Federal agents approaching immigrants, noncitizens, foreign students

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Federal law enforcement agents accused of coercing individuals.

Federal agents are looking more closely at the AANHPI communities and unjustly targeting individuals and coerce them to become informants, according to the Asian Law Caucus.

Agents from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the State Department are approaching AANHPI residents and citizens, often on the basis of their race, immigration status or religion, states an ALC press release.

Targeting by federal agents takes different forms, says the ALC. For some community members, federal agents may show up at their homes. For others, agents from the FBI or other agencies may regularly visit their work, school, or place of worship, or cold-call them, seeking what is called a “voluntary interview.” 

Particular vulnerble to these questionable tactics are those members of refugee communities, particularly those whose families fled South Asia and Southeast Asia at as the US military ended operations in those countries, including those from Afghanistan, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. While those targeted are not compelled to comply with such requests, they can often feel that they have to comply simply because the request is coming from a federal agent.

In many cases, FBI agents coerce people to become the agency’s informants by implying that they could create issues in their immigration or visa status, place them on watch lists, and even separate people from their families if the potential FBI recruit does not comply, claim the civil rights attorneys.

Amid this rise in unwarranted federal surveillance and targeting, the ALC team has been providing free legal representation to many individuals and families. As part of the work of the Asian Law Caucus helping community members protect their civil rights, the legal advocates' National Security and Civil Rights program represents San Francisco Bay Area residents.

In just the past year, for example, the ALC supported Afghan families who were approached by federal agents near their homes seeking information to use as leverage, as well as small business owners, university students, and Bay Area residents who are also U.S. citizens. The team is currently representing an Afghan American and US citizen who has been repeatedly approached by FBI agents and has been asked about his wife, who is an Afghan national, on a number of occasions.

Chinese and other Asian students, professors, and researchers have also been frequently approached under suspicion of having ties with the Chinese government and/or engaging in technological espionage. These accusations are typically baseless and often motivated by racially biased assumptions.

The Trump-inspired China Initiative, which focused on Chinese researchers and professors suspected of spying for China proved so ineffective, rarely achieving a guilty plea, was ended in 2021.

In one case, a PhD student at Stanford studying physics was visited at their home by two DHS Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents. When first approached, the student was asked about their research, any “military applications” to the projects they were working on, and the extent of their contact with scientific institutions and researchers in China. The student consulted ALC attorneys, who communicated directly with the HSI agents and effectively ended their inquiry into the student’s life. Since then, the student has not been contacted by agents.

The ALC, part of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice community consortium, issued information (below) for anyone who believe they are being unfairly targeted by federal agents.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

REPORT: Homeland Security agents engaged in sex acts with suspected trafficking victims

ASAM NEWS &

VIEWS FROM THE EDGE

Undercover agents with Homeland Security investigating human trafficking in Arizona repeatedly paid for and engaged in sex acts with suspected victims, alleged Cronkite News and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.

The victims were allegedly forced to live and work in filth and near darkness, the federal agent said, surviving on only the tips they received from performing massages and sexual favors. Lon Weigand, the deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, described them as “Asian females” who may be sex-trafficking victims.

Based on the investigative report, police undercover agents said they were told by HSI that its policy permitted undercover agents to engage in sex acts with suspects.

The report also maintains that some supervisors knew about this activity. When Homeland Security Investigations refused to let its agents testify in a case that took three years to build, all felony charges against the ringleaders were dropped.

“That’s our tax money,” said defense attorney Josephine Hallam. “Shouldn’t they be at the border, or doing something with terrorists rather than getting sex acts?” he said to Cronkite News.

According to Reason, agents dubbed their investigation Operation Asian Touch.

An HSI memo obtained by Reason describes an undercover federal agent telling a masseusse “to masturbate him” or to strip naked or go topless while performing a sex act on him.

That encounter, along with HSI’s refusal to let its agents testify at trial, torpedoed a case that was more than three years in the making. All felony charges against the accused ringleaders were dropped. And the women likely were retraumatized, sex-trafficking experts said.

Defense attorneys, whose clients went free because of HSI’s mishandling of the case, were outraged to learn of the agents’ “investigative techniques.”

In December 2019, according to Reason, prosecutors dropped all charges against Amanda Yamauchi and Dean Michael Bassett, who they suspected in being the ringleaders of the “transnational criminal organization.” Reason maintains authorities were willing to let the suspects go rather than answer questions about its agents engaging in sex acts during their investigation.

