READ: “This country isn’t the same,” say foreign visitors.

Friends and allies see America’s rapid decline. Will we?

America has a very long tradition of inspiring the outsiders who reach its shores. Perhaps most famously, in the 1830s, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States and published his now-classic reflections in Democracy in America, marveling at the nation’s democratic spirit, civil society, and culture of participation. Even then, he saw a country striving headlong toward a moral ideal that — while rough around the edges — was animated by freedom.

“In America,” he said ebulliently, “the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases.”

Today, our foreign friends see a different nation.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a lot of conversations with international visitors. From documentary filmmakers and journalists to officials from allied governments. What they’ve shared during our catch-ups has been sobering, like having someone hold up a mirror you’re reluctant to look into.

Here and there, I started jotting down comments because I was struck at how universal the sentiments were, namely the fear. I woke up this morning and saw that Donald Trump had begun his state visit to the United Kingdom. And I felt like it was an appropriate day to share just a few of the notes our friends have made about the state of America.

“My heart was racing at the border.”

A German filmmaker told me this after arriving in the United States for what should’ve been a routine work trip. He’s been here dozens of times. But this time, he was wracked with anxiety.

He’d read about the increase in airport detentions and electronic device searches. Customs and Border Protection has ramped up examinations of travelers’ phones and laptops without probable cause, in some cases keeping those devices for weeks.

Given the nature of his work, he needed to protect the identities of his sources for a recent documentary project. But as he waited in line, a terrible thought crept in: What if they take my computer and phone? What if they crack them and find the names? What if my sources get punished?

He briefly considered turning around.

“I’ve never felt like that coming into America,” he said. “Only in the more dangerous countries I’ve covered.”

He made it through without getting sent to secondary screening. But in the future, he said, he’ll just bring in temporary “burner” devices, rather than risk his personal phone and computers getting seized.

“I scrubbed my social media before coming back.”

That was a Norwegian journalist, telling me how he deleted or hid five years of Facebook, Instagram, and X posts critical of Donald Trump or elected Republicans before a recent visit to the United States.

He didn’t need a warning. He’s a keen observer of American politics. The Trump administration has been clear: foreign nationals can be denied entry — or ejected — for political speech. Deportation proceedings have been launched over views on Gaza, and in recent days, foreign visitors have been threatened with ejection for even expressing criticism of slain conservative commentator.

This journalist didn’t want to risk it. So he cleaned house — sanitizing the digital record of who he really is, just to avoid a confrontation with U.S. authorities.

“It took hours. A total pain in the ass.”

This is one I've heard repeated several times already. And it's impossible to calculate the real toll. Hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — of people are limiting their free expression to come into “the land of the free.”

“It looks like a cheap casino!”

Admittedly, this one made me laugh. Those were the words of a European security official upon seeing Trump’s revamped Oval Office.

The updated decor — gold accents, gilded side tables, shimmering flags — gave off a garish, almost royal aesthetic. Of course, he expected this kind of palatial vibe when visiting Middle Eastern countries and Gulf State diplomats. But not here.

He couldn’t hold back.

“What the hell has Trump done to the Oval Office?” he blurted. “It looks like a cheap casino!”

I thought about it for a moment and replied: “But, my friend, it IS a casino.”

“I turn my phone and watch off at coffees.”

A British colleague confided this one. When he travels here, he powers down his Apple Watch and iPhone and stores them in his bag before private conversations. Casual chats are now treated like sensitive national-security conversations.

I should add that the person I’m talking about here isn’t irrational. He’s worked for a very long time in public policy and as a close friend of America. Yet for the first time in the United States, he feared targeted surveillance — that his devices might be tapped, that something he said could get picked up, flagged, or used against him. So when he goes out for a coffee with someone, he shuts off his devices and shoves them in a backpack, lest the censors pick up a critical remark about the president.

It reminded me of Cold War stories. In the Soviet Union, citizens would have guests over for dinner. But before their friends arrived, the hosts would remove the receiver from the telephone and bury it under a pillow, just in case someone was listening.

Now, those odd gestures are becoming a regular ritual on American soil.

“In public, yes. It is very scary.”

That was the quiet admission of a woman from Latin America. I’m going to be vague about where she's from specifically. Like many others, she's deeply fearful she will be sent back home, despite having worked in America for years.

Any time she leaves the house, she told me — even just to hit the pharmacy — she carries her documents. She’s seen ICE raids and knows people who’ve been detained without warning. She’s scared it could happen to her at any moment, despite being here legally. Regardless, if she’s stopped without those papers, she fears she’ll be taken into custody and forced to fight to clear her name for days or weeks from inside a concrete jail cell. That fear permeates everyday life.

Ironically she came to the United States in part to escape gang violence. But these days she worries the men with guns will be U.S. government agents. And she’s not alone. Her immigrant friends talk about how it’s even affecting their dating lives. Why? I asked. Because, she said, they don’t want to fall in love with a fellow immigrant, only for that person to disappear one night in an ICE van.

“This country isn’t the same.”

The woman who said this was another German. She seemed heartbroken to share those words with me. Here for a recent film project, she’d grown to love the states over the years. Great memories. Many visits.

Her worries echoed those of the other visitors — the airport searches, authorities combing through her social media, surveillance. But what was most saddening to her wasn’t the authoritarian vibes. It was us.

"I've never seen the U.S. people hate each other so much."

I jotted this one down before last week's shooting in Utah. And I shudder to think what she'd say now.

* * *

Today, Donald Trump is on an official state visit to the United Kingdom.

I wonder, will our closest friends tell him what they really think — how so many visitors from Britain and beyond feel when they are traveling to the United States? That we’ve lost sight of ourselves? Or — fearing retaliation — will they bite their tongues and hope that, eventually, America finds a mirror? Sadly, I think I know.

P.S. WHAT’S HAPPENING ON TREASON

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