The US Border Patrol has denied entry to a foreign academic after seizing his phone during a screening. What could be bad enough to get an academic flagged as a national security risk? Apparently, messages in which he disagreed with the president, which officers allegedly characterized as “hateful towards Trump” and indicative of “terrorism.”
On March 9, a French researcher was reportedly denied entry onto US soil. The academic, whose identity has not been revealed, was scheduled to attend a conference in Houston.
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Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, shared the news in a statement on Monday through Agence France-Presse (AFP). “I learned with concern that a French researcher who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled,” Baptiste said.
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“This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy.
“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values that we will continue to proudly uphold. I will defend the right of all French researchers to be faithful to them, while respecting the law.”
It remains unclear what led the US Border Patrol to stop the academic and seize his phone. According to US Customs and Border Protection, the seizure of electronic devices is extremely rare, with less than 0.01% of international travelers having their phones seized in 2024.
The exact text of the messages the academic wrote have not been released, but the AFP reports that they were critical of Trump’s policies in academia. In recent weeks, the Trump administration has cut funding to universities around the country and has halved the staff of the Department of Education.
A source told the AFP that the researcher was accused of sending messages “that expressed hatred towards Trump and can be qualified as terrorism.” This reportedly led to an FBI investigation which was subsequently dropped.
On the same day the researcher was accosted by border patrol, Baptiste sent out a letter encouraging American academics to come to France. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” he said. “We would naturally wish to welcome a certain number of them.”
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