WASHINGTON, 18 June 2004 — Following protests from trade organizations and reporters, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau in the Department of Homeland Security has announced that foreign journalists will be able to enter the United States — even if they hold a wrong visa.
The decision was made following worldwide protect after Elena Lappin, a British freelance journalist for the Guardian of London, wrote about her harrowing experience in detention after traveling to Los Angeles to work on a story for the paper. She was detained, questioned, strip-searched, handcuffed and taken to a downtown holding facility for the night, where she spent a sleepless night on a steel bench inside a cell. Twenty-six hours later, she was deported to England. Her scathing article of her arrest caused international outrage and embarrassed officials in the Bush administration.
“Somewhere along the way, in the process of protecting itself against genuine threats, the US has lost the ability to distinguish between friend and foe. The price this powerful country is paying for living in fear is the price of its civil liberties,” Lappin wrote in the June 5 editor of the Guardian.
Her case is not unique, foreign journalists have always been required to obtain a separate visa, but after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Customs officials made it harder for them to enter.
According to Reporters Without Borders, more than two dozen reporters reported being searched numerous times — some strip-searched — handcuffed, detained overnight and deprived of sleep by Customs officials.
Several of the reporters were from Britain, France, Sweden and Holland, who traditionally were able to enter the United States on visa-waiver programs, which grants access to visitors form 27 “friendly” countries.
Now, since the end of May, “visa rules for foreign reporters have been modified”, and journalists “will be able to enter the US even if they hold the wrong visa,” said the US Customs and Border Protection bureau. This, however, is a one-time deal.
CBP says it has given its border agents “discretionary authority to admit foreign media representatives with visas other than the ‘I’ visa required for working journalists. But journalists who benefit from the new rule once will be required to have the proper visa for subsequent trips to the United States.”
The Society of Professional Journalists, one of several professional trade organizations that became involved in the US government’s handling of foreign media, criticized the US handling of six French journalists who planned to cover a video game trade show in the US, but instead were detained, handcuffed, fingerprinted, searched and held overnight in hold cells before being deported to France.
“The result...is an unnecessary hardship for the journalists, and unnecessary embarrassment for the US,” said a statement from the organization.
The American Society of Newspaper Editors also joined in, writing a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, protesting “discriminatory practices that require journalists from 27 friendly nations to obtain visas to enter the United States while citizens from those same countries are not required to have visas for visits up to 90 days.”
The ASNE president, Karla Garrett Harshaw said: “Over the past 12 months, a number of foreign journalists have been seized at our borders and deported forcibly to their home countries. Many have been mistreated and prevented from making telephone calls that could have clarified their status, violating diplomatic rules.”
Harshaw noted that although none of the friendly nations involved have responded in kind, “the actions of our government could lead to a degradation of the atmosphere of mutual trust.”
