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      Here’s what you need to know about your rights when entering the US

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      Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, he has carried out the hardline immigration policies he promised on the campaign trail.Trump’s administration sent migrants to the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba – with little access to legal counsel – and singled out two pro-Palestinian academics for deportation. The administration also failed to return El Salvador-destined deportation flights in potential violation of a court order.But in recent weeks, immigration authorities have also repeatedly detained US-bound tourists at the border, sparking public and diplomatic outrage abroad and fears among many people planning trips to the US, or living in the country on visas.Examples have made global headlines. A British woman said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained her for three weeks after a mixup at the US-Canada border. Canadian businesswoman and actor Jasmine Mooney said she was detained by Ice for two weeks. Jessica Brösche, a 29-year-old tattoo artist from Germany, was held in immigration detention for six weeks before returning home.There’s suspicion that in some cases people were turned away over anti-Trump views. Among them is a French scientist who was denied entry after immigration officers at an airport found messages on his phone that were critical of Trump, France’s minister of higher education said.With serious concerns growing about whether visitors can safely travel to the US without fear of landing in immigration detention, here is a brief guide to international visitors’ rights.I have valid travel documents. Can customs officers stop and search me?Yes. US customs officers can stop people at entry points to assess whether they can come into the US. They are permitted to search travelers’ belongings for contraband, according to the ACLU of Pennsylvania.They can do this even if there’s nothing suspicious about you or your belongings. Customs agents are not allowed to search you or conduct another inspection “based on your religion, race, national origin, gender, ethnicity or political beliefs”.What about my mobile phone?The government asserts that their authority to search travelers without individualized suspicion also includes searches of electronic devices, including cellphones and laptops. That said, this assertion remains “a contested legal issue”, the ACLU said. Customs officers have at times asked travelers to give them their phone or laptop passwords when they going to or from the US.And if I refuse to unlock my devices?Citizens of the US can’t be denied entry if they refuse to provide passwords or unlock their devices. However, if they refuse, it could prompt a delay, still more questioning and customs officers taking their phone for further inspection.This should also be true for US lawful permanent residents who have been admitted to the US before and maintain their immigration status, as their green cards “can’t be revoked without a hearing before an immigration judge”. For visa holders and travelers from visa waiver countries, they are at risk of being denied entry if they refuse to unlock devices, the ACLU said.If my country is in the visa waiver program, can I enter?In general, the visa waiver program allows citizens of about four dozen countries to enter for up to 90 days without a visa for tourism or business. Citizens of the US, in turn, can travel up to 90 days in program countries.However, travelers from waiver program countries still need valid Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) approval before they come here for at least 72 hours prior to getting on a flight, the New York Times explains.The tricky part is that you can’t get an ESTA if you traveled to certain places after specified times, such as Cuba after 12 January 2021, the Times said. Without an ESTA, a tourist visa is necessary.I have an ESTA. Does that mean I can work?Visitors coming to the US with an ESTA are prohibited from studying or engaging in permanent work. ESTA visitors also give up many rights, such as the right to fight deportation – meaning that persons traveling with an ESTA could wind up facing “mandatory detention”, the Times said.Does a visa allow me to work?There are three types of visas for non-immigrant visitors to the US. There is a visitor visa allowing temporary entry for business purposes, a tourism visa, and a visa for business and travel.The three visas last as long as a decade but visitors with these visas can stay a maximum of six months in the US. Among other things, visitors with these visas are not allowed to do permanent work or study, or engage in paid performances, according to the New York Times.Even if your documents are in order, that doesn’t guarantee admission into the US. According to the Department of State, customs officials “have authority to permit or deny admission to the United States”.What happens if I’m detained?Civil rights advocates now suggest that visitors into the US, especially people who are not citizens, bring information to call an immigration lawyer or emergency contact if they encounter problems. “The stories are definitely concerning,” Noor Zafar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told the Washington Post.Zafar reportedly said that if travelers are detained, it’s advisable to comply with immigration officers’ directions – and get in touch with a lawyer immediately.So what rights do I actually have?Visitors to the US do have the right to remain silent. But choosing to do so at an entry point could jeopardize entry.If a customs agent asks a visitor with a tourist visa whether they were going to work during their stay, and that person doesn’t answer, then it could result in their being denied entry.If a visitor is not allowed to enter the US, they can “withdraw” their intent to do so and be permitted to return home. Typically their visa gets canceled and they fly back right away.An officer could deny this withdrawal, however, and detain the visitor. That is because these encounters technically take place outside the US and constitutional protections don’t hold. As a result, detainees in this situation don’t automatically have the right to an attorney.How does this work?“If you’re a foreign national, first understand you haven’t affected an entry despite being physically on US soil until you’re admitted properly,” said immigration attorney Michael Wildes, managing partner of Wildes and Weinberg and a professor at the Cardozo School of Law.“It’s a term of art when you’re admitted fully to the United States,” he said. When a person lands on US soil but is not technically admitted, “you might be considered to be what’s called an ‘arriving alien’.“You have greater rights as a criminal than as a foreign national coming with a visa.” More

