Since US President Donald Trump took office, there have been several well-known incidents of tourists and visa owners who have been stopped at US border crossings and detained for several weeks at American immigration detention facilities.
Over the past few weeks, the UK has revised its advice to citizens traveling to the US, including warnings that it has determined that breaching its entry rules could lead to arrest or detention.
Germany updated its US travel advisory this week to highlight that visas or entry exemptions do not guarantee citizens’ entry after several Germans have been detained at the border recently, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
The American woman and her German fiancé told The Associated Press about their travel trials after returning from Mexico in February.
The US border agents handcuffed US citizen Lennon Tyler and took her to the bench, and her fiancé Lucas Sheilaf was accused of violating his 90-day US tourism permit rules, the couple said.
They returned on February 18th, just 22 days after Sielaff’s 90-day tourist permit. Tyler said her partner was actively asked and had trouble answering in a second language. Authorities later handcuffed Sheilaf, bound him and sent him to a crowded US immigration detention center.
Sielaff said he was given a full body search and ordered to hand over his cell phone and belongings. He was placed in a holding cell where he slept on the bench for two days before being moved to Otaymesa detention center in San Diego.
Two weeks later, he finally got a direct flight to Germany and was told to submit a confirmation number. Following a desperate call from Sheelaf, Tyler bought the ticket for $2,744. Her fiance flew on March 5th.
“What happened at the border was blatant abuse of the power of the Border Patrol,” said Tyler, who is scheduled to sue the US government.
Nonprofit staff were surprised at the detention
In an email to the Associated Press, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Sielaff and Jessica Brösche (another German held for 45 days in another incident) were “unacceptable” and “unacceptable” by customs and border protection.
The agency said it could not discuss the details, but “if the statute or visa conditions are violated, travelers may be subject to detention and removal.” The agency did not comment on other cases.
Both German tourists entered the US under a waiver programme offered primarily to groups of countries in Europe and Asia.
Even if they are allowed to travel under that system, they can still be prohibited from entering the country.
The Trump administration has deported more than 200 migrants by calling for alien enemy laws (wartime measures), claiming they were members of Venezuelan gangster Tren de Aragua. Andrew Chan explains how Trump interprets the language of the 1798 law to avoid the standard immigration court system, and why experts say it is a slippery slope.
But Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Services Commission, a nonprofit organization that supports immigration, said he has worked at the border with the Associated Press for 22 years.
“The only reason I see is that there is a much more enthusiastic anti-immigrant atmosphere,” Rios said.
French scientists’ denials disputed
French scientists were also recently denied entry to the United States due to meetings under contested circumstances.
“I learned with concern that French researchers on the mission of the French National Centre for Science and Research (CNRS) who were traveling to a conference near Houston were denied entry to the United States before being expelled,” Philip Baptist, Minister of Higher Education, said in a statement in the French Press.
He added that the measure was clearly taken as scientists expressed personal opinions about the Trump administration’s research policy, but was not particularly well-known.
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A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said privacy restrictions prevented agencies from discussing certain cases, but a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security vehemently denied the allegations.
“The French researcher in question owned confidential information about electronic devices from the Los Alamos National Laboratory — admitting that he had accepted and tried to hide without permission,” spokesman Tricia McLaughlin said on social media.
The French government has not yet responded to McLaughlin’s statement.
Offensive tactics, legal challenges
So far, his second term Trump has oversaw a more aggressive approach to immigration than his first presidency. Previously, there have been controversial cases that include detention of university campus protesters and denial of entering Lebanese doctors who had studied in the United States for several years.
In another case, Ranjani Srinivasan, a former New York-based Columbia University student, is temporarily in Canada after his visa was revoked.
Columbia University doctoral student Ranjani Srinivasan accuses her of being a “terrorist sympathizer” absurd and tells CBC’s David Common that she was afraid of her safety after our immigrants and customs enforcement officers appeared at her door.
A few days after Trump took office in 2017, we saw a scene of confusion following an enforcement move that said travelers from the majority of Muslim countries were not given advance warnings for some government agencies and even famous officials.
The travel ban was originally unable to withstand legal scrutiny by the court and was later amended by his administration.
Trump also moved in his first term to retract protections for young immigrants, sometimes called dreamers, and acted against states and cities that were illegally brought to the United States as children and protected illegal immigrants.
Earlier in this semester, he ended his natural citizenship and was soon challenged in court.
Trump emphasizes restraining illegal immigration and often uses dehumanised language, but his first administration’s record was marked by a decline in legal immigration, even before the Covid-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020.
Companies from various industries, from Silicon Valley Tech to agriculture and manufacturing, pointed to a decline in work visas issued.