“In my experience in law enforcement, these types of things do not just happen in one spot,” said defense attorney Brad Rideout who represented two women charged in the case.

Homeland Security says it always keeps the victims as the focus of its investigations.

“HSI is committed to placing the safety of potential victims at the forefront of every investigation,” said Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, HSI’s parent agency. “Conduct by a limited number of HSI agents involved in the investigation was not consistent with HSI policy,” she said to Cronkite News and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.

The HSI had an online Underground Operations Handbook, statements by local police and the federal government's response appear to refute the allegation that these actions committed by rogue agents.

Over a nearly five-month period, the HSI undercover agents documented in graphic detail 17 allegedd sexual encounters with women working in eight massage parlors. Only two women were designated as victims, but their whereabouts are unknown. Two other women who were charged with prostitution were initially put in ICE detention, although only one still faces deportation hearings.

Except for a low-level supervisor, none of the agents involved in the scandal was disciplined, according to the report.

“It is difficult to exaggerate the extent to which the law enforcement community collectively turns a blind eye when its members engage in misconduct,” said Clark Neily, vice president for criminal justice at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C.

Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, who serves on the Arizona Human Trafficking Council, called the case a “terrible demonstration of our behavior as a country.”

“Their job is to collect evidence and testify about it in court,” she said, referring to HSI agents. “They don’t actually have any other function. Their whole job was to testify and close that case. They are not fulfilling their duties.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: The five-part investigation into these alleged acts by Cronkite News and the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism can be read here. 

'Public charge' proposals would harm immigrant and POC

Another day, another Donald Trump policy against immigrants. A proposed rule would severely cut back the number of immigrants coming to the US, especially those  from Asia and Latin America, which have waits over two decades for the first step to become an American.

Monday (Aug. 12) the US Department of Homeland Security released a final rule making sweeping changes to the "public charge" test that will disproportionately block immigrants of color from obtaining lawful permanent residency, also known as green cards, inhibit immigrant workers and foreign students from extending or changing their visas, and undermine the ability of green card holders to re-enter the US if they have spent more than 6 months abroad.

Immigration authorities currently ask green card applicants to prove they won't be a burden on the country, but the new regulation explands the what public assistance programs that would disqualify immigrants, including green card holders awaiting citizenship. It would require caseworkers to consider the use of government housing, food and medical assistance such as the widely used Section 8 housing vouchers and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The new rule will impose an unprecedented test to assess future benefits use that will penalize legal immigrants, especially immigrant seniors and all immigrants who are low-income, lack English language proficiency, have chronic medical conditions, and lack access to private health insurance, educational opportunities, and credit. 

According to a report by Migration Policy Institute, more than 941,000 recent green card holders, including approximately 300,000 from Asian countries, would likely have been excluded if the rule had already been in effect when they applied.

Despite the widespread outcry that led to over 260,000 public comments in the months following the proposed rule, the changes to the public charge criteria have been enacted and will go into effect in 60 days after formal publication scheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 14, which means it would go into effect Oct. 15.

However, the new law would likely face a slew of legal challenges that would most probably delay enaction into 2020 if survives the court battles.

“We strongly condemn the Trump administration’s changes to the public charge rule. This racist policy seeks to dramatically undermine the family-based immigration system that has been the backbone of our country and instead prioritizes wealthy immigrants. The public charge rule change continues the administration’s inhumane assault on immigrant families by increasing denials of green card applicants," said the Asian Americans Advancing Justice in a statement.

Hours after the administration announced its intention,  Santa Clara and San Francisco Counties which filed the first lawsuit in U.S. District Court. Their legal challenge is the first of numerous court complaints civil rights and immigrant advocacy groups have vowed to mount against the so-called "public charge" regulation, which they believe will penalize low-income immigrants and their U.S. citizen children.

A report by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, the UC Berkeley Labor Center and California Food Policy Advocates, found that California’s economy could lose $2.8 billion and up to 17,700 jobs because of changes to the “public charge” rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Chairs of the Congressional Tri-Caucus – Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) Rep. Judy Chu, Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Rep. Karen Bass, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) Rep. Joaquin Castro – released the following statement on the final public charge rule:

“The Trump Administration’s new public charge rule is yet another cruel attempt to frighten and intimidate immigrant communities. It contradicts years of federal policy by restructuring our immigration system so that it favors the wealthy over communities of color and working families. Moreover, it relies on the false narrative that immigrants are a ‘burden’ on our country and ignores the fact that our country was built and continues to grow because of the contributions and sacrifices of immigrant families. The intent of this rule is to disregard that tradition and devalue the contributions of immigrants from all walks of life.

