Germany updates travel warning for US

DW (English)

Germany warns its citizens to be cautious about traveling to the US after several Germans were detained there at the border. This comes amid a broad crackdown by the Trump administration on immigration. DW looks at the individual cases of Germans being arrested.

Transcript

00:00Well for more I'm joined now by our political correspondent Simon Young.

00:03Simon good to see you. Let's start with the case of these people who were

00:07detained. What more do we know about these cases and do they have anything in

00:11common? Yeah but the German Foreign Ministry says it's recently become aware

00:18of three cases in which German citizens were detained as they tried to enter the

00:25United States and were held and and subsequently were denied entry and

00:32deported and in one such case a German citizen who was living in the US

00:38according to his family he was detained in Boston and held for over a week and

00:44in another case a German man who was engaged to a an American woman and had a

00:53multiple entry visa and had used it to visit his fiance quite often but the the

00:58two of them went for a holiday in Mexico and when they tried to return to

01:03the United States the German man was detained he was held for 16 days part of

01:13that time in chains apparently and experiencing quite harsh conditions

01:17before he was deported so the German authorities say that they they don't

01:23know why these these cases have come up now perhaps in a heavier concentration

01:31than before but they're asking people to be a bit more careful. They're asking

01:36them to be a little bit more careful even if these incidents are isolated

01:40incidents the German Foreign Ministry apparently felt the need to update its

01:45travel advisory to the United States I mean why do you think it was willing to

01:49take that step? Well I think they don't want to have incidents where German

01:57citizens are being held by the US authorities for whatever reason and they

02:01point out that there are some clearly established reasons why the US

02:09immigration authorities might you know look at people more closely if they have

02:14a criminal record in the US if they have given false information about the

02:20purpose of their visit to the United States or indeed even a minor overstay

02:25can sort of trigger pretty draconian action by the US authorities including

02:32arrest and detention and deportation and this can happen on either entering or

02:38trying to leave the United States well so that it's not new apparently from the

02:45US side in terms of the letter of the law but it does look as if the

02:49enforcement has got a bit stricter. Yeah the enforcement appears to be something

02:52new here and I'm wondering Simon has something changed in German-US relations

02:59here are we seeing a sign of a change?

03:03Well you know in the wider relationship we know that you know Donald Trump has

03:07changed a lot of things recently but I think in relation to this matter well

03:12other nationalities have also been affected we've heard about a case of a

03:16British woman who was detained for 10 days because of a suspected breach in

03:21her of her visa conditions so I think perhaps the context is you know Donald

03:27Trump has signed a load of executive orders tightening the vetting of visas

03:32and tightening immigration more generally he wants to target criminals

03:37who have no right to be in the US but it's possible the immigration

03:41authorities are under sort of a pressure to deliver and perhaps that's why now

03:46they're extending their sort of purview even to include tourists and business

03:52people visiting the US and that's why it's important for them to be very

03:57careful that you know all their papers are in order. GW's Simon Young with the

04:02latest from Berlin tonight Simon as always thank you.

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