I was detained by customs and border patrol...

Boy, do I have some stories to tell you. Holy moly, they're watching. Oh, the feds are watching.

They're always watching. Feds are always like this. Okay, now we know for real.

Um, I have a lot of uh interesting stories to tell you. Man, where do I begin? God damn.

Yesterday, I did not actually broadcast for uh some interesting news. Once again, pre-watch struck again. remember I was joking about like what I foresaw would potentially happen as I entered the United States of America and that thing that I foresaw happening actually ended up happening and I'm obviously going to talk about it.

For those of you who don't know, I was uh I was detained by Customs and Border Patrol. I was tactically ascertained and engaged in a kinetic situation where I was kinetically moved into a detention center inside of the O'Hare airport, which I will tell you all about in a second. Oh man, didn't pass the ocular pad down.

I believe it was uh before the ocular pad down. It's the flight manifest that they get ahead of time. They knew who I was and they were ready to receive me, let's just say.

And it wasn't a very warm welcome. So, what's happening? What What's happening Chicago?

What the was that? You know, this is my only my second time coming back here. And the first time I was here for the DNC, got kicked out.

Second time I couldn't even enter the state almost. It's definitely an interesting experience, let me tell you. Okay, our story begins at Paris's premier international airport, Shotte.

Okay, now I'm somewhat of an experienced traveler and usually as an experienced traveler, I like to get to the Chart airport early cuz I know, no disrespect to France, I love the country, but Chardigol airport is one of the worst in Europe. It's a major hub, but unfortunately due to I think like a lack of interest from the managers of any of these companies where they they just refuse to hire additional people and I feel like in France you just have to always hire more people because everyone is doing work very slowly. Okay.

It's just the pace that you have to adjust to and therefore you have to hire more people. there's always like work stoppages and stuff like that and the the unions are are relatively powerful but the corporate overlords will literally punish travelers instead of uh meeting the the actual demands of labor unions there. So I I've been in a situation where I've been like stuck in France and stuff like I had to do crazy maneuvering to get out.

Uh so I knew that and because I knew that I was like I'll go 3 hours early. It's something that I never do. Usually I'm actually very slow, but this time I was like, I'll go 3 hours early and everything will be fine.

I was already worried that uh I was going to take I was going to have issues coming into the country. I had joked about it already. So I was like at least on the one side like leaving the country of France will not be that big of a problem.

And boy was I wrong. Okay, boy was I wrong. So I hit the triple Monty.

I had like a generational run. I there was massive traffic going in the uh when you when you actually drive into the airport, the person that's dropping you off has to get a gate ticket at the gate. The ticket actually didn't work.

Like so we were stuck in traffic with like other cars behind us. Like my driver had to get out and be like and wave people away from the gate so that we could actually get to a gate that worked. All this stuff, right?

And I'm like, "Oh, brother, here we go. " I mean, I already I'm flying business, so like I have sky priority, so I'm thinking like, oh, at least I'll be able to get my luggage in on time. Barely made it to the check-in.

Okay, there was already issues with the check-in. Once I got through the check-in, I got hit at every single step. There's an automatic passport processor where you just kind of step into this room and then boop, doors open, you walk in, right?

I wait in line. There's only one. None of the machines are working.

Finally, I get to the machine that is working and the machine stops working. It just won't take my passport. It won't take my passport.

I was like, "Oh, here we go. " So, I had to go to an actual officer to to let me through so I could get in. Then I got stuck behind classic old lady.

Okay. Old lady with a lot of bags, with a lot of fluids. So then like she's taking her fluids out and like doing all this stuff at the security gate.

I'm stuck behind this person. I already took out all my electronics and stuff, but of course, lo and behold, boom, I get stopped at security after this old lady as well. The old lady with the bags of fluids, classic.

She obviously was stopped. Okay, she had to get gsr swabbed all this. And then, of course, I also got stopped.

Had to get gsr swabbed all of this because I have electronics on me. And, you know, I stopped there. Generational three-hour run is shard.

And then afterwards, I get into the flight and I'm like, "All right, finally. " The flight was actually fantastic. I slept the entire time.

