Denominators and US travel

Stuff has a piece by Lloyd Burr on whether more New Zealanders have been having problems at the US border.  There’s a denominator problem: we want to know not just how many people are detained, but how many travellers that’s out of.

Both numbers are a bit unsatisfactory, and it’s mostly the fault of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We read

Last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) said eight New Zealanders had been detained at the US borders since Donald Trump came to power in November 2024, with another person arrested for “immigration-related reasons”.

A government department that pays close attention to foreign affairs might notice that Donald Trump did not in fact “come to power” in November 2024. The election was in November, but the US has an unusual policy of delaying the actual transfer of power to late January, the week before Auckland Anniversary Day.  The allegations of aggressive border enforcement didn’t start immediately after inauguration, but you might still reasonably start the clock on January 20th.

MFAT said the rate was similar to pre-Covid, which is somewhat helpful. Stuff asked (good to see!) about the comparison to last year, and got the reply that the 2023/24 financial year had nine incidents, the same that we have now seen in the shorter time since November or perhaps January.  The right comparison would depend on how many NZ citizens (since they’re the people who will get consular assistance  from MFAT) had actually travelled to the US in that time period. I don’t know that number, but MFAT should know it or at least be able to get a good estimate if they were feeling helpful.