美国国家公共电台 NPR Special Immigrant Visa Holders Still Face Questioning Upon Reaching U.S.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The courts have put President Trump 1's travel ban on hold. But the law still gives federal immigration officers broad discretion 2 to turn away foreigners. Immigrants with special visas from Iraq and Afghanistan are also having trouble getting past border agents. These are people who worked for the United States in their own countries, often at great risk. Here's NPR's Joel Rose.

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE 3: As an economist 4, Hussein Mahrammi helped U.S. development authorities in Kabul rebuild his war-torn country. He planned to stay in Afghanistan. Then, one by one, his colleagues were assaulted and even killed because they worked with Americans.

HUSSEIN MAHRAMMI: We really feel afraid.

ROSE: So Mahrammi applied 5 for a special immigrant visa, or SIV. It was created specifically for people who worked with the U.S. government or contractors 6 in Iraq and Afghanistan at great risk to themselves.

MAHRAMMI: I was expecting or dreaming that they welcome in the way that - maybe through some separate line, offering us tea and welcome us. But it was not like that really.

ROSE: Needless to say, there was no tea when Mahrammi, his wife and four young sons arrived at Dulles Airport in Virginia earlier this month. Officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection pulled Mahrammi aside and started asking a lot of questions. Finally, after five hours, they were allowed in. But his case could have gone very differently. That same week, another SIV holder 7 from Afghanistan landed at the airport in Newark, N.J.

ALEXANDER SHALOM: Once he arrived, he was put into detention 8, questioned without a lawyer, forced to sign papers that he didn't want to sign.

ROSE: Alexander Shalom is with the ACLU of New Jersey 9. He's representing the man known in court papers only as John Doe to protect his privacy. Hours before the man was set to be deported 10, his lawyers raced to court. One federal judge ruled against them, so they asked for an emergency hearing before the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

SHALOM: The government was planning to put him back on a plane until we got the 3rd Circuit to prevent them from doing that.

ROSE: That man is still in detention. Federal authorities have yet to tell the ACLU why they won't let him into the country. Also this month in Los Angeles, officers detained a family of five traveling on a special immigrant visa. They were eventually released but only after an emergency court order. Attorney Rob Blume represents the family.

ROBERT BLUME: What seems to be going on is there's a tremendous amount of discretion being given to these CBP agents without much guidance.

ROSE: A Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman declined to comment on individual cases. The Trump administration is making it tougher to get visas from certain parts of the world and vowed 11 to ramp 12 up screening of people entering the U.S. But immigrant rights groups say officers with Customs and Border Protection have become too aggressive at airports and border crossings. Becca Heller directs the International Refugee Assistance Project. She's trying to document cases of people attempting to enter the U.S. legally and being turned away for no good reason.

BECCA HELLER: I would assume that there are dozens, if not hundreds, more cases that nobody ever finds out about.

ROSE: Heller says she couldn't find a single example of special visa holders 13 being detained or deported by CBP officers until this month.

HELLER: It just begs the question of whether what they're doing is based on actual actionable intelligence or just on the fact that they are sort of running amok right now.

DAVID AGUILAR: What it tells me is that Customs and Border Protection is doing what they have been charged with doing.

ROSE: David Aguilar is a former acting 14 commissioner 15 of CBP. He says a visa alone doesn't guarantee entry to the U.S. The law specifies 16 60 different grounds for a Border Protection officer to reject someone. Aguilar says those officers are even trained to look at body language.

AGUILAR: If the officer believes that the individual is nervous, is invasive - eye contact is not there or the line of questioning just does not match up with the answers - if they are not allowing immediate 17 entry into the United States, there is a reason for it. There has to be a reason for it.

ROSE: Immigration advocates say it's not easy to get a special immigrant visa. The process involves extensive background checks by the Departments of State and Homeland Security. In the case of Hussein Mahrammi, it took two years.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Laughter).

MAHRAMMI: That - is going to be my room. And then there will be another for kids' room. A week after landing in the U.S., Mahrammi and his family still don't have any furniture at their apartment in Maryland, so they're sleeping on the rugs they brought with them from Kabul. Mahrammi isn't complaining. If his family had to go back to Afghanistan now, he says, they'd become targets.

MAHRAMMI: This time, much in danger because we will be clear and distinguished 18 target afterward 19.

ROSE: Mahrammi says he's grateful to be in the U.S. where his family doesn't have to live in hiding anymore.

Joel Rose, NPR News.