I slept like a goddamn baby. Slept the entire time. Didn't even eat on the flight, which is crazy.

There's never been a moment where I've uh it was like what an 8 hour to 9 hour flight and I didn't even eat. I slept the entire time on the flight. Finally get into the United States of America.

And at which point I'm like, "All right, let's do it. I got global entry. This is going to be my first ever Global Entry entrance.

Hopefully this will go smoothly. " Okay, first time ever getting into Global Entry. I got it after my brother yelled at me over and over again telling me, "You got to get you got to get Global Entry, whatever.

" Right? I get to the Global Entry line and they're processing everybody expeditiously. You walk up, boom, immediately they take your photo of your face and you walk in and there's a customs person there.

Cop there just basically waves you. Okay? And they do that over and over again.

It gets to me, take a photo, boom, walk instantly. The Customs and Border Patrol agent goes, "Step aside, sir. " I was like, "Here we go.

" All right. She goes, "Step aside, sir. An agent will come and take you to another location.

" I was like, "Is that proper protocol? " I was like, "Sometimes it happens. " I was like, "Okay.

" And I knew at that point I was like, "Okay, I'm texting like family. I'm like, this is happening. I'm texting my manager, you know.

I was basically trying to I got Lo on. I was like, listen, you know, I'm going in. All right.

I'm freaking going in. Who knows how long this will take. Who knows what will happen.

" I had already heard like horror stories from people. There was like that one girl on TikTok that had talked about this and I thought to myself, "All right, it's done. It's happening to me as well.

It is what it is. " You know, M is real high. I'm about to say M is real high multiple times to get these guys off my back.

So, I'm waiting in the corner. This uh Latina ICE agent comes up, picks me up, takes me to this uh detention center. I sit down.

Fluorescent light bulbs, the whole nine. Okay. They have benches in the back of O'Hare airport where there's like a detention area.

Okay, there's a detention area. I'm sitting there. There's like a bunch of terrified families.

Okay, there's a old lady in a wheelchair. There's like a mom and daughter behind me. There's some like random dude in front of me.

And the way it works is there's a back door, right? And they take your passport. They go to the back door.

You don't know what the hell's going on in there, but they sometimes come out and they just say someone's name with their passport in their hands and they go, "You're clear to leave. " Basically, when they bring you to the detention area, they I guess do some kind of surveillance on your on your background to figure out if you are going to get harassed even further or if this level of harassment is fine. Okay?

And I asked and I looked around at all the passports that people had to see if there were other American citizens. And lo and behold, at least in the area that I was at, I was the only American citizen. There was another guy that actually had an American passport as well because I asked the the the terrified family behind me.

I was like, "Hey guys, if you don't mind me asking like, "Do you guys have an American passport? " They were like, "No. " So, it turns out it's just they're terrifying the out of mostly non-American citizens.

Okay. But apparently they're also interested in trying to terrify American citizens as well. So, they're just like coming in and out.

They they get this lady in a wheelchair out of there, which I thought was so insane. Old lady in a wheelchair is in the ICE detention area and they come out with her passport and they're like, "Here, you can leave. " Okay, so that's one thing, right?

Like I've had secondary searches and stuff done to me before. I've had the uh I think it's called the quadruple S. like they put the SSS on your boarding pass and you always get checked randomly when you get hit with that.

Like that's happened to me a lot in the past. I get GSR swabbed all the time. That stuff is normal.

I've I've experienced that quite a bit. Okay. But this time I didn't even have the quadruple S on my boarding pass.

So I was like, "All right, it's probably fine. " So I wait. I wait.

I wait. I wait. Finally this agent comes out, says Hassan I'm like, "That's me.

Come with me. " I'm like, "Oh, brother. Here we go.

" They take me to this back room. Okay. And the back room is not great.

The back room is is designed in the most hostile way I have ever been inside of a room. The vibes are really back there. Everything is fluorescent light bulb.

Obviously, they had these two seats that were firmly planted into the ground. Okay. They were complete metal.