“This rule is detrimental to immigrant families who will now be forced to choose between taking care of their basic needs or having a future in America. We have already heard heartbreaking reports of immigrant families disenrolling from programs their families need because they are concerned that using benefits will jeopardize their immigration status," continued the statement.

“The Trump administration unveiled yet another heartless plan to block immigrants and people with disabilities from legally immigrating to the United States. The president effectively declared that you could be too old, too young, too poor, or too sick to come to this country," said Claudia Center, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s Disability Rights Project.

“The proposed rule grows out of the absurd assumption that people with disabilities cannot be productive, valued members of our society. This is not only incredibly cruel, it’s illegal. The Rehabilitation Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against anyone on the basis of disability, whether or not they’re a citizen," she continued in her statement

In anticipation of the administration's action, in June Rep. Chu and 36 cosponsors today introduced a bill, the No Federal Funds for Public Charge Act, that would prohibit the use of federal funds to implement the Trump administration’s proposed “public charge” regulation. The bill, H.R. 3222, would create a barrier to the Trump administration’s attempts to vastly expand the number of people who may be deemed ineligible for lawful permanent residence (a “green card”) based on their household income, use of certain essential government services, and other criteria.

Under the current quota system, high-volume immigration countries like India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines experience the longest U.S. visa wait times.

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Homeland Security creates fake university to entrap hundreds of immigrants

The fake university supposedly had offices in this office building in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

ASAM NEWS

Hundreds of Asian students — many of Indian descent — are facing deportation and arrests after enrolling in a fake university set up by undercover agents from the Department of Homeland Security, reports BBC News.
The fake institution—University of Farmington in Michigan—had around 600 students, of which 130 students were recently detained, reports Detroit Free Press.

Along with the hundreds in holding is a separate criminal case involving eight people, who were arrested and indicted for conspiracy to commit visa fraud and harbor aliens for money by posing as recruiters for the University. Voice of America reports that they solicited over $250,000 from their recruiting tactics.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wrote in their press release that the eight people facing criminal charges are:

* Barath Kakireddy, 29, of Lake Mary, FL;

* Suresh Kandala, 31, of Culpeper, VA;

* Phanideep Karnati, 35, of Louisville, KY;

* Prem Rampeesa, 26, of Charlotte, NC;

* Santosh Sama, 28, of Fremont, CA;

* Avinash Thakkallapally, 28, of Harrisburg, PA;

* Aswanth Nune, 26, of Atlanta, GA;

* Naveen Prathipati, 26, of Dallas, TX.

According to BBC News, the university was originally set up in 2015 to address student visa abuse by foreign students who wanted to stay in the United States. The indictment allege that the enrolled students were knowledgeable of this fraudulence and this "pay to stay" visa scheme.

However, many of the defendants and the Indian embassy say the U.S. government may have “duped” the students into this unfortunate situation.

Immigration attorneys say that the U.S. government knowingly tricked students by listing the University of Farmington as a legitimate institution.

In a press release, India’s Ministry of External Affairs also expressed the need to differentiate between the recruiters and the students. They wrote: “We underlined that students, who may have been duped into enrolling in the University’ should be treated differently from those recruiters who have duped them.”

John Brusstar, an attorney representing one of the defendants, called out the allegations and fake university a set-up.

“It is unfair for the government to set up something like this to entrap people,” Brusstar said.

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Sunday Read: Gov't shutdown adds to the woes of asylum seekers and would-be immigrants

THREE WEEKS into the partial government shutdown, the battle over the $5 billion border wall is gumming up an already cumbersome immigration system.
Immigration courts are whittled to a skeleton staff, forcing court dates to be postponed and raising the ire of the judges already burdened by nearly 800,00 pending cases.
"You’re shutting down the immigration court over the issue of immigration," said Judge Ashley Tabaddor, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, the judges union. 

"People who are in deportation proceedings but who are not in immigration detention are having their hearings cancelled and rescheduled," said Martha Ruch, Staff Attorney, Immigration Project at Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles. "This is the status quo until the shutdown is lifted."

