Australian author and TV personality Yassmin Abdel-Magie has shared her experience of being deported from the United States just three hours after arriving for a writer’s festival.
Taking to Twitter, Abdel-Magie said she had arrived at Minneapolis airport to appear at New York’s PEN World Voices Festival on a panel titled “The M Word: No Country for young Muslim Women”.
“I’m currently at the border and they’ve said I’m being deported,” Abdel-Magi wrote. “This should be fun. What are my rights?”
She continued: “They’ve taken my phone, cancelled my visa and are deporting me. Will follow up on messages once I understand what’s going on.”
“Roughly three hours since touch down in Minneapolis, I’m on a plane back. Subhanallah. Well, guess that tightening of immigration laws business is working, despite my Australian passport. We’re taking off now. What a time…” the author added.
According to authorites, Ms Abdel-Magie was deported from the US because she did not hold the correct visa, the ABC reports.
“During the inspection, CBP officers determined this individual did not possess the appropriate visa to receive monetary compensation for the speaking engagements she had planned during her visit to the United States,” a spokesperson from the US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) said.
“As such, she was deemed inadmissible to enter the United States for her visit, but was allowed to withdraw her application for admission. The traveler is eligible to reapply for a visa for future visits.”
Ms Abdel-Magied was put on a plane to Amsterdam.
Suzanne Nossel, the chief executive of PEN America, told The Guardian she understood Ms Abdel-Magied had used her current visa in the past for other similar visits.
“We understand that Yassmin was traveling on a type of visa that she had used in the past for similar trips without issue. We call on Customs and Border Patrol to admit her to the US so that she can take her rightful place in the urgent international conversation to take place at the festival next week,” Ms Nossel said.
“The very purpose of the PEN World Voices Festival, founded after 9/11 to sustain the connectedness between the US and the wider world, is in jeopardy at a time when efforts at visa bans and tightened immigration restrictions threaten to choke off vital channels of dialogue that are protected under the First Amendment right to receive and impart information through in-person cultural exchange.”
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