'What the hell?' Protester's lawyer grilled by feds as he flies home from spring break
A Michigan lawyer who's representing a pro-Palestinian demonstrator arrested at a campus protest says he was detained, interrogated and ordered to hand over his phone for inspection after returning from a spring break trip to the Dominican Republic with his family.
Dearborn attorney Amir Makled, whose client Samantha Lewis was among seven arrested last year following a protest at the University of Michigan, was grabbed after landing along with his wife and two daughters as they went through a passport screening. An agent notified the Tactical Terrorism Response Team after he was screened, reported the Detroit Free Press.
"Hey, are the TTRT folks around?" the agent asked, according to Makled.
"I thought, 'What the hell is that?'" Makled said. "So, I Google that quickly."
"I don’t know what triggered this," Makled told the newspaper. "I don’t know if it’s a result of civil rights cases, or First Amendment issues involving student protesters. They wouldn’t tell me what it is."
Two federal agents questioned the 38-year-old civil rights and criminal defense attorney for 90 minutes, and he agreed the law permitted them to briefly confiscate his phone, but he refused to let them have it because it contained privileged information regarding his clients. Ultimately he allowed them to view his contact list.
"I'm an American citizen, I'm not worried about being deported," Makled said, recalling what he thought in the interrogation room. "So, I tell them, 'I know you can take my phone. I'm not going to give you my phone, however ... 90 percent of my work is on my phone. You're not getting unfettered access to (it).' "
The agents ultimately allowed him to leave without further incident and wrote up a report, but they didn't have an answer when Makled asked whether he should expect to be stopped again when he traveled by air, according to the report.
"This current administration is doing something that no administration has done — they are attacking attorneys," Makled said. "This is a different type of threat to the rule of law that I see. They are now challenging the judiciary, or lawyers, they're putting pressure (on them) to dissuade attorneys from taking on issues that are against the government's issues. We have an obligation as lawyers to stand up to this stuff."
Customs and Border Protection Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham defended the agents' actions in a statement to the Free Press.
"Claims that CBP is searching more electronic media due to the administration change are false. CBP’s search numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and less than 0.1% of travelers have their devices searched," Beckham said.
"These searches are conducted to detect digital contraband, terrorism-related content, and information relevant to visitor admissibility, all of which play a critical role in national security," the statement added. "Allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible."