Below is an excerpt from Inside Higher Ed‘s piece written by Elizabeth Redden.
Another scholar from overseas had a difficult time entering the U.S. for the conference. Nassef Manabilang Adiong, the founder of the Philippine International Studies Organization, came from Manila to Baltimore via Tokyo and Detroit. He said he was about to board his flight for the Tokyo-Detroit leg when he was taken from the line and questioned by a U.S. official about his address in Manila, his family, his background and the foreign countries he had visited.
“I thought that after this situation had happened to me, I would not have any difficulty at the port of entry in Detroit,” Adiong said. But upon arrival in the U.S., Adiong said, he was brought into a room for secondary screening and questioned for two hours by two immigration officials whose questions kept circling around issues of Islam and terrorism. They let him go about five minutes before his connecting flight to Baltimore was scheduled to leave. “It was just a random check, that’s what they said,” Adiong said.
Adiong, whose research is about Islam and international relations in the pre-modern era, described the experience as exasperating, exhausting and embarrassing. “I’m having second thoughts of coming back for future ISA conferences under the current USA administration,” he said. “Probably after this administration I may attend.”
Full article is available here.
Nassef Manabilang Adiong, PhD 