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      US tourism industry faces drop-off as immigration agenda deters travellers

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      A string of high-profile arrests and detentions of travellers is likely to cause a major downturn in tourism to the US, with latest figures already showing a serious drop-off, tourist experts said.Several western travellers have recently been rejected at the US border on increasingly flimsy grounds under Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, some of them shackled and held in detention centers in poor conditions for weeks.Germany updated travel guidance for travelling to the US, warning that breaking entry rules could lead not just to a rejection as before, but arrest or even detention. Three German citizens have been held for prolonged periods despite apparently having committed no crime nor any obvious violation of US visa or immigration rules – including one US green card holder who was detained at Boston’s Logan airport.The UK Foreign Office, too, has bolstered its advice to warn of a risk of arrest after Becky Burke, a tourist from Wales who had been backpacking across America, was stopped at the border with Canada and held for three weeks in a detention facility. Last week members of the UK Subs, a British punk band, were denied entry and detained after they landed at Los Angeles international airport.Even before the most recent spate of detentions, forecast visits to the country this year had been revised downward from a projected 5% rise to a 9% decrease by Tourism Economics, an industry monitoring group, which cited “polarising Trump Administration policies and rhetoric”, particularly around tariffs.It predicted that the drop-off would lead to a $64bn shortfall in the US tourist trade.“There’s been a dramatic shift in our outlook,” said Adam Sacks, the president of Tourism Economics, told the Washington Post. “You’re looking at a much weaker economic engine than what otherwise would’ve been, not just because of tariffs, but the rhetoric and condescending tone around it.”The decline has been most pronounced from neighbouring Canada, which Trump has menaced with crippling tariffs and repeatedly threatened to annex outright. The number of Canadians returning by road from the US fell by 23% in February, year on year, while air traffic fell 13% on a year earlier, according to Canadian government statistics.A Canadian actor made headlines this week when she revealed US authorities had handcuffed her and moved her out of state to a detention center, where she spent several weeks in “inhumane conditions” despite not having been accused of any crime.Neri Karra Sillaman, an entrepreneurship expert at Oxford University, told Fast Company that travellers now viewed entering the US as “too difficult or unpredictable”.“Even if you get a visa, you have the risk of being detained or to be denied,” she said, adding that even as a valid US visa holder, married to an American, she was hesitating to visit the country in the current climate.That climate was in further evidence this week as Denmark and Finland issued cautionary advice to transgender travellers, following US state department rule changes spurred by the Trump administration decree that it would recognise only two genders. The Danish foreign ministry advised travellers who use the gender designation “X” on their passport to contact the US embassy before travelling, while Finland cautioned travellers whose gender had changed that they might not gain entry.The recent episodes are all the more striking because they involve countries long allied to the US, although students and academics from India and the Middle East have also been detained in recent days despite holding valid visas. While visitors from many regions have long had difficulty entering the US, immigration officials have traditionally taken a more lenient stance towards travellers from allied nations.Pedro Rios, the director of the American Friends Service Committee, a non-profit group that aids migrants, told AP that it was unprecedented in the 22 years he had worked at the southern border for travellers from western Europe and Canada to be detained with such regularity.“It’s definitely unusual with these cases so close together, and the rationale for detaining these people doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The only reason I see is there is a much more fervent anti-immigrant atmosphere.” More

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      Trump news at a glance: Musk is denied look at China war plans and more visitors are refused entry to US

