US denies French claims a space researcher was expelled over messages about Trump
By Saskya Vandoorne, CNN
(CNN) — Competing narratives have emerged between Washington and Paris over why a researcher was recently denied entry to the United States, in the latest example of an immigration refusal under the Trump administration testing international relations.
France on Thursday said the unnamed researcher was blocked from entering the US earlier this month after authorities found messages about President Donald Trump on his phone. US officials have since rejected that claim and said the researcher held “confidential information” on an electronic device.
France’s minister of higher education and research Philippe Baptiste said that the researcher was traveling to a conference near Houston on March 9 when US authorities found that his phone “contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policies.”
The researcher was then denied entry to the US and expelled from the country, Baptiste said.
The French ministry of higher education and research said that he worked in the field of space research, and that the incident took place on March 9.
“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values that we will continue to proudly uphold,” Baptiste said in a statement.
“I will defend the right of all French researchers to adhere to these values, while respecting the law, regardless of the country in which they find themselves,” he added.
However, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement Thursday that “any claim that his removal was based on political beliefs is blatantly false.”
“The French researcher in question was in possession of confidential information on his electronic device from Los Alamos National Laboratory — in violation of a non-disclosure agreement — something he admitted to taking without permission and attempted to conceal,” she said.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told CNN that they could not speak about specific cases but that all people entering the US “are subject to inspection on a case-by-case basis.”
“If an individual has material discovered on their electronic media that raises flags during an inspection, it can result in further analysis. Claims that such decisions are politically motivated are completely unfounded,” Hilton Beckham, CBP Assistant Commissioner of Public Affairs, said in a statement.
Trump has pushed for a widespread crackdown on immigration which has included a series of arrests and deportation proceedings against people associated with US colleges and universities, sending shockwaves across the academic community and raising concerns about the protection of free speech.
This story has been updated
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