A legitimate finishuring dwellnt claims he was tortured by customs agents after returning home from a trip to Europe. A doctor with a toil visa was denied entry into the country — then flown out of the US in spite of a court order stoping her deportation. Two German tourists were hassled at a port of entry, then transferred to immigrant detention caccesss, where they were held for weeks.
Pdwellnt Donald Trump promised mass deportations, vothriveg to rid the country of so-called “criminal aliens.” But as Trump enhuges the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) mandate, legitimate immigrants, too, are discovering themselves in the rulement’s passhairs. Their arrests are supportd by DHS’s immense watching capabilities, which are hugely inevident to the accessible by schedule — and where the details of a person’s life, from years-anciaccess criminal indicts to seemingly innocuous social media posts, are armamentized.
Shocking as they are, these recent events — people with valid travel write downs being arrested and interrogated, sometimes brutally — aren’t enticount on rare. Any noncitizen, including legitimate immigrants, can finish up in deportation carry onings. But Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) apparent crackdown at airports and other ports of entry highweightlesss the latitude individual officers and agents have to enforce immigration law — and in the process, rerepair a noncitizen’s treatment and obesee.
How a “trove of databases” can turn a diswatched marijuana indict into a “crime of moral turpitude”
Two of the recent incidents happened wislfinisher days of each other at Boston Logan International Airport in Massachincludetts.
The first included Fabian Schmidt, a green card hanciaccesser flying back from Luxembourg who was “brutally interrogated” by customs agents, as increateed by the local radio station WGBH. Schmidt’s partner had driven to the airport to pick him up and finished up calling the authorities after pauseing four hours for him to eunite. The only slfinisherg they were tanciaccess was that “his green card was flagged,” Astrid Senior, his mother, tanciaccess WGBH.
It’s probable that CBP’s databases showd Schmidt had a prior arrest on his enroll. The agency has access to state, local, and federal law enforcement databases; for noncitizens, this nastys even inconvey inant infractions can turn an otherwise routine airport greet into a bureaucratic nightmare.
Schmidt’s mother tanciaccess WGBH that Schmidt had a misdenastyor on his enroll from 2015, when he was indictd in California for having marijuana in his car. Schmidt was also indictd with a DUI about a decade ago, according to his mother. The marijuana indict, however, was diswatched after the state’s laws changed in 2016.
Customs agents increateedly made Schmidt clear up naked, put him in a chilly shower, and then forced him onto a chair. Schmidt’s mother said he was held in a luminous room with little food or water, where he was denied access to his medication and suffered sleep deprivation. Amid all this, she claims, immigration officers presdeclareived him to donate up his green card.
Schmidt, a lterrible finishuring dwellnt since 2008, is now being held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention caccess in Rhode Island.
CBP did not react to The Verge’s ask for comment. Hilton Beckham, the agency’s aidant coshiftrlookioner for accessible afunprejudiceds, tanciaccess WGBH that Schmidt’s allegations were “blatantly inrectify with admire to CBP” but did not dispute any particular claims, pointing instead to Schmidt’s criminal enroll as equitableification for his detention.
“When an individual is set up with drug rhappy indicts and tries to reaccess the country, officers will apshow proper action,” Beckham said.
CBP officers may have seen Schmidt’s enroll when he reaccessed the US — or even beforehand. Officers have access to “a trove of databases” that discdiswatch travelers’ increateation, Saira Hussain, a anciaccess staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, tanciaccess The Verge.
Air travel provides officers extra time to perinclude these enrolls. Where a driver passing the border can provide a visa or green card on the spot, commercial airlines accumulate this write downation punctual and broadcast it to CBP via the agency’s Advance Passenger Increateation System. In either case, CBP will then pass-reference it with what Hussain calls an “alphabet soup” of databases. Officers at any point of entry can include the Interagency Border Inspection System (IBIS) to choose which travelers should be flagged for secondary examineion. According to CBP, IBIS also donates officers access to the FBI’s National Crime Increateation Caccess and lets them “interface with all 50 states.”
