Kathleen Wong
Appearances
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
Ginny is from the United States but is living in the UK for quite a few years and she is married to someone from the UK so she has dual citizenship between the US and the UK. She's planning to come to the States to visit her elderly parents in September but feels a lot of nerves just with
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
everything she's hearing about deportations, and detainments, higher scrutiny at the borders, and just everything seems to be changing very quickly. And that's kind of making her very anxious about what could happen between crossing the border to come back home.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
And we're kind of hearing that across the board, we're hearing more border control checks, we're hearing more random stops, even to US citizens, so not just visa holders and green card holders.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
So we're seeing a lot of high-profile cases of detainments and deportation and just higher security across the borders. And a lot of those cases have to do with people who exercised their freedom of speech, maybe being outspoken against certain things, and they're getting in trouble for that.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
And so a lot of people are kind of scared that maybe they could also get in trouble or be seen as doing something wrong. And so no one really... knows what is safe right now. And that's just causing a lot of concern for Americans.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
So what we're seeing are mostly green card holders and visa holders, so student or work visas. They're lawfully allowed to live here or being targeted by ICE for, like I mentioned, being outspoken, being considered a threat to public safety or terrorist sympathizers. That's kind of under the administration's increased, I guess you could say, targeting for national security.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
An immigration attorney put it this way to basically not leave any stone unturned. So they're going to be doing enhanced vetting. They're given a broad level of discretion. So really just able to interrogate you. Border control has always been able to search your devices, but that wasn't very frequent. And now we're going to see that a lot more.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
Maybe legal residents who didn't have issues crossing borders may be questioned more. So across the board, we're just going to see a lot more scrutiny.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
People are nervous about what they have could be taken the wrong way. And so they're cleaning up their social media, maybe putting it to private. That's what I'm hearing a lot. Cleaning up their phones from photos or videos that could also be taken the wrong way. And I think just trying to appear cleaned up at the border, you could say it's tricky to really prepare.
The Excerpt
Trump administration moves to fire remaining USAID staff
But the best advice I heard from immigration attorneys is to be really truthful about the purpose of your trip. Make sure all of your documents are up to date and they can support your claims on what you're doing and who you are. And you can also consult an immigration lawyer if you are nervous about anything.