Officials in Paris are expressing their dismay after a French scientist was denied entry to the US because of text messages on their phone containing a "personal opinion" about the Trump administration. The British and German governments have meanwhile updated their advice for travellers seeking to enter the US, with fresh warnings about the risk of arrest or detention. We speak to Veronica Cardenas, former assistant chief counsel at the US Department of Homeland Security.
Read more'Deplorable': French scientist denied US entry over text messages criticising Trump
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Read more'Deplorable': French scientist denied US entry over text messages criticising Trump
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NewsTranscript
00:00This is Apropos.
00:04Officials here in Paris are expressing their dismay after a French scientist was denied
00:09entry to the United States because of text messages on their phone containing a personal
00:15opinion about the Trump administration.
00:17Separately, a woman who became a symbol of resistance during the US president's first
00:23term in office was taken into custody by federal immigration agents this week.
00:29With more on these and more high-profile deportation cases, here's our New York correspondent
00:34Jessica LeMessurier.
00:37US President Donald Trump has turbocharged his mass deportation plan over the past few
00:44weeks.
00:45He has also moved to control the narrative by deporting a certain type of immigrant,
00:50perhaps to make an example of them.
00:52Let's take the case of Columbia graduate student Mahmood Khalil.
00:56He's a green card holder married to a US citizen and he has been detained on March
01:038th by ICE agents over what the Trump administration says is his pro-Hamas activity here in the
01:11United States.
01:12Now, he's currently in detention in Louisiana but is due to be transferred to New Jersey.
01:16His lawyers argue that he is simply a human rights defender speaking out for the Palestinian
01:22people.
01:23President Khalil himself has said from detention that he is a political prisoner.
01:29It's unclear what will become of him.
01:32The legal wrangling over his case continues.
01:35Next there's the case of a Lebanese doctor who is a transplant specialist who was working
01:42in Rhode Island.
01:43Now, she was on her way back to the United States from Lebanon after a family holiday
01:48when she was stopped by immigration agents and she has now been deported back to Lebanon.
01:57They say that Homeland Security said that there were photos found on her phone of the
02:02late leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and that they could not be sure that she didn't
02:06have bad intentions here in the United States.
02:09She was not afforded due process and that is what is causing concern.
02:14There's also the case of an Indian student who was at Columbia University who participated
02:19in the protests and she reportedly self-deported to Canada because she feared that ICE agents
02:25were after her.
02:26An example there of the chilling effect that these deportations are having.
02:31Then there is the case of a prominent immigrant rights activist, Jeanette Vizquerra, who had
02:38famously avoided being arrested in the past.
02:43She had really been a thorn in Trump's side during the first administration.
02:47ICE had pursued her but she had hidden in a church to avoid being deported.
02:51She has now been detained.
02:54ICE agents reportedly caught up with her in the parking lot of the Target store where
02:59she worked in Denver, Colorado.
03:02So that's another very symbolic arrest of a human rights activist.
03:07Then there are these deportations of Venezuelans.
03:11The Trump administration said that it was deporting over 100 Venezuelan gang members.
03:18They were taken from the United States to El Salvador and now they are in a maximum
03:23security prison there.
03:26The controversy around that is the fact that they've been taken to a third state without
03:33their families being informed of that and that their family members argue that they
03:37are not a part of any criminal gang.
03:41What's interesting to note is that actually the rate of deportations, according to the
03:45numbers, hasn't gone up under the Trump administration as compared to the Biden administration.
03:50But what has happened is the focus has changed, the narrative has changed and there are a
03:54lot of concerns amongst human rights defenders that people are being deported without due
03:59process and due to their political beliefs.
04:03Jessica LeMessurier there reporting from New York.
04:06Well for more we're joined now by Veronica Cardenas, former assistant chief counsel at
04:11the US Department of Homeland Security.
04:14Thanks so much Veronica for being with us on the programme.
04:17You actually spent 13 years with ICE, you now defend immigrants in the US.
04:23Is what we're seeing, all of that that Jessica was reporting there, is any of this actually
04:28legal?
04:29The Trump administration appears to be defying court orders, not just on one occasion but
04:34increasingly frequently over the past few weeks, even over the past few days.
04:40Yes, thank you for having me.
04:44And so what I would like to really point out is how this administration, what's different
04:49about this administration is the way that they're trying to avoid immigration courts,
04:53they're trying to avoid federal courts and they're trying to expeditiously deport people
04:59from the US.
05:00And I think that in this case is what's different from this administration to the administrations
05:05in the past.
05:07And you say the system, it's become a machine of mass surveillance, indiscriminate arrests,
05:13fear-based enforcement that is actually doing very little to keep Americans safer.
05:24Yes, and the reason I wrote that is because, the reason I wrote that is because what we're
05:32seeing now is, sorry, sorry, go ahead Veronica, the reason you wrote it?
05:44Sure.
05:46The reason I wrote that is because there really is an erosion of trust, of public trust here.
05:52And so we see the president trying to take authority on his own, like enacting the Alien
05:59Enemies Act, without having Congress first declaring war, so that he could expeditiously
06:04remove over 200 people who are in the United States, who are waiting for their court hearings,
06:11and remove them to El Salvador, where they will have to serve their prison time there
06:16for a year and work in those prisons.
06:19That's what we're hearing.
