My son is very excited about getting back to the states this summer. He’s been two times before so he has a good idea what’s in-store. He wants to go to the beach, go camping, ride bicycles and ride in daddy’s car with no top ( my dad’s old MG). Before any of that can happen my London born wife needs to fill out the required ESTA form. ESTA stands for Electronic System for Travel Authorization and its essentially a VISA and she’s fine with this with no issues for years. It’s didn’t used to be a requirement for people coming from America’s allies but things change, governments need to feel they’re doing something to stem the flow of immigration and so forth. It doesn’t cost much, $14 per person, and it’s for the most part a formality that just has to be done and easily accomplished online in a few minutes. Unfortunately if things work !Ile this governments feel this is the perfect time to make things more complicated. The new hitch is now the department of homeland security needs to know exactly where you’ll be staying and the contact details of the person you’ll be staying with. We’ll staying with a retired Lutheran minister, a true radical but hopefully Lutherans having made the no fly list, yet. They’ve also asked if you’ll volunteer telling them what social media you use. This sounds like if comply and they look up your profile and see that you’re exercising you’re right to freedom of speech and they don’t like what they see then they’ll sent you and all your crazy talk entry into the country. Land of the free, home of the brave, mostly. Are any of us worried? Not in the least. However when filling out the forms they asked for my wife’s ethnicity but not my son’s. It’ll be interesting if/when we get to immigration if after they see all the official documents they mention the fact that my son’s black. I gotta dollar that says the officer states the obvious “So he’s adopted?” Keep them borders safe my friend!