WASHINGTON — U.S. immigration agents wearing masks arrested a Georgetown University academic outside his home in Virginia. They detained two German tourists for weeks when they tried to enter the country legally through the southern border. They knocked on doors at Columbia University apartments, searching for pro-Palestinian protesters.

The Trump administration has opened a new phase in its immigration agenda, one that goes well beyond the mass deportation of immigrants in the country illegally.

Enhanced Vetting at Ports of Entry

U.S. border officials are using more aggressive tactics, which the administration calls “enhanced vetting,” at ports of entry to the United States, prompting U.S. allies like Germany to update their travel advisories. At the same, the administration is targeting legal immigrants who have expressed views that the government believes threaten national security and undermine foreign policy.

The tactics have unnerved foreign tourists and sent a chill through immigrant communities in the United States, who say they are being targeted for speech — not for breaking any laws.

“Whether it’s speech and criticism, green cards, they’re really taking it to a whole new level,” said Gil Kerlikowske, a former Customs and Border Protection commissioner and an ex-police chief of four cities. Recalling the anti-immigration agenda in Trump’s first term, Kerlikowske said that “it’s déjà vu all over again on steroids.”

The administration says the arrests and detentions are about protecting Americans.

“The Trump administration is enforcing immigration laws — something the previous administration failed to do,” Tricia McLaughlin, the spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, said when asked about the recent arrests. “Those who violate these laws will be processed, detained and removed as required.”

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Aggressive Enforcement and Expanded Powers

Trump’s hard line on immigration has been a centerpiece of his political identity for years.

On his first day back in office, he signed an executive order that aimed to empower border officers by directing the administration to “identify all resources that may be used to ensure that all aliens seeking admission to the United States, or who are already in the United States, are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”

Customs agents have wide latitude to search cellphones or computers of travelers crossing into the United States. According to Customs and Border Protection, however, such searches have typically been rare. In 2024, less than 0.01% of arriving international travelers had their electronic devices searched, the agency said.

Homeland Security agents also have access to a large database called the National Targeting Center to detect risks among visitors to the United States. With the help of other nations sharing information about residents traveling to the United States, the database allows agents to flag visitors when they enter the nation’s ports.

It is not clear how much those tactics were used to pick up people in a string of recent cases in which visitors trying to enter the United States reported being turned back or detained. But two Homeland Security officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter in detail, acknowledged that officers were acting more aggressively after Trump’s executive order.

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Controversial Detentions and Deportations

Two German tourists said they were stopped separately at border crossings at San Diego and Tijuana and sent to a crowded detention center, where they reported being denied a translator and being put in solitary confinement. A Canadian national said she was detained and put “in chains” when officers flagged her visa paperwork.

Homeland security agencies have not answered questions about either case.

This month, a French scientist was prevented from entering the country. France’s minister for higher education said U.S. Border Patrol agents found messages in which he expressed his “personal opinion” to colleagues and friends about Trump’s science policies.

McLaughlin denied that and said the scientist had confidential information on his electronic device from Los Alamos National Laboratory, which he had taken without permission and tried to conceal.

The scientist was working for France’s publicly funded National Center for Scientific Research. Representatives for the center said he did not wish to speak to the media, but they did not immediately respond to the Homeland Security Department’s allegations against him.

In another case, the department stopped and detained Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University who was trying to return to the United States after visiting relatives in Lebanon. The administration deported Alawieh despite her having a valid visa and a court order blocking her removal. Federal authorities said in a court filing that they found “sympathetic photos and videos of prominent Hezbollah figures” in her phone and that she attended the funeral for the leader of Hezbollah in February.

When it comes to scrutinizing people living in the United States, investigators for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who typically focus on long-term inquiries have been searching videos, online posts and news clippings of campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war. They have then compiled reports on their findings for the State Department.

To deport people living in the United States with green cards or valid visas, the Trump administration has invoked a rarely used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the secretary of state sweeping power to expel foreigners who are seen as a threat to the country’s foreign policy interests.

Using that authority, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate of Palestinian heritage who took on a prominent role in the pro-Palestinian protests at the school, and Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen who has been studying and teaching at Georgetown.

Khalil has a green card, which means he is a legal permanent resident. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, has accused him of “siding with terrorists.”

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McLaughlin has accused Suri of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” without providing evidence.

According to an official familiar with Suri’s case, the State Department justified his deportation by arguing that he engaged in antisemitic activity that would undermine diplomatic efforts to get Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. He is in the United States on a visa for academics.

Suri’s wife, an American citizen of Palestinian descent, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, the former adviser to a Hamas leader who was assassinated last year in Iran.

According to a court filing from his lawyers, Suri was surrounded by masked Homeland Security agents outside his home in Virginia on Monday night, arrested and placed in an unmarked SUV. A judge has temporarily blocked his removal from the country.

Lawyers for Khalil and Suri argue that the administration is punishing them for speaking out for Palestinians. Neither man has been charged with a crime. They are being detained while their lawyers fight against their deportations.

Debate Over Free Speech and National Security

Chad Wolf, who served as acting Homeland Security secretary near the end of Trump’s first term, defended the administration’s crackdown, contending that a visa is a discretionary benefit provided by the U.S. government.

“They’re going to use every lever that they have to protect the American people,” he said.

But free-speech advocates see a different dynamic at play. Will Creeley, legal director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said he believed the Trump administration’s “clear motivation here is to chill speech.”

“Simply saying someone is aligned to a terrorist organization does not exempt them from First Amendment protections,” Creeley said. “The administration has not produced any evidence that Khalil’s expressive activity falls into the narrow or carefully defined exceptions to the First Amendment.”

Creeley’s group and others have filed an amicus brief in support of Khalil.

Janet Napolitano, who served as Homeland Security secretary during the Obama administration, said Trump’s recent crackdown on immigrants with legal status ran “contrary to what the First Amendment is all about.”

“When the justification is ‘you’re a threat to national security’ and it’s like one individual, I mean come on,” Napolitano said. “Let’s be real.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager and Hamed Aleaziz/Dave Sanders
c.2025 The New York Times Company