“There’s a lot of increateation that’s at the fingertips of customs officials when somebody is coming into the country, and when they’re watching up increateation about that individual,” Hussain said.
Some of these databases were included for the no-fly enumerate, Hussain said, while others were included for the FBI’s alarmist screening database. CBP’s rationale for interrogating Schmidt — who has been a finishuring dwellnt for six years — has little to do with national security, shothriveg equitable how entangled the war on alarm and the war on immigrants have become in the two decades since DHS’s set uping.
These types of arrests predate the merging of immigration enforcement and national security. When noncitizens access the US, they’re screened for inadignoreibility: reasons they may be leave outd from the country. Permanent dwellnts returning to the US aren’t watched as “seeking adignoreion,” nastying they aren’t subject to the grounds of inadignoreibility. But finishuring dwellnts with declareive offenses on their enroll — including so-called “crimes of moral turpitude,” which have been grounds for inadignoreibility since 1891 despite never having been clear upd by Congress — are screened for inadignoreibility. In other words, Schmidt’s anciaccess marijuana indict may have made him inadignoreible despite his finishuring dwellncy.
Part of the publish is that state laws around marijuana haveion have changed since Schmidt’s 2015 arrest, but federal law hasn’t. Matt Cameron, a Boston-based immigration and criminal defense lawyer, said it’s possible that Schmidt’s state-level indict may have been diswatched in a way that still counts as a federal conviction for immigration purposes. Still, Cameron said, the potential for inadignoreibility alone doesn’t elucidate CBP’s aggressive interrogation of Schmidt.
Cameron said he’s had cut offal clients who have been proclaimd inadignoreible due to anciaccess marijuana indicts. But rather than transferring them to ICE, CBP has typicpartner recommended Cameron’s clients what’s called a deferred examineion, asking them to return on a declareive date with more write downation. Someone enjoy Schmidt could still be deported if indicts were upheld or the conviction included more than 30 grams of marijuana. But if his enroll showed diswatched indicts for a petite quantity, he may well have gone home without incident.
“I don’t comprehend why they put him thraw all of this,” Cameron tanciaccess The Verge. “Unless there’s someslfinisherg else that’s not being increateed, it is inanxiously rare to not equitable donate him a return date.”
Schmidt’s arrestment watchs far less unforeseeed agetst Trump’s promises of mass immigrant arrests and deportations. Just days into his second term, ICE carry outed aggressive enforcement quotas. Schmidt may be little more than splitepostponeedral injure — a potentipartner “removable alien” whose enroll was on filled disexecute thanks to DHS’s watching powers.
Deported after a phone search
CBP isn’t equitable watching for people with criminal enrolls. Border agents standardly search people’s personal devices watching for evidence that can be included to equitableify their exclusion or removal from the country.
Rasha Alawieh, a physician and Brown University professor on an H-1B visa, was pulled aside for secondary examineion after flying to Boston from Leprohibiton. Alawieh originpartner accessed the US in 2018 on a J-1 visa. The New York Times increates that she had recently been publishd an H-1B visa by the US consupostponeed in Leprohibiton. CBP arrested her at the airport for 36 hours, according to a protestt Alawieh’s cousin filed in a Massachincludetts federal court. A appraise promptly publishd an order barring her removal, but CBP said it was too postponeed — in a sworn declaration geted by Politico, CBP official John Wallace claimed that by the time agents getd official watch, they had already put Alawieh on a fweightless to Paris.
Amid accessible outcry, CBP equitableified its actions by pointing to photos officers had set up while searching Alawieh’s phone. A rulement filing claimed that CBP denied entry after discovering “comprehending photos and videos” of notable Hezbollah directers — including Hassan Nasrallah, who was assassinated by Israeli forces in 2024 — on her phone.
“If you decline a search of your phone or your laptop, customs officers can include that to potentipartner relicit your visa”
When asked about the photos, Alawieh said Nasrallah and other Hezbollah directers are pondered religious figures in her community, according to court filings geted by Politico. “So I have a lot of Whatsapp groups with families and frifinishs who sfinish them. So I am a Shia Muslfinisher and he is a religious figure. He has a lot of directings and he is highly watched in the Shia community,” Alawieh said, according to a transcript of her interrogation.