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      Musk has China conflict of interest, says TrumpDonald Trump said on Friday that plans for possible war with China should not be shared with Elon Musk because of his business interests, a rare admission that the billionaire faces conflicts of interests in his role as a senior adviser to the US president.Trump rejected reports that Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China, saying: “Elon has businesses in China. And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.”Read the full storyUK punk band denied US entryMembers of a British punk rock band said they were denied entry and detained in the US. UK Subs bassist Alvin Gibbs, and bandmates Marc Carrey and Stefan Häublein, were deported back to the UK following their detention. Only vocalist Charlie Harper had been allowed entry. Harper ended up playing the band’s scheduled show in Los Angeles with a group of stand-in musicians.Read the full storyAnger at US blocking Canadian access to cross-border libraryThe US has blocked Canadian access to a library straddling the Canada-US border, drawing criticism from a Quebec town where people have long enjoyed easy entry to the space.The entrance to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House is located between Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont, with an electrical tape marking the border line. The library’s entrance is on the Vermont side and Canadian visitors could previously enter using the sidewalk and entrance on the American side. Now they have to go through a formal border crossing.Read the full storyColumbia University caves to Trump demands to restore $400mColumbia University has yielded to a series of changes demanded by the Trump administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.Among the most contentious of the nine demands, Columbia agreed to place its Middle Eastern, south Asian and African studies department under a new official, a memo said, taking control away from its faculty. “In this role, the senior vice-provost will review the educational programs to ensure the educational offerings are comprehensive and balanced,” the memo read, explaining that the review would start with the Center for Palestine Studies; the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies; the Middle East Institute; and other university programs focused on the Middle East.Read the full storyTrump says Boeing will build new US fighter jetsDonald Trump on Friday awarded Boeing the contract to build the US air force’s most sophisticated fighter jet, handing the company a much-needed win. Trump, the 47th US president, announced the airline had beaten out Lockheed Martin for the deal and added that the new jet will be called the F-47.Read the full storyTeachers to sue Trump over education orderTeachers unions and Democratic politicians joined in denouncing Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at eliminating the US Department of Education, with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) saying simply: “See you in court.”Read the full story530,000 people will have legal US status revokedTrump officials will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice on Friday, in the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration. It will be effective 24 April.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The Trump administration will reportedly fire almost all employees at the homeland security department’s civil rights office, in a move that will undermine its ability to provide oversight as he implements hardline immigration policies.

      The US president signalled flexibility on new tariffs, due to come in on 2 April. Without giving further details, Trump said: “The word flexibility is an important word. Sometimes there’s flexibility, so there’ll be flexibility.”

      Trump also partook in some royal intrigue with a social media post declaring his love for Britain’s King Charles and saying he would welcome a reported “secret offer” billed as easing tensions with Canada. More

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      US homeland security guts three oversight offices, laying off 100 workers

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      The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday gutted three oversight offices by placing more than 100 workers on paid leave, a Trump administration official and two former officials said.The workers, including those in the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, were given layoff notices as part of a large-scale government reduction by the Trump administration, one of the affected staffers said, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter.“These offices have obstructed immigration enforcement by adding bureaucratic hurdles and undermining DHS’s mission,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Rather than supporting law enforcement efforts, they often function as internal adversaries that slow down operations.“McLaughlin said the offices would be subject to a “reduction in force”, the government term for layoffs.Trump launched a wide-ranging immigration crackdown after taking office on 20 January, pulling resources from across the federal government to focus on enforcement. Advocates have raised concerns that the more aggressive efforts could infringe on the rights of immigrants and US citizens alike.White House officials are reviewing federal agencies’ downsizing plans, a move expected to result in the mass firing of thousands of government workers within the coming weeks, Reuters reported on Friday.Trump had given the agencies until 13 March to draw up plans for a second wave of mass layoffs as part of his rapid-fire effort to reshape and reduce the size of the federal government, which he has called bloated and inefficient.The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties investigates potential rights violations within the department and fields complaints from the public.The other two offices targeted were the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman and the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, which served similar oversight functions.Thousands of workers fired in Trump’s effort to slash the government workforce have sued to have their jobs reinstated by federal judges. More

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      Columbia University caves to demands to restore $400m from Trump administration

