Two recent cases of people with legal status being detained, or deported, after arriving at Boston Logan Airport following international travel are raising concerns for immigration lawyers about enforcement at the airport – a major hub for air travel in New Hampshire and the rest of the Northeast – and what these say about the rights of green card and visa holders under the current administration.
“This administration from the beginning said that they were going to be targeting violent criminals, and that is not what we're seeing,” said Manchester Immigration lawyer Enrique Mesa. “We're just seeing them interrogate hard working residents.”
Earlier this month, Fabian Schmidt, a New Hampshire resident and green card holder, was detained by Customs and Border Patrol at Boston Logan airport earlier this month after a trip to Luxembourg. He’s currently being held at a facility in Rhode Island, and Schmidt’s lawyer told The Public’s Radio this week that he remains in “legal limbo” as he’s waiting to find out if and what he has been charged with.
Schmidt’s case was followed by the case of Lebanese doctor Rasha Alawieh, who has an H-1B visa, a kind of visa typically reserved for workers with advanced expertise. Alawieh was detained over the weekend and sent back to Lebanon, despite a court order temporarily barring officials from sending her back.
Traveling with a criminal record
Under the current circumstances, Mesa is advising his clients to think carefully about the risks of travelling, even if they have a green card. However, if a client must travel, Mesa tells his clients to make sure they take the documents that certify their status, like a resident card or extension notice if conditional residency has expired.
If a client has a criminal record, Mesa said it was important to bring a court certified disposition showing that the case has been dismissed or resolved. This was the case for Schmidt, who was likely to have been flagged by CBP for having a criminal record.
GBH reported that Schmidt had a misdemeanor charge for having marijuana in his car in 2015 which were later dismissed after laws changed in California around marijuana possession. Schmidt’s mother, Astrid Senior, told the outlet that he had also worked through and paid off a DUI from 10 years ago, and is successfully recovering from alcoholism.
Hilton Beckham, the Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs at CBP told GBH that officers will take “proper action” when someone has drug related charges and tries to reenter the country.
CBP has not responded to further questions about Schmidt from NHPR.
Jeff Joseph, the president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, has been in the field for more than two decades. He said that the enhanced scrutiny during reentry is new. He explained that permanent residents are usually admitted back into the country – with some exceptions like leaving the country during a deportation proceeding, giving up residence or committing a crime while travelling outside the country
“This is a huge caveat to the universe now that when you travel, if you travel after having committed a crime, be prepared that you're going to be put in secondary screening and that it's going to be your burden to show that that particular crime doesn't make you ineligible to come into the country.”
Scrutinizing conduct
These two cases come around the same time as public outcry over the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and permanent resident who was detained by Homeland Security, apparently for his prominent roles in protests at Columbia against Israel's war in Gaza.
In the case of the Rhode Island kidney transplant specialist sent back to Lebanon, the Department of Homeland said that Alawieh attended the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah, a controversial religious figure and longtime secretary of Hezbollah. A spokesperson for the department added that Alawieh also expressed support for Nasrallah.
“Foreign nationals who promote extremist ideologies or carry terrorist propaganda are inadmissible to the U.S., plain and simple,” CBP spokesperson Hilton Beckham said in a statement to NHPR.
Beckham added that a visa doesn’t guarantee entry, and that officers “act swiftly to deny entry to those who glorify terrorist organizations, advocate violence, or openly support terrorist leaders and commemorate their deaths. Anyone found with extremist materials linked to a U.S.-designated terrorist group will be removed.”
For Joseph, what’s alarming about these cases is that conduct, and not criminal convictions, are being used to determine whether someone is deportable.
“All of us Americans, foreign nationals who are in our country documented or undocumented, should be concerned about the fact that our conduct could, in fact, render us deportable or inadmissible,” he said.
Joseph said as U.S. foreign policy changes often, it can be near impossible to tell whether certain conduct – like attending a protest, or going to a funeral – will be frowned upon by future administrations.
First amendment concerns
For immigration lawyer Celine Atallah, the deportation of Alawieh is particularly concerning as a case about the freedom of speech and religion, both of which are protected by the First Amendment.
As a Lebanese-American herself, Atallah also pointed out that Nasrallah was not only a political leader, but also viewed as a religious leader by many Shia Muslims. Since Alawieh also wears a veil, Atallah added that deporting Alawieh could be interpreted as religious discrimination.
Atallah explained that immigration law finds people inadmissible to enter the country for “material support” of terrorism, like money services, or logistics.
Since Alawieh's record is sealed, there’s still limited information available. However, based on what is available, Atallah said that going to a funeral shouldn’t be enough to go against a court order. Because Alawieh didn’t get the chance to argue her case in court, Atallah said that CBP’s concerns over national security are a “loophole” that gets rid of her right to due process.
That makes Atallah grapple with the kind of message this sends to the world. She said people from across the world move to the United States to escape persecution. She added that taking actions to punish immigrants for their beliefs goes against the country’s founding principles.
“This is what authoritarian regimes do. This is what happens in countries where dissent is criminalized, where people vanish for attending the wrong event, for speaking the wrong words. And now, we are doing it here,” she said. “If freedom of expression is no longer protected here, and if federal agencies can openly defy court orders, then America is no longer America."
