Erin Kane: I can't believe that not only are the crew of this ship still confined to the ship *because they don't have visas* but they've also had their phones confiscated so they can't be in touch with family

I can't believe that not only are the crew of this ship still confined to the ship *because they don't have visas* but they've also had their phones confiscated so they can't be in touch with family

Crew trapped on Baltimore ship, seven weeks after bridge collapsewww.bbc.com Morale is low for the Dali's crew members, who are stranded on board by the ongoing investigation into the tragedy.

There is always a new way to demonstrate the utter lack of humanity and compassion in the United States' immigration/border policies.

(I am horrified by all the abuses of international shipping but the fact of this ship being in the US is indeed relevant here because, while I can't really affect international shipping policy, I *can* engage with my congresspeople and US policymakers to address this specific situation)

bsky.app/profile/dian...

This would be a great things to yell at your congresspeople about, especially if you're from Maryland...

Do you happen to have a script or talking points or anything? Fine if not! But I am in Maryland and I'll call.

I left a message asking them to look into the situation and see if there is any assistance they can offer this particular crew and, more broadly, consider why international airline crews have access to visas that shipping crews don't, given the inequities of international shipping.

I think it may also be worth pointing out the local-to-you folks working on it?

That’s a great question

fixed it for ya :/

This is mostly on the operator of the ship. They should have hired someone to work with the FBI to copy personal info to new phones, so the crew didn't lose anything.

This is in absolutely no way a US specific policy. It is generally how it works all over the world.

yeah but the ship is in us waters right now

The fact that they are in US waters is precisely why they can't disembark. It is not unusual for people to be in transit in the US but unable to leave a ship, airport, etc., due to lack of visa or other requirement for admission.

are you arguing or agreeing bc the post you responded to said "this is another example of shitty us policies" and you keep seeming to be trying to minimize that, but everything you're actually saying is that it's even worse than just that and people should be even madder about this

It is just the way the world works with respect to people who are in transit with no intention to enter the country that they somehow find themselves stuck in. I'm not minimizing it, but if someone's surprised by it, it's because of ignorance, not because it's something new and different.

This is sadly more common than you think in this industry. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Ever Given crew fear joining ranks of seafarers stranded on ships for yearswww.theguardian.com Suez vessel’s crew said to be ‘relaxed but apprehensive’, while 50 miles away a cautionary tale plays out on another ship

That is also terrible!!

There's the ships that basically formed a micro nation on the suez with its own currency when they were stuck for 8 years qz.com/1988437/the-...

The Suez Canal’s worst stuck-ship fiasco lasted eight whole yearsqz.com Ever Given is stuck in the Suez Canal, but the Yellow Fleet is a reminder that things could be worse.

this is wild !

Huh, so you CAN have a functional country on the sea, as long as it’s not founded out of a libertarian ethos!

I mean that applies to a functional anything newrepublic.com/article/1596...

The Town That Went Feralnewrepublic.com When a group of libertarians set about scrapping their local government, chaos descended. And then the bears moved in.

Here's a great piece on that! 99percentinvisible.org/episode/grea...

Great Bitter Lake Association - 99% Invisible99percentinvisible.org When Eric Carlson retired, he dove headfirst into an old hobby… philately. Philately is the study of postage stamps, and it’s a tragically underappreciated field of study. A stamp can give you a perfe...

Yeah, when we lived in Boston we supported a non-profit that served seamen who were stuck on their ships while they were in port. It's awful.

Ye, this is horrifyingly not atypical or the worst of it. This 99% Invisible podcast really gets into it, someone has to take care of ships but they should get paid and be able to go home. 99percentinvisible.org/episode/aban...

Abandoned Ships - 99% Invisible99percentinvisible.org If you look around you right now, about 90% of what you’re looking at came to you onboard a cargo ship—your television, your sofa, most of the stuff in your kitchen. But as the number of these cargo s...

Had no idea. That is awful.

Dan O'Bannon couldn't have come up with this shit

Hmm 🤔

Not me clicking on MORE RESULTS 😓

THERE ARE STILL HUMAN BEINGS ON THE FUCKING BOAT???

They needed to be on the boat for some things - like the demolition atop their ship - but yes, they really should be allowed to be on land or at least rotate off when it's not needed.

or to be able to go home! Can you imagine your employer leaving you stuck on the other side of the world?

They're going to get shore passes once the situation is stable! Right now they need the whole crew. They're getting catered food from shore and volunteers are helping get them phones and stuff. It sucks but it's not unreasonable.

Someone has to be running the ship. That someone would be the crew. You can't just leave it there unoccupied, and it's not the job of random Coast Guard and harbor people to maintain someone else's ship. Everyone on those crews knows this can happen.

So they're prisoners. It's a prison ship. I suspect if more people knew this was a "risk" of doing this kind of job, they'd pick another job. But it's not a big enough problem *for the industry* to figure it out. It's someone else's problem == not worth solving.

i didn’t even imagine this possibility. like nobody’s coming to pick them up

They're needed to operate the ship and keep it safe, and once the situation is stabilized they'll be given shore passes. It absolutely sucks to be them, but volunteers are helping them out, getting them phones, and so on. This is how international shipping works.

International shipping, famously something that works good and has good conditions

Yeah there's a *lot* of bullshit in international shipping, it's a super shitty and exploitative industry. But there's no reasonable circumstances where this crew would be off the ship already for anything other than a medical emergency. The company is at least providing catering etc.

If this were some fly-by-night shipping company with a flag of convenience then this crew would be screwed, and people in that situation are the ones that need our concern and outrage. There are people who have been stranded for years, which is unacceptable. But Singapore is a legit flag.

ya there are lots of reasonable circumstances where people wouldn't be held hostage by global capital

In this *particular case* they're not stuck on the ship because of global capitalism. If the ship sinks it'd create a significant public burden, and accident investigations would (I certainly hope) exist even in some communist utopia.

can't the company send in replacement crew like in '67?

Potentially once the situation is stable and the preliminary investigation is sorted out, yes, they could send in a caretaker crew. But what would be the difference? That's just a different set of people on the ship.

yeah but phones? contacting family, etc

They've been provided by the company, as well as hotspots for data needs so they can conduct their banking etc.

Whoever hired them to operate that ship seems to be MIA. I assume the crew's contract didn't cover this, but that's no excuse.

The company is discussed in the article. They're the ones arranging the catered Indian food, the replacement phones, and getting ready for the shore passes once it's safe to issue them. It's not a huge amount of detail but it seems like they're on top of the situation?

The company also gave them new phones, but some stuff must not have been in cloud backups. Looks like this story is being pushed by their unions & advocacy groups to get the FBI to return their electronics.

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