"However, people who are in ICE detention will still have their court hearings and the detained immigration courts are still operating."

"ICE enforcement and removal operations are also still moving forward," she said, "but for non-detained respondents their cases are being postponed and until they can get rulings in their cases, they will effectively not face deportation. As long as the non-detained hearings remain cancelled, those cases will not receive removal orders from an immigration judge."

For those who have strong asylum claims or green card applications and want to get their lives on solid footing in the United States, the delays can add to their frustration after waiting for years in some cases as they wait for a new court date to reunite with love ones.

However, those with the weaker asylum claims actually benefit from the delays, because they are able to remain in the U.S. in the meantime and hold out hope of qualifying for legal status by some other means down the road. 

In the 2017 fiscal year, immigration courts decided more than 52,000 asylum cases. About 1 in 5 were approved, according to statistics from the courts.

Before the shutdown, immigration courts were already overwhelmed. One asylum seeker, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of persecution in her home country, said the wait has been unbearable since her 2014 court date was twice delayed. It is now set for February.

The shutdown could delay cases months or years, say immigration experts. The courts already have more than 800,000 pending cases, according tot he Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University,

Los Angeles County only has 40 judges in immigration court, and immigration cases have been delayed by at least 50 percent at the local and national level in the last two years prior to the shutdown, according to Syracuse University.

"With the immigration courts, clients who have just arrived in the United States because of political asylum that have ankle monitors and are under supervision order will not be able to hear their cases soon in court," said Gustavo Mora, an immigration lawyer..

For the non-detained court in downtown Los Angeles, the court is closed and the front desk and filing window is closed also, People who need to file applications with the court can only do so by mail.

To check on the status of non-detained hearings, respondents should call the court where they have an immigration hearing and they will receive information about whether the court is still closed, advises Ruch.

“It is just dripping with irony,” said Sarah Pierce, policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. “This administration has put a lot of emphasis on speeding up court cases, and the shutdown obviously is just going to cause massive delay.” 

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Homeland Security chief stumbles trying to defend immigration policy; Congress express concern of deportations of Southeast Asians

SCREEN CAPTURE / YOUTUBE

Homeland Security Secretary defends immigration policy during House hearings last week.

AS HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY KIRSTJEN NIELSEN underwent sometimes rancorous grilling from members of Congress over immigration policy, 53 members of Congress expressed their dismay over the recent deportations of Southeast Asians.

Nielsen made her first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday (Dec. 20), and questioning contrasted sharply between Republicans who praised her efforts and Democrats who unleashed all their rage over her agency’s treatment of foreign-born minors and migrants in its custody.

The hearing came less than a week after DHS announced that a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl named Jakelin Caal Maquin died in Border Patrol’s custody, and as Donald Trump was threatening to shut down parts of the federal government unless he receives $5 billion toward a border wall he promised Mexico would pay for.

But while Nielsen had good reason to expect tough questions, she seemed unprepared to deal with them.

Nielsen was bashed for the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy that led to thousands of family separations over the summer, its handling of the migrant caravan, the death of a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl in Border Patrol custody, and a policy announced during the middle of Thursday’s hearing that bars asylum-seekers from entering the U.S.

At one point, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., stormed out of the meeting after calling her a liar.

“Shame on everybody that separates children, that allows them to stay at the other side of the border fearing death, fearing hunger, fearing sickness,” Gutierrez said angrily. “Shame on us for wearing our badge of Christianity during Christmas and allow the secretary to come here and lie.”

Nielsen responded: "Calling me a liar are fighting words. I'm not a liar. We've never had a policy for family separation."

Later, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) asked Nielsen if she was “aware” of a plethora of research indicating the likelihood that immigrants,are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans — a fact that contradicts Trump's main argument to limit immigrantion and those seeking asylum.

“I have not seen those particular studies,” replied Nielsen.

“It’d be helpful if you start putting in some basic facts about the actual facts related to immigrants and crime,” Lieu replied.

Lieu cited a 2015 study by the nonpartisan Cato Institute titled “Immigration and Crime — What the Research Says.” It found that “roughly 1.6 percent of immigrant males 18–39 are incarcerated, compared to 3.3 percent of the native-born,” and concluded that “the weight of the evidence suggests that immigration is not associated with increased levels of crime. To the extent that a relationship does exist, research often finds a negative effect of immigration on levels of crime, in general, and on homicide in particular.”

