, blocked from exiting, or blocked from entering, and reports of this are not making mainstream news.

It's currently known to be impacting people who identify as liberal, have been outspoken on podcasts, social media, or professionally, and/or who work in immigration law.

However, border hardening (making it harder to leave or return) will soon expand to affect more groups.

Under the warrantless surveillance emergency power, DOGE and Palantir are legally allowed to access citizen texts, emails, and messaging records to create a "social credit score" or "loyalty score" that gives someone a rating that shows whether or not they pose a flight risk when leaving the country.

This is something that some other authoritarian regimes (i.e. China) already have in place, and it seems likely here, as Palantir and DOGE have already been testing this type of mass AI-based analysis on federal employee records, to find discontented employees or leakers, and have begun regular polygraphs of the federal workforce.

If you are a regular citizen (non-dissident, non-activist) considering exiting, you likely have 45-90 days before it becomes significantly challenging. Consider booking round trip flights through popular vacation destinations, then booking follow on legs on non-US airlines to final destinations after that.

If you do not have a passport, apply for one now just in case. If your passport is expiring soon, renew it on an expedited path. If you do not have ~4 months of cash on hand, make it accessible.