They were like tiny stools, very uncomfortable with like braces on the side so you can handcuff someone to them. Okay. And there was also a seat for like a lawyer.

So, I sat down on the lawyer seat on the corner to establish dominance because I've watched too many JCS uh interrogation videos and I knew I had to have command over the room. So, I didn't sit in the uh in the cuck chair. Instead, I sat in the lawyer chair and we got to talking.

And let me tell you folks, the tick tockers that talked about being detained, they were right. It was an insane situation. So, it's very obvious that they knew exactly who the guy I was.

It's very obvious that they knew how to like navigate the conversation and it was a really really interesting conversation that took place. It was very cordial. Okay.

It was very cordial, which I thought it was strange how cordial it was cuz I've had run-ins with like cops in the past. I've had run-ins with feds in the past. Well, I guess the FBI was very cordial as well when I had uh some talks with them in the past.

But overall, I was not expecting CBP agents to be cordial. I will say that. Okay.

Now, having said that, the entire process is supposed to be intimidating. So, it's like suck my cordial or whatever. Okay.

I think they were being cordial because they wanted me to say something that was incriminating and say something that was enough to justify further detention from that point on. And let me tell you, they certainly did do that. So he knew exactly who the guy was, but he was basically like brooaching the conversation in a way where it was like free flowing where in the process of discovery he was uh adding on additional talking points.

He always made it seem as though he was asking certain things that after discovering in the process of that conversation he would ask additional questions. So you know he's like oh what are you doing in Chicago? And I was very revealing.

And I was like, well, I was in France because I want to take my family out for Mother's Day to France, but I had to come back early from France, even though today is technically Mother's Day because I have a speaking engagement at University of Chicago. And he was like, "Oh, what kind of speaking engagement? " He's like, "I don't know, some like journalism school stuff.

" And he's like, "Oh, well, since you mentioned that," he kept saying, "Oh, well, since you mentioned that, what do you do as a job? " And I was like, "I'm a Twitch streamer. " And he's like, "Well, since you mentioned that you were a Twitch streamer, what kind of things do you uh stream about?

" And at first I was like, "Do I just tell him I play video games? I because I don't think this mother is going to believe me if I say I just play video games to him. " Right?

So I was just like, "Yeah, I play video games, but I also do uh current events sometimes, drama, internet. " And he's like, "Oh, do you talk about since you mentioned that you talk about the things that you talk about, do you talk about the news? " And I was like, "Yeah, I talk about the news.

" And he kept saying, "Okay, so when you talk about the news, do you talk about the war? " And I was like, "What do you mean by that? " He's like, "Do you talk about Trump?

" And that was the first time where I was like, "What the is this question? " Like, I literally straight up told him, I was like, "Why are you asking me this? " Like, I was like, "What does this have to do with anything?

" And it was interesting because the dude asked so many insane questions, none of which is illegal, by the way. I just need you to understand nothing I've done online is illegal as of now, if that makes sense. Now, laws may change in the future and they might actually start prosecuting speech, which I do fear is the goal of this administration, but so far everything I've done is fully protected under the First Amendment.

Okay? And none of these questions are actually valid questions to ask, but I was entertaining it because one, I didn't want to present it as being difficult because I didn't want to extend the detention. And two, I actually wanted to see how far I could take it.

Maybe it was up of me to do that. Maybe it was not appropriate for me to do that to play fast and loose with a person that has complete control over my life in that very moment. But I wanted to see like what they were trying to take from this conversation.

So, you know, instead of just pleading the fifth as I'm supposed to do in situations like this, I just kept giving him answers. And there were definitely areas where I was very revealing about my position, knowing full well that they know exactly what they're looking for. I saw no reason to uh hold back on certain things.

So, I said, "I don't like Trump. " I was like, "What are you going to do? It's it's protected by the First Amendment.

I don't like Trump. " Yes. Right.

Like, I was like, "I'm not fond of him. I don't like him. He said he was going to end the wars.

He hasn't ended the wars. What the is up with that? You know, and the guy actually was very sympathetic.

