As Trump broadens crackdown, focus expands to legal immigrants and tours | World News

It is not clear how much those tactics were used to pick up people in a string of recent cases in which visitors trying to enter the United States reported being turned back or detained. But two homeland security officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter in detail, acknowledged that officers were acting more aggressively after Mr. Trump’s executive order.
Two German tours said they were stopped separately at border crossings at San Diego and Tijuana and sent to a crowded detention center, where they reported being denied a translator and being put in solitary confinement. A Canadian national said she was detained and put “in chains” when officers flagged her visa paperwork.
Homeland security agencies have not answered questions about either case.
This month, a French scient was prevented from entering the country. France’s miner for higher education said US Border Patrol agents found messages in which he expressed his “personal opinion” to colleagues and friends about Mr. Trump’s science policies.Story continues below this ad
Ms. McLaughlin denied that and said the scient had confidential information on his electronic device from Los Alamos National Laboratory, which he had taken without permission and tried to conceal.
The scient was working for France’s publicly funded National Center for Scientific Research. Representatives for the center said he did not wish to speak to the media, but they did not immediately respond to the Homeland Security Department’s allegations against him.
In another case, the department stopped and detained Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant special and professor at Brown University who was trying to return to the United States after visiting relatives in Lebanon. The adminration deported Dr. Alawieh despite her having a valid visa and a court order blocking her removal. Federal authorities said in a court filing that they found “sympathetic photos and videos of prominent Hezbollah figures” in her phone and that she attended the funeral for the leader of Hezbollah in February.

When it comes to scrutinizing people already living in the United States, investigators for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who typically focus on long-term inquiries have been searching videos, online posts and news clippings of campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war. They have then compiled reports on their findings for the State Department.Story continues below this ad
The government also appears to be getting information from private groups like the Middle East Forum, a conservative think tank. The group said in a statement that it had more than 15 active investigations on “national security issues” and would share results about “terror-aligned individuals and organizations with the relevant government agencies.”
A spokesman for the forum declined to answer questions about its communication with the Trump adminration. But the statement from the group said it had a “three-decade hory of sharing the results of our work with the appropriate government and law enforcement agencies on all issues where US national security is concerned.”
To deport people living in the United States with green cards or valid visas, the Trump adminration has invoked a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state sweeping power to expel foreigners who are seen as a threat to the country’s foreign policy interests.
Using that authority, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate who has Palestinian heritage and took on a prominent role in the pro-Palestinian protests at the school, and Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen who has been studying and teaching at Georgetown.Story continues below this ad
Mr. Khalil has a green card, which means he is a legal permanent resident. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, has accused him of “siding with terrors.”
Ms. McLaughlin has accused Dr. Suri of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” without providing evidence.
According to an official familiar with Dr. Suri’s case, the State Department justified his deportation arguing that he engaged in antisemitic activity that would undermine diplomatic efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a cease-fire. He is in the United States on a visa for academics.
Dr. Suri’s wife, an American citizen of Palestinian descent, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, the former adviser to a Hamas leader who was assassinated last year in Iran.Story continues below this ad
According to a court filing from his lawyers, Dr. Suri was surrounded masked homeland security agents outside his home in Virginia on Monday night, arrested and placed in an unmarked S.U.V. A judge has temporarily blocked his removal from the country.
Lawyers for Mr. Khalil and Dr. Suri argue that the adminration is punishing them for speaking out for Palestinians. Neither man has been charged with a crime. They are being detained while their lawyers fight against their deportations.

Chad Wolf, who served as the acting homeland security secretary near the end of Mr. Trump’s first term, defended the adminration’s crackdown, contending that a visa is a discretionary benefit provided the US government.

“They’re going to use every lever that they have to protect the American people,” he said.Story continues below this ad
But free-speech advocates see a different dynamic at play. Will Creeley, the legal director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said he believed the Trump adminration’s “clear motivation here is to chill speech.”
“Simply saying someone is aligned to a terror organization does not exempt them from First Amendment protections,” Mr. Creeley said. “The adminration has not produced any evidence that Mr. Khalil’s expressive activity falls into the narrow or carefully defined exceptions to the First Amendment.”
Mr. Creeley’s group and others have filed an amicus brief in support of Mr. Khalil.
Janet Napolitano, who served as homeland security secretary during the Obama adminration, said Mr. Trump’s recent crackdown on immigrants with legal status ran “contrary to what the First Amendment is all about.”
“When the justification is ‘you’re a threat to national security’ and it’s like one individual, I mean come on,” Ms. Napolitano said. “Let’s be real.”