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Yassmin Abdel-Magied refused entry to US by customs because of wrong visa

DFAT says the decision to deny Yassmin Abdel-Magied entry is up to the US, as Richard Di Natale rushes to her support.

4 min read
3:09PMApril 12, 2018.
Updated 5:15PMApril 13, 2018
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Yassmin Abdel-Magied has been refused entry into the United States by Customs and Border Protection officials.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied has been refused entry into the United States by Customs and Border Protection officials.

Muslim activist Yassmin Abdel-Magied has been refused entry to the United States and put back on a plane by US Customs and Border Protection officials who say she did not have the correct visa.

Ms Abdel-Magied, who was travelling to the US for a series of speaking engagements, used social media this morning to reveal she had been detained in Minneapolis.

“I’m currently at the border and they’ve said I’m being deported,” she tweeted. “This should be fun. What are my rights.”

But a spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection said Ms Abdel-Magied was turned away as she did not have the appropriate visa.

“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,” said the spokesperson. “As such, she was deemed inadmissable to enter the United States for her visit, but was allowed to withdraw her application for admission. The traveller is eligible to reapply for a visa for future visits.”

A tweet from ABC reporter Gillian OShaughnessy.
A tweet from ABC reporter Gillian OShaughnessy.

A DFAT spokesperson said: “We are aware of reports that an Australian has been refused entry to the United States. Like Australia, the United States administers a strict entry regime.”

“The decision on who can enter the United States is a matter solely for the US government.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade stands ready to offer consular assistance to any Australian citizen should they request it. Owing to privacy considerations we will not provide further comment.”

Ms Abdel-Magied, who now lives in London after leaving Australia, was due to speak at two events at the Pen America World Voices Festival on April 18 and 21. One of the talks was to feature Ms Abdel-Magied and US author Amani Al-Khatahtbeh reflecting on the difficulties of being young Muslim women in the West.

ABC Perth radio host Gillian O’Shaughnessy fired off an expletive-laden social media response to news of Abdel-Magied’s US deportation, tweeting sympathetically: “WHAT THE ACTUAL F***??? You poor thing. That’s so awful.”

The public broadcaster did not respond to emailed questions about O’Shaughnessy’s tweet, including whether it complied with the ABC policy for staff use of social media.

That policy states that both personal and professional use of social media by ABC staff and contractors “must not bring the ABC into disrepute, compromise effectiveness at work, imply ABC endorsement of personal views or disclose, without authorisation, confidential information”, and was invoked after Abdel-Magied’s controversial Anzac Day tweets last year.

While the ABC refused to condemn the tweets at the time, saying Abdel-Magied’s personal views were separate from her then role at the broadcaster, it cancelled the Australia Wide program she hosted a month later as part of a sweeping restructure.

Sydney-based New York Times journalist Isabella Kwai says she spoke to Ms Abdel-Magied “right before” she was put back on the plane and was told that border agents had claimed her B1/B2 visitor visa “was the wrong visa for speakers, although she’s entered on it before to speak at events”.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied posted this Instagram photo as she was being kicked out of the US.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied posted this Instagram photo as she was being kicked out of the US.

According to the US Department of State, activities allowed under the B1/B2 visitor visa category include consulting with business associates, attending a scientific, educational, professional, or business convention or conference or holidaying — however paid performances are not allowed.

The organiser of the festival, PEN America chief executive Suzanne Nossel, said she was “dismayed” that Ms Abdel-Magied had been denied entry to the US.

“We understand that Yassmin was travelling on a type of visa that she had used in the past for similar trips without issue,” Ms Nossel said in a statement.

“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.

“Efforts at visa bans and tightened immigration restrictions threaten to choke off vital channels of dialogue.”

In a series of tweets this morning, Ms Abdel-Magied claimed US border officials “took my phone for the whole time’’ and confiscated her Australian passport before she was told “we’re sending you back’’.

She complained that the “tightening of (US) immigration laws business is working, despite my Australian passport’’.

Ms Abdel-Magied, a former ABC presenter, did not say which country she had been in before flying into the US or where she was now headed and complained “those who say the world is borderless are those who have the right colour passports — or birthplace’’.

Her trouble entering the United States comes after the US Supreme Court last December gave the green light to President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban that targets people from six Muslim-majority countries.

The ban was subject to several legal challenges after opponents said it was in violation of the US Constitution because it discriminates against Muslims.

Asked to comment Australia’s Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge said US visas were a decision for the American government. “At the end of the day it is unusual for an Australian citizen to not be granted a visa to go into the United States, but I simply don’t know the details behind this particular case,” he said.

“I just don’t know the details underpinning this and whether or not it was that she had a tourist visa, that perhaps there was evidence she was planning to do other things other than being a tourist there.”

Ms Abdel-Magied rose to prominence as a vivacious and outspoken young Muslim who succeeded in the male-dominated world of engineering.

But Ms Abdel-Magied’s commentary soon landed her in controversy — there was an outcry over an Anzac Day social media post in which she lamented “Lest We Forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine ...)”.

There was more controversy when she described Islam as the most feminist religion on ABC’s Q&A and a backlash in January when she was seen to mock Australians concerned by gangs of boys and young men of African descent committing crimes in Melbourne.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/yassmin-abdelmagied-claims-she-is-being-deported-from-us/news-story/108bd8ca94c5ac448ab637201a8ce1ca