I suspect the UK and US is very different. I'll try to give a good overview of UK border enforcement for people in the US, but I strongly suspect this comment will be flagged because even just explaining what happens is often considered far-left/far-right depending on the tone you explain things in (I'll try to be neutral and welcome comments if things I say need to be challenged).

> Is the consequence if they do not like your answers ever worse than just not letting someone in?

You can definitely be charged with terror offences, especially if you're a British national. They do this under terror law after all.

Here in the UK terrorism is defined very liberally too. For example, here's a video of UK police arresting hundreds of left-wing pensioners under terror law for simply holding signs supporting a group called "Palestine Action", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmE05x1hnlY

UK police don't generally shoot people because in the UK it's illegal to own even defensive items like pepper-spray, so outside of extremely rare cases the police don't ever need to shoot people so are not given guns. But I believe the UK police are more heavy handed when it comes to arresting people for political speech reasons when compared to the US. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you guys seem to be able to say basically whatever you want – which is generally considered a right-wing thing here.

> They deport people. They separate families.

UK terror law probably doesn't apply in the way you might expect – e.g., stopping people coming from places like Afghanistan, etc. Here terror law is generally only applied at airports to people entering legally – and I'd argue solely as an intimidation tactic against people who might hold views the UK government doesn't like. As mad as this might sound, we generally would never stop someone coming illegally from a place like Afghanistan even if they come without any documentation.

The UK is weird in this regard. We probably have the opposite "problem" here if anything... Although, for neutrality's sake, a someone people wouldn't consider this a problem at all. All depends on your politics after all =)

But in some ways the UK has no border enforcement... If you try to enter the UK illegally by a small boat typically the coast guard will pick you up and take you to shore, then the police will escort you to a hotel where we'll fund your stay, your meals and give you some spending money too. We'll do this for a few years then allow you to stay – at which point you can apply for a free home and bring your family over. Some will be deported, but only if they're coming from Europe or somewhere fairly developed. I very very much doubt this is the same in the US?

Anyway, point is, in the UK if you're able to enter the country (either legally or illegally) you'll be very unlikely to be forcibly removed because we generally don't have the power to legally remove people, and even where we do it takes a long time and is very expensive.

To highlight the extent to which this is true, we often have cases where someone has come to the UK illegally from a far-right country like Afghanistan, then went on to rape some woman or child, then because we're not legally able to remove them we let them stay. For example, we had someone just a few weeks ago who raped 30 kids and after being locked up for 14 years he was released as we were unable to deport him despite most Brits obviously not wanting him here. Some people on the left would argue this isn't a problem and right-wing commenters and papers overly focus on select cases. Some argue the solution is to education those coming from these countries that it's not okay to rape women or children in the UK, which for better or worse is a strategy the UK government is now adopting:

- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a7f0a2003b4f...

- https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a8410190ad4b...

I think border enforcement is just hard. I think if I illegally try to enter a country with my family then I'd expect the government to throw me in jail and separate me from my family in the process (this happens anyway when we arrest people in the UK, again maybe different in US). For me my concern is overwhelmingly what happens to those entering legally who simply hold political views the government doesn't like...

Within reason I'd quite like to see more border enforcement in the UK, but less when it comes to banning people from coming from places like the US simply because they hold political views the UK government doesn't like, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/01/us-political-c...