Yassmin Abdel-Magied hits out at border officers in fiery column

YASSMIN Abdel-Magied says has been humiliated by border officers and told “to go back where I come from”.

In a column in London’s Evening Standard newspaper she says, despite her “ocker accent”, she is seen as a “danger to national security” everywhere she goes.

“Standing in the UK customs line — or any customs line in Europe, for that matter — reduces me from being a real person with hopes, dreams and an Instagram page begging for holiday snaps to someone who (apparently) poses a threat to a nation’s social fabric,” she wrote.

“The US poses even more challenges: dual citizens of Iran, Iraq or Syria, or Sudan in my case, or anyone who has travelled to these countries since March 2011 can no longer sail through on the visa waiver program like other Brits or Australians: we are now asked to go through extra vetting.

“It is an additional process most fellow citizens don’t even realise exists.”

“The irony is that I’m doing nothing wrong by wanting to travel, but I’m worried that the folk at the border will think otherwise. I start to get anxious that they won’t believe me. I stress that they’ll see “Khartoum, Sudan” as my place of birth and decide it’s enough to warrant suspicion, to raise the alarm, to take me aside for further interrogation.”

In April, the columnist was refused entry to the United States and put back on a plane to the UK, where she is now living.

However, US Customs and Border Protection officials said she did not have the correct visa to enter the US.

She described the “aggressive” confrontation with a US immigration officials that led to her being deported just three hours after arriving the country for a speaking engagement in New York City.

“They’ve deported me and cancelling my visa because they’ve deemed what I’m here to do (speak about unconscious bias) as work not business,” she said.

“I’ve been in and spoken at companies and events on this topic on this visa numerous times without an issue, and the advice has been it wouldn’t be a problem.

“When I asked why this was different, they just smiled and said immigration laws had too much grey area.”

Ms Abdel-Magied said the officer was aggressive, and claimed at one point said she would “shoot”.

“When the officer got aggressive, my gut instinct to use humour kicked in,” Ms Abdel-Magied told The Project.

“I jokingly asked if she was going to shoot me. She said, ‘I will’.”

In her Evening Standard column, she said she also describes her white mates being let through customs far quicker than her on a recent holiday.

“Travel is meant to be exciting, not remind you of structural inequality and your place in the world’s geopolitical hierarchy,” she wrote.

“But unfortunately it’s not enough. We still live in a world where my faith and birthplace speak louder than my paperwork, and where the freedom of travel is something to earn rather than be entitled to. It kind of kills that summer holiday vibe, you know?”