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      Columbia University has agreed to a series of changes demanded by the Trump administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.The university released a memo outlining its agreement with Donald Trump’s administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire.Columbia acquiesced to most of the administration’s demands in a memo that laid out measures including banning face masks on campus, empowering security officers to remove or arrest individuals, and taking control of the department that offers courses on the Middle East from its faculty.The Ivy League university’s response is being watched by other universities that the administration has sanctioned as it advances its policy objectives in areas ranging from campus protests to transgender sports and diversity initiatives.The administration has warned at least 60 other universities of possible action over alleged failure to comply with federal civil rights laws related to antisemitism. It has also targeted at least three law firms that the president says helped his political opponents or helped prosecute him unfairly.Among the most contentious of the nine demands, Columbia agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department under a new official, the memo said, taking control away from its faculty.The university will appoint a new senior administrator to review curriculum and faculty to make sure they are balanced, and provide fresh leadership at the department, which offers courses on Middle Eastern politics and related subjects.The demand had raised alarm among professors at Columbia and elsewhere, who worried that permitting the federal government to dictate how a department is run would set a dangerous precedent.Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives last year criticized at least two professors of Palestinian descent working in the department for their comments about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.The school has also hired three dozen special officers who have the power to arrest people on campus and has revised its anti-discrimination policies, including its authority to sanction campus organizations, the memo said.Face masks to conceal identities are no longer allowed, and any protesters must now identify themselves when asked, the memo said.The school also said it is searching for new faculty members to “ensure intellectual diversity”. Columbia plans to fill joint positions in the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies and the international affairs school in an effort to ensure “excellence and fairness in Middle East studies”, the memo said. The sudden shutdown of millions of dollars in federal funding to Columbia University this month was already disrupting medical and scientific research at the school, researchers said. More

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      Trump revokes legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans

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      Donald Trump’s administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice on Friday, in the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration.It will be effective 24 April.The move cuts short a two-year “parole” granted to the immigrants under former president Joe Biden that allowed them to enter the country by air if they had US sponsors.Trump, a Republican, took steps to ramp up immigration enforcement after taking office, including a push to deport record numbers of immigrants in the US illegally. He has argued that the legal entry parole programs launched under his Democratic predecessor overstepped the boundaries of federal law and called for their termination in a 20 January executive order.Trump said on 6 March that he would decide “very soon” whether to strip the parole status from some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled to the US during the conflict with Russia. Trump’s remarks came in response to a Reuters report that said his administration planned to revoke the status for Ukrainians as soon as April.Biden launched a parole entry program for Venezuelans in 2022 and expanded it to Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans in 2023 as his administration grappled with high levels of illegal immigration from those nationalities. Diplomatic and political relations between the four countries and the United States have been strained.The new legal pathways came as Biden tried to clamp down on illegal crossings at the US-Mexico border.The Trump administration’s decision to strip the legal status from half a million migrants could make many vulnerable to deportation if they choose to remain in the US. It remains unclear how many who entered the US on parole now have another form of protection or legal status. More

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      Trump makes rare admission of Musk’s conflicts of interest after Pentagon visit