06:20So what we're seeing is the erosion of public trust, and that is a dangerous thing, because
06:27not only are citizens being caught up in this, we've heard reports of that, but now people
06:33who are here with legal status don't know whether they can trust whether they're here
06:37legally or not, especially with how swiftly the Department of State is revoking visas
06:42during this time.
06:43And you pointed out as well that the harshest, some of the harshest policies that were introduced
06:47after the September 11th attacks, they were eventually rolled back because they proved
06:52to be ineffective.
06:53Is the same thing going to happen here again, do you think?
07:01I think that this administration is not going to stop.
07:05I think that once there is a change in power, that future presidents need to really examine
07:12what dormant immigration laws need to be repealed, because this issue that we're having
07:18today has been a slow buildup.
07:21As we've seen with Jeanette Vizguerra, who came in the 90s, there have been so many administrations
07:27who have tried to tackle on the immigration problem, and none have been successful.
07:32And laws that have been dormant, like the Alien Enemies Act, that has only been used
07:36three times, have been there for the taking.
07:41And that's what Trump is doing.
07:42He's taking advantage of laws that should have been repealed a long time ago.
07:46And we've seen reports as well this week of people who are travelling into the US, for
07:51example, a French scientist who was denied entry because of text messages that they had
07:57in their phone.
07:58So how are immigration officers actually doing this?
08:02How are they discovering these kind of text messages?
08:05Is it a random targeting, or are they actually profiling people before they arrive in the
08:10United States?
08:15I would say that it's both.
08:19So at the border, immigration authorities are at their highest.
08:24They don't really need to have any suspicion to do any type of search on people's phones,
08:29on their belongings.
08:31And they have the manifest of people who are landing before they board those planes.
08:36So I'm sure they're taking a look at who's flying.
08:39And then once they come in, they have an idea of who they're going to take into secondary
08:44for further questioning.
08:47And in your work with immigrants, because you work with them now, what kind of concerns
08:51are people raising with you?
08:57I think the number one concern that most of my clients have is if they leave for the day
09:01to go to work, to go to the gym, to go grocery shopping, will they be able to come home to
09:05see their children?
09:07And what we're seeing right now is people are being, non-citizens who are being detained
09:14are being transferred all over the U.S. without their family members knowing, without their
09:19attorneys knowing.
09:21And they're going off grid for a few days until there's that communication again.
09:28And that's the part that scares non-citizens the most, that they are here, they're trying
09:33to do the best that they can under the circumstances to work, to provide for their families, to
09:39do things the right way, quote unquote, having their cases in immigration court and not knowing
09:44if they can see that to completion.
09:48It represents a massive departure from what would be the traditional kind of U.S. immigration
09:53enforcement that would have always prioritized, you know, people who posed a risk to national
09:59security or public safety.
10:01So where is all of this going?
10:07Right, and what we're seeing right now is a one size fits all immigration, which does
10:13not work.
10:15Prior administrations have prioritized.
10:17There's a limited amount of resources.
10:19And where should those resources be directed?
10:21They should be directed to people who actually pose a threat.
10:25There should be investigations done into those people.
10:29And now it's everyone is a danger simply by being born in another place that's not the
10:36United States.
10:37And you say as well, Veronica, that this kind of approach based on fear, it's emboldening
10:43vigilantes in various communities in the U.S., but it's also dismantling federal law enforcement.
10:49So what kind of an impact is all of this having there on the ground with the police?
10:56Right, it is a devastating effect because people in authority like to be in those positions
11:02of authority.
11:03And what this administration is doing is bestowing the authority of immigration, which has always
11:09had a wide latitude and it's very dangerous, and putting that into state officials, those
11:17who want to take it.
11:19So a simple traffic stop can turn into detention where a person is now being sent on the next
11:25plane home without speaking to his family members or without speaking to a lawyer.
11:29And so those are the types of things that we're seeing right now.
11:33And we've also seen, of course, the Trump administration doing what appears to be openly
11:39defying various court orders.
11:41We saw that in the case of Ms. Vizquerra, Jessica mentioned, you mentioned her as well.
11:46How concerned are you by what appears to be happening when it comes to various orders
11:51that are being issued by judges and the Trump administration is proceeding with deporting
11:56these people, regardless of the fact that judges are putting stays on those orders?
12:05That is probably one of the most dangerous things that this administration can do.
12:09To say that he's going to impeach the judge because one judge put a stay on sending the
12:17airplane back to or sending the airplane with Venezuelans to El Salvador, those attacks
12:23really undermine our democracy because it emboldened others to say, well, the law doesn't
12:29matter and the president is above it and we stand with the president.
12:32And that type of rhetoric is exactly what this administration is going after.
12:37I do believe that the administration knew that they were wrong in sending that plane
12:41back.
12:42The judge, there's reports that show that the judge took a brief recession so that the
12:48Department of Justice attorneys could call ICE, could call the people they needed to,
12:52to tell the plane that there was an executive or that there was a stay and that was ignored.
12:59And so what this administration is doing just to override the checks and balances that
13:06we have is very dangerous because it is encouraging others to disagree with the law and to take
13:14matters into their own hands, especially when it's non-citizens, because they're already
13:19a vulnerable population in the US.
13:22Veronica, we'll have to leave it there for now.
13:23Thanks so much for being with us on the programme this evening.
13:26That's Veronica Cardenas, former Assistant Chief Counsel at the Department of Homeland
13:30Security.
13:31Well, that's it from us for now.