Prior to the hearing, Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA, CAPAC Immigration Task Force Chair, led 53 Congress members in sending a letter to Nielsen demanding an end to the detention and deportation of Southeast Asian refugees and families.

“We are concerned that the recent retaliatory visa sanctions from the Trump Administration pressuring Cambodia and Laos to accept deported people have propelled these mass detentions and deportations. Additionally, we are also concerned that the Administration’s reinterpretation of the 2008 bilateral agreement between the United States and Vietnam will also lead to increased detentions and deportations of Vietnamese Americans,” said the letter.

“It is troubling to see Southeast Asian American families being targeted at unprecedented levels. We urge you to reexamine policies on the arbitrary detention and deportation of Southeast Asian Americans who prove no threat to public safety, are interwoven into our communities, and support U.S. citizen families. We urge you to use prosecutorial discretion to ensure that our finite resources are not being wasted to tear families apart and deport individuals who have transformed their lives after serving their sentences,” the letter "continued.

Further, we request that you set up a briefing on your discussions with Vietnam, in particular to provide information on any deal with Vietnam to accept deported refugees," said the Congress members.

The letter was sent days after 36 Cambodian Americans were deported to Cambodia from a detention center in Texas. Most of them had criminal records and served time behind bars for as minor an infraction ad a DUI.

"Upon arrival into the United States, many were resettled into struggling neighborhoods. Still coping with significant trauma from the war, some of these refugees made mistakes as teenagers and young adults and were funneled into the criminal justice system. All of them served their time, and the majority transformed their lives to become productive community members, business owners, and loving parents supporting their U.S citizen families," the letter explained.

Read the full letter below:

December 19, 2018

The Honorable Kirstjen M. Nielsen
Secretary
Department of Homeland Security
3801 Nebraska Ave. N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Secretary Nielsen:

We write to express our deep concern about the detention and deportation of Southeast Asian refugees from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. In recent years, we have seen a spike in the arbitrary detention and removal of lawful permanent residents who came to the United States as refugees fleeing the violence and genocide from the Vietnam War and the Khmer Rouge genocide. We urge you to cease detentions and deportations of refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Many of those impacted were born in refugee camps and have never set foot in the countries to which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is trying to remove them. Upon arrival into the United States, many were resettled into struggling neighborhoods. Still coping with significant trauma from the war, some of these refugees made mistakes as teenagers and young adults and were funneled into the criminal justice system. All of them served their time, and the majority transformed their lives to become productive community members, business owners, and loving parents supporting their U.S citizen families. They have checked in dutifully with ICE, some for decades, only now to be suddenly arrested, detained, and deported.

We are concerned that the recent retaliatory visa sanctions from the Trump Administration pressuring Cambodia and Laos to accept deported people have propelled these mass detentions and deportations. Additionally, we are also concerned that the Administration’s reinterpretation of the 2008 bilateral agreement between the United States and Vietnam will also lead to increased detentions and deportations of Vietnamese Americans.[1] The biggest round up of Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants for deportation took place in 2017.[2]Cambodia is currently on target to see record-breaking deportation numbers in 2018.[3]

It is troubling to see Southeast Asian American families being targeted at unprecedented levels. We urge you to reexamine policies on the arbitrary detention and deportation of Southeast Asian Americans who prove no threat to public safety, are interwoven into our communities, and support U.S. citizen families. We urge you to use prosecutorial discretion to ensure that our finite resources are not being wasted to tear families apart and deport individuals who have transformed their lives after serving their sentences. Further, we request that you set up a briefing on your discussions with Vietnam, in particular to provide information on any deal with Vietnam to accept deported refugees.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please contact [our staff] to set up a briefing to address these questions no later than December 27, 2018.

Sincerely,
(sgd) 53 Members of the House of Representatives
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Undocumented being arrested in the courts, says California chief justice

IN A LETTER, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye expressed her deep concern "about reports from some of our trial courts that immigration agents appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests." 

The letter asked Homeland Security and the Attorney General to cease the practice.

“Courthouses should not be used as bait in the necessary enforcement of our country’s immigration laws,” Cantil-Sakauye wrote Thursday to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. “[E]nforcement policies that include stalking courthouses and arresting undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom pose no risk to public safety, are neither safe nor fair.” 

Reports from attorneys up and down the state, from the urban centers to the Central Valley, are telling the Chief Justice that since January, ICE agents are arresting immigrants when they show up at courthouses, according to the Huffington Post. 

