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NEW YORK – An Australian writer, who attended Columbia University, claims he was detained and interrogated at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) becuase of his reporting on student protests.
Alistair, who publishes a substack blog, detailed his experience in a recent article. He says that after a 14-hour flight from Melbourne, he was stopped by Officer Martinez and taken to an interrogation room.
According to Alistair,Officer Martinez demanded his phone passcode and threatened immediate deportation if he didn’t comply. feeling pressured, Alistair relented.
The subsequent “interview,” Alistair says, focused almost entirely on his reporting about the Columbia student protests. He attended Columbia for an M.F.A. program from 2022 to 2024 and began publishing daily reports on his Substack when the encampment started in April of last year.
Alistair says Officer Martinez questioned him extensively about his views on the conflict on campus,the conflict between Israel and Hamas,Israel,Hamas,the student protesters,a one- versus a two-state solution,and who was at fault in the conflict.He was also asked to name students involved in the protests, which WhatsApp groups he was a member of, who fed him “the facts” about the protests, and to give up the identities of people he “worked with.”
Alistair maintains that he participated in the protests as an self-reliant student journalist and that his writing, while sympathetic to the protesters, was an accurate and honest documentation of the events at Columbia.
Prior to his trip, Alistair says he was aware of stories about tourists being detained and denied entry to the U.S. He opted against taking a burner phone, believing it would provoke suspicion, and superficially cleaned his phone and social media. He removed photographs from protests, Signal conversations, and his Substack posts.
Alistair believes that Customs and Border Protection (C.B.P.) had prepared for him well before his arrival, possibly through his THIS application or a list provided by the far-right pro-Israel organization Betar US. He suspects that a U.S. government officer read his work and decided he was not fit to enter the country.
alistair says Officer martinez left the room for a long time to download the contents of his phone. Upon returning,Martinez demanded that Alistair unlock the Hidden folder in his photo album,which contained personal content.Alistair says he felt he had no choice but to comply and watched as Martinez scrolled through his most personal content.
After another extended absence, Alistair says Martinez returned, claiming to have found evidence of drug use on his phone and that he had failed to acknowledge a history of drug use on his THIS application. Alistair admitted to past drug use, including purchasing THC gummies at a dispensary in New York, where marijuana is legal.
Martinez then informed Alistair that he would be put on the next flight back to Australia. Alistair was patted down, and his shoelaces and the string from his elastic pants where removed. He was placed in a detention room with other detainees, where dialogue was banned, and the habitat was cold and isolating.
Alistair says he eventually exercised his right to call his consulate, who informed him that he would likely be on a plane that evening and notified his mother.
C.B.P. Response
The Department of Homeland Security, which governs the C.B.P., claims that any allegations that Alistair had been arrested for political beliefs are false. C.B.P. has not released further details regarding the incident.
“I was participating in an interview that I was never going to pass.”
Legal and Political Context
The incident raises concerns about the extent to which U.S. border officials can access and scrutinize personal electronic devices and social media accounts.
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