A BBC journalist has tweeted his experience of travelling through Los Angeles airport after Donald Trump imposed a travel ban in 1 (2022) Full Pinoy Movieseven Muslim-majority countries.
Ali Hamedani, a British citizen who was born in Iran, said he was detained for two hours and was forced to undergo invasive checks at the US border.
Officials took away his phone and started searching his Twitter account for political views.
Hamedani, who works for BBC World Service, had travelled from London Heathrow to Chicago O'Hare airport while holding a British passport:
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Hamedani told BBC Radio 5Live's Stephen Nolan: “So they took away my phone and they started searching and I saw the guy searching my Twitter account.
“So they were looking to find about any kind of political views, whether I’m supporting anybody – any kind of extremist idea or not.
“They also asked me questions about whether I have been trained by the military, if I had been trained in military bases in Iran or when was the last time I was back home in Iran.
“It wasn’t pleasant at all. To be honest with you, I was arrested back home in Iran in 2009 because I was working for the BBC and I felt the same this time.”
He said he was "touched" by the sight of protesters at the airport after making it through security: “The very touching moment was when I came out of the whole thing, when I came out into the arrival hall, I have met more than 50 people, most of them American ... and they hugged me and they welcomed me and they were trying to say ‘this is not the real America, we are the real American people’.”
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Hamedani acknowledged that there were others less fortunate:
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It wasn't immediately clear if the ban would automatically also apply to those with dual citizenship.
British foreign secretary Boris Johnson indicated that Briton's with dual nationalities would not be prevented from entering the US.
He said only those travelling directly to the US from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Syria will be subjected to heightened scrutiny.
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But the US embassy in the UK contradicted Johnson with a statement suggesting all UK dual nationals from those 7 countries are still banned:
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