RELATED: Looking for an Asian/American in the U.S. Supreme Court

Cantil-Sakauye's Filipina mother was a farmworker, and her Hawaiian-born Filipino/Portuguese father, worked in sugar cane and pineapple plantations before moving to Sacramento. 

She is the 28th Chief Justice of the State of California. She was sworn into office on January 3, 2011 by then Gov. Arnold Swarzenegger. She is the first Asian/Filipina/American and the second woman to serve as the state’s chief justice.
Since Trump has taken office, border control officers and ICE agents have been more aggressive in going after people who have no documentation. In some instances, the agents have arrested people inside the courtroom.

"Enforcement policies that include stalking courthouses and arresting undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom pose no risk to public safety, are neither safe nor fair," reads the letter. "They not only compromise our core value of fairness but they undermine the judiciary’s ability to provide equal access to justice."

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Homeland Security denies entry to journalist at U.S.-Canada border

CBC photo

Ed Ou is at the center of a growing journalism issue.

AN ASIAN/CANADIAN photojournalist's experience at the U.S. border shared with Canada exposes the extent to which Homeland Security has impacted out lives.

Journalist Ed Ou, who has covered the news in some of the most dangerous areas on the planet, was surprised to be turned away at the U.S.-Canada border on his way to cover the protests at Standing Rock, North Dakota.

“It’s very sad because I spent the last 10 years working in very authoritarian regimes in the Middle East where we do have to be very careful about the fact that we are journalists,” Ou told The New York Times. “So I usually have to be very careful in places like that, and I didn’t think that I would have to do the same thing in the States. That’s the last place I should have needed to do that.”
What happened next should send chills up the back of journalists and advocates of a free press. In a lengthy Facebook entry, he wrote:

At the US Customs booth at the airport, I was directed to secondary, where I was immediately asked about the last time I was in Iraq, and why I was so interested in covering Standing Rock. I was then given a list of every country I had been to for the last 5 years and asked to write in detail what I was doing in each trip. I answered quite openly because all my travel could be matched with a published article, and it was nothing they couldn’t have Googled.

A few hours in, they asked me to unlock my phones – and to quote them, “we just need to look into your cell phone to be sure there’s no photos of you posing next to some dead body somewhere.”

I politely declined, citing that as journalists, we have sources that we are obligated to protect, much like doctors have a responsibility to patient privacy, and lawyers have to protect their clients confidentiality. The tone immediately changed. They said they had the right to search everything I bring through the border, including passwords to phones, and threatened that if I didn’t provide them, I could be denied entry.

I was then subject to more interrogations where I was asked questions like “what extremist groups I have met with, how many people I have seen die, and whether I have been ‘approached’ by any government agencies in the Middle East”. They also searched through all my bags and photocopied documents I had on me.

Six hours later, I was told I was being denied entry, but they did not have to tell me the reasons.

"Ed’s treatment was unjustified and unlawful," said the ACLU in a press release. "Although CBP has the authority to stop and search travelers at the border for the purpose of identifying people who are inadmissible or engaged in criminal activity, the officers exceeded that authority. They had no legitimate cause to detain Ed for six hours, interrogate him about his professional activities, copy his diary, or search his phones.

"That abusive and harassing conduct is all the more troubling given that the officers apparently conditioned Ed’s admission to the U.S. on his willingness to assist them in searching his phones," said the ACLU.

Ou started his career early as a teenager, covering the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and the fall of the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu, Somalia while he was studying in the Middle East. He first worked for Reuters and the Associated Press, covering a wide range of news stories in the area. He was also an intern at the New York Times. 

After attending college, he moved to Kazakhstan, where he documented the tragic consequences of Soviet nuclear weapons testing in Semipalatinsk. Recently, he has been covering the wave of uprisings that has rocked the Arab World.

He wasn't held for being a journalist, he said. He answered all their questions in a professional manner  It wasn't until they wanted information from his cell phone when he drew line. Ou said that if the U.S. can do that to journalists, imagine what foreign governments can do to engineers. Can they gather information from their laptops, which might have top secret information in them?

“They can just capture your data. Everything on your cellphone. And your cellphone has absolutely everything about your life. That’s a lot of power you’re giving the government under the auspices of security,” he said.

"And at the end of the day, it is up to all of us to stand up for our right to privacy and a free press wherever we are," said Ou.