The agent was very sympathetic. And I don't know if it was like a JCS style interrogation technique to come across as sympathetic to like uh invoke some some kind of positive feelings out of me in an effort to like get me to reveal something maybe that'll trip me up or because he just genuinely was sympathetic and he had the vibes of someone who was like I don't know why I'm doing this right but he was like listen I'm Iraqi so I know and let me tell you I do think that him being Iraqi played a big role in this because if he wasn't there was a lot of Redditor ass white boys that are at Customs and Border Patrol at O'Hare airport. I saw them walk by.

There was a dude who looked like he was like 25 max, but he was balding. And I knew immediately if that mother is my agent, I'm screwed. I'm going to see.

This dude is going to literally cook me. So, I got a little lucky. I got a little lucky.

All right, I will admit. So, basically, I think the reason why they sent the Iraqi CBP agent is because they bracket you into different categories. For me, they wanted to conduct an investigation about my involvement with Hamas and my involvement with the Houthis or they suspected my involvement with Hezbollah.

Straight up. That's literally what this conversation was about. And it's not even a joke.

Like they literally tried to get something out of me that I think they could use to basically detain me permanently, which is insane because there is no direct connection or direct involvement. So, we're talking, we're talking, you know, I'm telling him like, "Oh, I'm you Chicago. I'm I'm going to be speaking there for the journalism school.

" Uh, I told him like, you know, I don't like Donald Trump. And I was like, "So, why are you guys doing this? " And he's like, "Oh, it's just like routine.

It's a routine process. " I was like, "It doesn't feel too routine. " And basically my big fear from the entire situation was like if they were to ask for my phone, not that there's anything incriminating on my phone, but I don't want the federal government inside of my phone beyond the, you know, beyond all of the um times where they probably have been engaging in like warrantless surveillance on my phone or whatever the like it's not your business.

You know what I mean? It's none of your business. It's a goddamn free country.

Like there's privacy laws for this country. So, for those of you who don't know, by the way, they can't actually unlock your phone, but if you have biometrics on your phone, they could technically use that and put the phone to your face and unlock it that way. So, just so you know, they could technically do that.

Okay, they could technically do that, but there's a trick. Either you get a burner phone when you're traveling internationally or if you have your regular phone, you can just do a passcode by either cancelling biometrics or if you forgot to cancel biometrics like your face ID, what you can do is click it five times. If you click hold five times in a row, it will actually disable Face ID and it will force you to put your passcode in.

And because there are laws against like the agents not being able to force you to put your passcode in, they can't actually access your phone like that. Now, there's different methods of how they can access your phone from what I understand. They can also put it on a computer and just like plug it into a machine and the machine just basically takes all of the information in your phone.

So, it is what it is. I don't know if you can actually do that if your phone is on, but I was thinking about all these things. I had already unlocked the biometrics.

Like I I disallowed biometrics and it's a Faraday cage once you get into the detention center anyway. So, you can't actually send any uh text messages once you're in there. right?

There's no access to the internet. I'm sitting there and they're asking me about Trump. They're asking me about like Hamas.

And he kept saying stuff like, "Do you like Hamas? Like, do you support Hamas? Do you think Hamas is a resistance group?

Do you think Hamas is a terrorist group or a resistance group? " Like, he just kept asking over and over again, right? And I kept repeating the same statement over and over again.

I kept saying a couple different things. One, in terms of like Israel and all the wars, I was like, "I'm on the side of civilians. I want the endless bloodshed to end.

I am a pacifist. I want wars to end. I just kept repeating that over and over again.

Every single time he asked me a question, I just kept repeating that. And every single time he asked me a question leading a leading question about Hamas, I kept saying the United States State Department recognizes Hamas as a terrorist organization. The United States State Department recognizes Hamas as a terrorist organization.

So he just kept asking me over and over again like Hamas, Houthies, all this trying to be like, "Oh, do you support them? Do you like them? Like what do you think about them?

