Muhammed Ihsanullah was overjoyed when he received a $3,000 scholarship to spend the summer working at a camp in Minnesota.
But after several travelers from Western nations were detained or deported as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration, the 20-year-old British citizen from Leicester, England, is planning on carrying a burner phone when he comes to the U.S. in May. That’s if he ends up going at all.
“I have a very, you know, stereotypical name as well,” Ihsanullah told NBC News.
He might swap out devices, he said, “just so that I have the added security of knowing that no one’s going to go through my phone.”
Potential U.S. visitors such as Ihsanullah are expressing growing uncertainty about their travel plans amid the crackdown and warnings from U.S. embassies in more than a dozen countries, like the one in Sweden that said anyone entering the U.S. on a visa is a “guest” and if you lie about your intended behavior while in the country, “You’re out.”
Earlier this month, a Lebanese doctor working at Brown University’s medical center was sent home despite having a valid U.S. visa after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents searching her phone found photos and videos they said were “sympathetic” to the former leader of the Hezbollah militant group, whose funeral she told agents she attended last month.
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