Since President Donald Trump took office, several prominent incidents have occurred at border crossings in the United States or have been detained for weeks in U.S. immigration detention centers.
In recent weeks, the UK has made changes to citizens traveling to the United States to warn anyone found to violate their entry rules that could face arrest or detention.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said Germany updated its travel advice this week to highlight that the U.S. visa or admission exemption after several Germans were detained at the border does not guarantee entry to its citizens.
An American woman and her German fiancé spoke about their travel torture after driving back from Mexico in February.
The couple said U.S. border agents handcuffed U.S. citizen Lennon Tyler and tied her to a bench while her fiancé, Lucas Sielaff, was accused of violating his 90-day U.S. travel permit.
They had returned to Sielaff on February 18 for a 90-day travel permit for just 22 days, and Tyler said her partner was actively questioned and worked hard to answer in his second language. Later, authorities, wearing handcuffs and restraints of Sierraf, took him to a crowded U.S. immigration detention center.
Sielaff said he got a full body search and was ordered to hand over his cell phone and items. He was placed in a cell where he slept for two days before being transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.
Two weeks later, he was finally told to fly directly to Germany and submit his confirmation number. After Sielaff’s crazy call, Tyler bought a ticket for $2,744. Her fiancé flew back on March 5.
“What happened on the border is just a blatant abuse of the power of the Border Patrol,” Taylor, who plans to sue the U.S. government, said.
Nonprofit officials are surprised by detention
In an email to the AP, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Sierav and Jessica Brösche – another German was detained for 45 days in another incident – “deemed unacceptable by the Customs and Border Protection Agency.”
The agency said it could not discuss specific details, but “travelers could be subject to detention and dismissal if the regulations or visa terms are violated.” The agencies did not comment on other cases.
Both German tourists are allowed to pass exemptions offered to specific countries, mainly in Europe and Asia, where their citizens are allowed to travel to the United States for business or leisure for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa in advance.
Even if they are authorized to travel under the system, they can still be banned from entering the country.
The Trump administration has expelled more than 200 immigrants by invoking the Alien Enemy Act, a wartime measure, saying they are members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragya. Andrew Chang 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 Committee of the nonprofit, told the Associated Press during his 22 years at the border that he had never seen travelers in Western Europe and Canada, with long-time U.S. allies locked in, as it has happened in many of the events reported to the media.
“The only reason I saw it was that there was a more enthusiastic anti-immigration atmosphere,” Rios said.
French scientists deny controversial
A French scientist was also recently denied access to the U.S. conference in a controversial situation.
“I’m worried that a French researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France (CNRS) is heading to a meeting near Houston and was denied entry into the United States before being fired,” Philippe Baptiste said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.
He added that the measure was clearly because scientists expressed personal opinions on the Trump administration’s research policies, but were not exhaustive.
Front burner27:52Trump’s expanding immigration to Drag
A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said privacy restrictions prohibit the agency from discussing specific cases, but a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security strongly denied the allegation.
“The French researchers in question have confidential information about their electronic devices at Los Alamos National Laberatory, which violated an undisclosed agreement – he acknowledged and tried to hide it without permission.”
The French government has not responded to McLaughlin’s statement.
Positive strategies, legal challenges
Trump has so far been in a more aggressive way to oversee immigration issues rather than his first presidency. So far, there have been controversial incidents involving the detention of protesters on campus of universities and the refusal to enter a Lebanese doctor who has studied and worked in the United States for several years.
In another case, a former Columbia University student in New York, Ranjani Srinivasan, who temporarily had a visa in Canada, said she was sought by U.S. immigration and customs law enforcement officers.
Ranjani Srinivasan, a PhD student at Columbia University, called her a “terrorist sympathizer” ridiculous allegations, told CBC’s David Common that she was worried about her safety after U.S. immigration and customs law enforcement officers showed up at her doorstep.
A few days after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, some U.S. airports saw chaos as travelers in several Muslim-majority countries were banned from carrying out actions, and even some government agencies and high-profile officials received no advance warnings.
The travel ban was not initially subject to court legal review and was later modified by his government.
Trump also moved out protections for young immigrants during his first term, sometimes known as a dreamer, illegally brought into the United States as a child and acted on states and cities that protected illegal immigrants.
Early in the semester, he moved to terminate his birthright citizenship, which was immediately challenged in the court.
Despite Trump’s emphasis on curbing illegal immigration, degraded and dehumanized language is often used, his first administration’s record is also marked by a decline in legal immigration, even before the announcement of COVID-19-19-19-195 in March 2020.
Companies in a variety of industries, from Silicon Valley technology to agriculture and manufacturing, have pointed to a decline in issued work visas.