" Which I thought was insane because the reality of the matter is up until this very moment, if you were to say as an American citizen, you stand 10 toes down with Hamas or you stand 10 toes down with the Houthies or whatever the they can't deny you entry into the country for that. But I don't know what the they're trying to do. So, I was like, I'm not going to go beyond it.

I'm not going to go beyond just like repeating, reiterating over and over again, the American government's position is that uh Hamas is a terrorist organization. But then he just kept asking me about the Houthis. He's like, well, do you agree with a terrorist designation for the Houthies?

And I said, I'm of the Brookings Institute mindset that in 2020 when Donald Trump initially designated the Houthies as a terror organization, that was a major mistake. I talk about these issues from an academic context with humanitarian rights organizations and with academics and with journalists. As a matter of fact, this is completely protected under first amendment laws.

And therefore, you know, I don't understand what the what the reason why we're having this conversation is. And I kept saying that over and over again, at which point he just like kind of gave up. But what I thought was really interesting was and I I I even followed it up with like I said I call balls and strikes and I uh you know there are things that Trump has done that I actually agree with and I'm not shy about saying those things even though initially he said he was going to end all these wars.

He hasn't done so. I think these wars are unnecessary. They're costly and uh a lot of civilians die uh in the process.

I don't think it's appropriate. I think it's very inappropriate and uh it must end, right? Like that that's my position.

But I do think that Trump did a good thing where he implemented a ceasefire with the Houthies. So when he does stuff like that, when I agree with him, I tell him what's what. When I agree with Trump in a decision, I'm open about it.

Right? So I explained that to him and I just yapped away over and over and over again. And uh what I found to be particularly interesting was in the first half of the conversation, it was just like basically a factf finding mission, right?

Try to get me to say something that I think uh would be of interest. In the second part of the conversation, there were some real actionable items that he presented that uh depending on how I answer those questions, like I'm going to jail. Because the first off was just illegal for him to ask me those questions and completely idiotic and ridiculous.

And I think they did it because they know who the I am and they wanted to put the fear of God into me. Not knowing that I'm a stubborn piece of and you know that's not going to work at all. Right.

The second half of the conversation was actually like cuz he left went away for like 35 30 uh 35 minutes came back and then he asked like actionable items. But one thing that I will take note of that I thought was very interesting was the fact that a lot of the that like the Ethan Kleins of the world have like cried about over and over again were unironically brought up in that conversation and I was shocked. I was shocked.

Okay, not like the bleed sword obviously, but like the Houthy like did you interview a Houthy? It says here that you interviewed a Houthie. And I was like or was he actually a Houthy?

And I was like, he's not. You can look to all of the reporting that came out afterwards and before I interviewed him that he's not a Houthi, that he is a regular Yemen citizen. And I said like his name is Rashad Al-Had.

He is not even a Shia. And the dude luckily again Iraqi went, "Oh yeah, that's right. That's a Sunni last name.

Al-Had is a Sunni last name. So he must not have been a Houthi. " And the very fact that that was like a point of contention that could have gotten me arrested is insane.

And I genuinely in that moment was thinking like these dumbass slop tubers are actually playing with fire. And I even thought about not even mentioning this because I was like I don't want to give them any any sort of like power over this situation. But like the reality of the matter is 100% the Trump administration is inadvertently working with a lot of these dip these dip are playing a formative role in getting people in trouble with the law.

Okay, that is literally the case. It was shocking that that was the case, but it is the case and it's actually very frustrating that that it is the case that this administration doesn't care. That's why they work with Betar.

That's why they work with all these other insane groups. The Barry Weisses of the world actually have motion in this goddamn admin. They're cheering this on over at ESUB.

Yeah, I know. I know. They can suck my liberals, by the way.

One of the largest progressive voices in the country getting detained by the Trump Gustapo. Like, what a wonderful progressive audience they have over there. Anyway, they're straight up fascist at this point.

So, my point is it's crazy that like these were these were actual questions. Like they asked me about my Twitch bands, okay? And I talked about blowback.

I talked about how, you know, I said, "America deserve 9/11 and it was misconstrued. " You know, I do have sometimes uh I use hyperbolic language and uh it gets taken out of context or whatever. And uh he agreed with the blowback sentiment uh in terms of like the 9/11 stuff.

