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Leading French academic threatened with deportation at Houston airport
Source: The Guardian
Leading French academic threatened with deportation at Houston airport
• Henry Rousso was due to take part in a symposium at Texas A&M University
• Ten-hour ordeal highlights ‘total arbitrariness and incompetence’
Tom Dart in Houston
Sunday 26 February 2017 19.54 GMT
A prominent French historian has said he was detained for more than 10 hours in Houston and threatened with deportation, in the latest of several examples of high-profile individuals being questioned extensively at US airports before being allowed entry.
Henry Rousso flew from Paris to Houston last Wednesday to take part in a symposium at Texas A&M University but was wrongly detained and almost sent back to France after a border guard failed to understand Rousso’s entitlements under visa rules, university officials said.
Rousso said on Twitter that he was “detained 10 hours at (Houston’s George Bush intercontinental airport) about to be deported. The officer who arrested me was ‘inexperienced’.”
While he was held, Rousso contacted university officials who attempted to secure his release. “He was waiting for customs officials to send him back to Paris as an illegal alien on the first flight out,” Richard Golsan, a professor at Texas A&M, told the Eagle.
Following scorn poured on Donald Trump by the French president and the mayor of Paris after the US president suggested in a speech last week that Paris is unsafe for American tourists, the incident has sparked fresh outrage in France. Emmanuel Macron, a presidential candidate, tweeted on Sunday to declare that “there is no excuse for what happened to Henry Rousso. Our country is open to scientists and intellectuals.”
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• Henry Rousso was due to take part in a symposium at Texas A&M University
• Ten-hour ordeal highlights ‘total arbitrariness and incompetence’
Tom Dart in Houston
Sunday 26 February 2017 19.54 GMT
A prominent French historian has said he was detained for more than 10 hours in Houston and threatened with deportation, in the latest of several examples of high-profile individuals being questioned extensively at US airports before being allowed entry.
Henry Rousso flew from Paris to Houston last Wednesday to take part in a symposium at Texas A&M University but was wrongly detained and almost sent back to France after a border guard failed to understand Rousso’s entitlements under visa rules, university officials said.
Rousso said on Twitter that he was “detained 10 hours at (Houston’s George Bush intercontinental airport) about to be deported. The officer who arrested me was ‘inexperienced’.”
While he was held, Rousso contacted university officials who attempted to secure his release. “He was waiting for customs officials to send him back to Paris as an illegal alien on the first flight out,” Richard Golsan, a professor at Texas A&M, told the Eagle.
Following scorn poured on Donald Trump by the French president and the mayor of Paris after the US president suggested in a speech last week that Paris is unsafe for American tourists, the incident has sparked fresh outrage in France. Emmanuel Macron, a presidential candidate, tweeted on Sunday to declare that “there is no excuse for what happened to Henry Rousso. Our country is open to scientists and intellectuals.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/26/henry-rousso-french-academic-deportation-houston-airport