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      Donald Trump said on Friday that plans for possible war with China should not be shared with Elon Musk because of his business interests, a rare admission that the billionaire faces conflicts of interests in his role as a senior adviser to the US president.Trump rejected reports that Musk would be briefed on how the United States would fight a hypothetical war with China, saying: “Elon has businesses in China. And he would be susceptible, perhaps, to that.”The reference to Musk’s businesses – which include Tesla, an electric vehicle manufacturer trying to expand sales and production in China – is an unusual acknowledgment of concerns about Musk balancing his corporate and government responsibilities.Trump had previously brushed off questions about Musk’s potential conflicts of interest, simply saying that he would steer clear when necessary.The president said that Musk visited the Pentagon on Friday morning to discuss reducing costs, which he has been working on through the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Musk was there “to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations”.Musk said while leaving the Pentagon that he was ready to do “anything that could be helpful”. He also refused to answer questions as to whether he received a classified briefing on China as part of the visit.As a key adviser to Trump and the head of Doge, Musk has exercised broad powers in the two months since Trump returned to the White House, conducting mass layoffs and slashing budgets across the federal government. But while the Pentagon was also in line to be a target for job cuts, Musk has yet to play any role there, including in defense intelligence and military operations.A senior defense official told reporters on Tuesday that roughly 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs would be cut in the defense department.Musk’s involvement in any US plans or dealings with China would raise not only security concerns but questions over a significant conflict of interest, as he has considerable economic interests in China as the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, which also has contracts with the US air force.In the early hours of Friday morning, Musk denied the reports that he would be briefed on war with China, calling it “pure propaganda” and threatening to find those who leaked the information.“I look forward to the prosecutions of those at the Pentagon who are leaking maliciously false information,” he wrote. “They will be found.”Musk repeated his demand for such prosecutions upon arrival at the Department of Defense on the outskirts of Washington DC on Friday morning. He left the Pentagon about 90 minutes after arriving.A Pentagon spokesperson, asked by email to explain the true purpose of Musk’s briefing given administration denials that it would involve putative war plans with China, referred the Guardian to a statement posted on social media by Hegseth.In a Friday meeting at the White House to announce new air force fighter planes, Trump and Hegseth both firmly rejected reports that Musk was shown any Pentagon plans regarding a potential conflict with China during his visit earlier that day.“They made that up because it’s a good story to make up. They’re very dishonest people,” Trump said about the New York Times reporting. “I called up Pete [Hegseth] and I said: ‘Is there any truth to that?’ Absolutely not, he’s there for Doge, not there for China. And if you ever mentioned China, I think he’d walk out of the room.”Hegseth echoed Trump’s notion that the visit was focused on discussing government efficiency initiatives and innovation opportunities, adding that there were “no Chinese war plans”.“We welcomed him today to the Pentagon to talk about [the ‘department of government efficiency’], to talk about efficiencies, to talk about innovations. It was a great informal conversation,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHegseth suggested the reporting was deliberately intended to “undermine whatever relationship the Pentagon has with” the Tesla CEO.However, some military experts have still expressed concern about Musk’s level of access to sensitive information.Wesley Clark, retired general and former Nato supreme commander, told CNN in an interview on Friday afternoon that the administration has been “cutting a lot of corners in a lot of areas”.“It’s no problem giving him a general impression, we do this for contractors, but the conflict of interest – I’m more interested in his interests abroad, he talks to Putin, he has business in China, he has other considerations and those can impact things,” Clark said.“I’m more worried about Elon Musk coming into the Pentagon and saying ‘I’m high tech and I have smart people in Silicon Valley and these generals do not know anything’. You have got to be really careful about jumping on the next shiny object.”According to a New York Times report, the meeting was set to take place not in Hegseth’s office, where informal meetings about innovation would normally take place, but in a secure conference room known as “the Tank”, which is typically used for higher-level meetings. Musk was to be briefed on a plan that contains 20 to 30 slides and details how the US military would fight a conflict with China.Officials who spoke anonymously with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal offered up potential reasons why Musk was receiving the briefing. The Times suggested that Musk, in his Doge capacity, might be looking into trimming the Pentagon’s budget and would need to know what military assets the US would use in a potential conflict with China.One source told the Journal that Musk was receiving the briefing because he asked for one.Though Musk has a “top-secret” clearance within the federal government, lawyers at SpaceX advised him in December not to seek higher levels of security clearances, which would probably be denied due to his foreign ties and personal drug use.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      US blocks Canadian access to cross-border library, sparking outcry

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      The US has blocked Canadian access to a library straddling the Canada-US border, drawing criticism from a Quebec town where people have long enjoyed easy entry to the space.The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is located between Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont. It was built deliberately to straddle the frontier between the two countries – a symbol of cooperation and friendship between Canada and the US.The library’s entrance is on the Vermont side. Previously, Canadian visitors were able to enter using the sidewalk and entrance on the American side but were encouraged to bring documentation, according to the library’s website.Inside, a line of electrical tape demarcates the international boundary. About 60% of the building, including the books, is located in Canada. Upstairs, in the opera house, the audience sits in the US while the performers are in Canada.Under the new rules, Canadians will need to go through a formal border crossing before entering the library.“This closure not only compromises Canadian visitors’ access to a historic symbol of cooperation and harmony between the two countries but also weakens the spirit of cross-border collaboration that defines this iconic location,” the town of Stanstead said in a press release on Thursday.US Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to queries posed on Friday.In a statement to Reuters, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said the US was responding to drug trafficking.“Drug traffickers and smugglers were exploiting the fact that Canadians could use the US entrance without going through customs. We are ending such exploitation by criminals and protecting Americans,” the statement said.The department provided no evidence of drug trafficking or smuggling and did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.In 2018 a Quebec man named Alexis Vlachos pleaded guilty in a Vermont court to charges relating to a plot to use the library to smuggle backpacks full of handguns into Canada on at least two occasions. He was later sentenced to 51 months in a US prison.Relations between the United States and Canada, longtime allies, have deteriorated since Donald Trump threatened to annex Canada as the 51st state and imposed tariffs.The library is a relic of a time when Americans and Canadians could cross the border with simply a nod and a wave at border agents, residents say. It was the gift of a local family in the early 1900s to serve the nearby Canadian and American communities.A small group of American and Canadian protesters gathered outside on Friday.Peter Welch, a Democratic senator from Vermont, called reports of the closure troubling.“Vermont loves Canada. This shared cultural institution celebrates a partnership between our two nations,” Welch said on X. More