Immigrants and lawyers claim that immigration agents have falsely informed new immigrant arrivals they need to sign documents that will forfeit their right to enter the US. People in possession of valid US visas have allegedly been ordered to sign the form before being returned to flights back to their countries of origin.
Immigrants who refused to sign the form were held in detention up to several days, according to the New York Times. The controversy follows the Friday signing of an executive order by President Donald Trump, which banned people from seven countries from traveling to the US. Lawyers claim that several immigration agents failed to explain the nature of the forms they wanted the immigrants to sign, and threatened to deny them entry to the US for years if they did not do so.
Those affected come from the seven nations included in the 90-day temporary ban: Iran, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Syria. Iranian student, Sara Yarjani, who was flying back to California after visiting her parents in Austria, claims she was stopped at Los Angeles International Airport before being questioned, searched, and held in detention for 23 hours and then told that her US visa had expired and she was not eligible to enter the country.
Yarjani claims that an officer told her to voluntarily sign the document and leave the US or she would be forcibly deported and forbidden to return for at least five years.