An Indian-origin was stopped at the George Bush International Airport in Houston, Texas.
Sidd Bikkannavar is an American citizen of Indian-origin and an employee of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
After spending two weeks in South America, he was flying back home to the United States on January 30th. When he arrived at the airport, he was welcomed with an unexpected gesture that Sidd would never have thought as he was an American.
According to the reports, he was stopped at the airport and was questioned for over four hours and also had to divulge his phone’s PIN to be let of finally.
Sidd left to South America on January 15th, while Obama was still the President, when he returned on January 30th, it was little over a week into the Trump’s presidency.
Sidd posted an on his Facebook wall stating that he was “detained by the Homeland Security and held with others stranded due to the immigration ban.”
Though he initially refused to share his PIN, as his one of the phone was the property of his office with confidential information on it, he was forced to give his PIN and was detained till they finished copying data from the phone.
His entry should not have raised such problems as he is an American by birth with a US passport. He is also enrolled in Global Entry, a program through CBP that allows individuals who have undergone background checks to have expedited entry into the country.
Sidd did not visit any of the listed country listed in Trump’s immigration ban. His office where he has been working since 10 years, JPL, is a US federal agency.
His passport was scanned by the CBP, when he entered the country and was taken to a room to wait along with five other people, who seemed to be affected by the ban.
Sidd asked why Homeland security officers that why he was being questioned, but they did not provide him any answer.Sidd was also presented with a document titled “Inspection of Electronic Devices” and he was explained that the CBP can search his phone. He showed them the phone which had a JPL pin code protection, making the device a property of NASA.
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