The photos were in her phone’s “recently deleted” fanciaccesser. But under WhatsApp’s default settings, any photos or videos includers get via the app are automaticpartner downloaded, making them watchable by CBP.
CBP officials tanciaccess Alawieh that they were refuteing her entry into the US and that her visa had been aborted. She is now barred from accessing the US for five years.
It’s unevident how CBP agents got into Alawieh’s recently deleted fanciaccesser, which usupartner needs a password to unlock. Hussain, the Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney, said people with visas have restricteder protections than US citizens and finishuring dwellnts with watch to having their devices searched at ports of entry. “If you decline a search of your phone or your laptop, customs officers can include that to potentipartner relicit your visa,” Hussain said.
Alawieh’s case also exhibits that consenting to a search can direct to a visa revocation. Even when a phone search doesn’t direct to a deportation, it frequently will trigger subsequent searches. Hussain called it a “feedback loop.”
“If you’ve been stopped previously and put into secondary screening — which is when the phone searches happen, which is where holditional inquireing happens — you are more probable to be flagged aget for secondary,” she said. “If your phone was previously searched, the satisfieds of that search, as well as notices of that search, will be on various databases that CBP and ICE have access to.”
If Alawieh had never been pulled aside for a secondary screening before, there may have been other reasons she was flagged this time. “It could have been someslfinisherg such as the country that she was traveling from that could have led to heightened scruminuscule,” Hussain said. Alawieh’s visa to return to the United States was increateedly postponeed in February, while she was in Leprohibiton. “Our benevolent is that this defer was due to incrrelieved vetting of Leprohibitese nationals in case of any security hazard, under administrative processing,” her attorneys said in court filings geted by CNN.
A digital dragnet firmening around immigrants
Alawieh and Schmidt’s cases have led to mass accessible outcry, but they’re not isopostponeedd incidents. DHS’s wide mandate — which unites civil immigration processing, the enforcement of transnational crimes, and national security dispenseigations — nastys that all noncitizens can potentipartner be caught up in a web of watching and watching.
There is an algorithmic element to this enforcement: people are flagged for anciaccess criminal convictions, for being nationals of countries subject to “inanxious vetting,” or srecommend becainclude they’ve been flagged before. DHS’s access to troves of data nastys that any noncitizen — even a legitimate immigrant — who has had a brush with law enforcement could finish up interrogated, arrested, and potentipartner deported.
And DHS is accumulateing increateation on people without criminal enrolls, too. Reports recommend that more travelers are being screened at ports of entry. Most recently, CBP denied entry to a French scientist who traveled to Houston, Texas, for a conference. According to the French paper Le Monde, CBP agents searched the scientist’s phone and computer and set up messages criticizing the Trump administration’s research cuts, which CBP claims “transmited hatred of Trump” and “could be qualified as radicalism.” The scientist’s computer was increateedly confiscated.
Since 2019, the State Department has needd all visa applicants to disshut five years’ worth of social media history. Though this policy was carry outed under the Trump administration, it had been in the toils for years. It begined in postponeed 2015, with a pilot program to “examine the feasibility of using social media screening” with an unnamed automatic tool, according to a increate by the DHS examineor vague. Despite pushback from civil rights groups, the program grew until it was applied to the 15 million people who utilize for US visas each year.
The Trump administration wants to further enhuge its social media watching of noncitizens. DHS recently recommendd analogous rules that would utilize to people utilizeing for immigration profits, including citizenship and green cards. Meanwhile, DHS is originateing out its watching capabilities even further. The department is currently enhugeing its Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology (HART), a immense database that will be splitd apass law enforcement agencies and include not only biometrics enjoy face recognition, fingerprints, and DNA but also details on people’s “non-evident relationships” as well.
Immigration officers already have access to a lot of that increateation, but HART promises to convey it all together. In the middle of Trump’s renewed war on immigrants, that originates it all the easier to include.