Yeah. They asked me about my Twitch bans, chat. It's not even a joke.

They asked me about Twitch bans. The other Twitch ban he asked me about was the last one that I got banned. And I explained to him like, uh, this is, man, you really talk way too much.

Lawyer will be pretty upset at you. Dude, what are you talking about? I know that under normal circumstances, I'm supposed to say, I want a lawyer.

I don't want to talk to you. But this nothing I'm doing is illegal and I also wanted to see what would happen. Do you understand?

I wanted to see what would happen. And I wanted to actually see this experience, which is why instead of immediately lawyering up, I was like, "No, I'm going to I'm going to entertain this. I'm going to see what they actually are trying to get out of this.

" And I'm glad I did this because the reality of the matter is one, I'm profoundly privileged. Okay? Remember, I'm a public person and also I have enough money to to be able to fight back against this sort of thing.

And they know who the I am. So obviously the reason for why they're doing that is I think to try to create an environment of fear to try to get people like myself or at least like others that would be in my shoes that don't have that same level of security to shut the up. And for me I'm going to use the privilege that I have in that moment to try and see what the they're doing.

Okay? Because every single thing that they ask me trying to get me to say something like, "Oh, I support Hamas" or whatever, is literally not allowed. Like, what the do you mean?

Like, why is this denying me entry into the country of my birth? Like, this is my birthright. This is I'm an American citizen.

You can't just stop me at the border and be like, "What's your opinion on Donald Trump? You're not allowed to enter the nation. " Like, that's that was the first half.

Like I said, they asked about the Twitch bans. asked about like uh the the Rick Scott statement and I was like listen you know I I don't I laughed I was like I'm not calling for the assassination of a sitting senator besane but instead I explained to him like I was talking about the hypocrisy of the Republicans blah blah blah I explained away all that and he was understanding then he went back and he came back and the actionable items that came up afterwards was basically asking me about if I had ever been in contact with Hamas if I had ever been in contact with the Houthis directly. ly or indirectly if I had ever actually been in contact with Hezbollah if I had actually ever offered financial support or logistics or any kind of support to Hamas Hezbollah or Houthis.

They straight up asked me that. I laughed. I said no of course not.

But yeah, that was once again these are questions that they're asking. But one thing that I thought was really interesting was in the actionable side of things, they also asked, "Have you ever interviewed a member of Hamas? Have you ever had a communication or correspondence with a member of Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis?

" Now, what's really insane about that is that as someone who works in media, sometimes I do actually do journalism, right, as I've maintained this position over and over again. And I said that I would if given the opportunity to talk to someone that is a part of the onsah movement, Authi or even Hamas or even Hezbollah, right? I think that I have the right to do so.

So that is the part where they were like if you answer yes to any of that, that's when you know there's like actually illegal stuff in there. Having said that, there is one part of it that wasn't illegal, which is being in communic uh communications or being in contact with someone in Hamas. Like that is a part of journalism you actually can do.

It's ridiculous. Like you can interview ISIS. Like what are we talking about?

The notion that this would be an issue for the Customs and Border Patrol is ridiculous. Okay. I mean Donald Trump is in contact with Hamas.

He had a envoy directly talk to Hamas a couple months prior. He's in direct contact with the Houthies. Like what are you talking about?

And so is drop site. Like the idea that this will deny you entry into the country is like what are we talking about? What do you what do you mean?

Like what what kind of insane double standard is there, right? So that part was frustrating. And the interview the interview interrogation, whatever you want to call it that basically ended with me asking like so what is the purpose of this?

Like am I being detained? And he because I because I was like you you know that I'm going to talk about this and I was like a lot of people have talked about this like detainment structure and he was like yeah people really exaggerate how these uh things go and I was like well it is not a great situation to be in you know like what do you mean and yeah he was like yeah there's been a lot of reporting on you know the conditions and situations like this and detainment but you're not technically detained. I was like so I can leave like I was I asked him like I was like am I detained?

and he's like, "No. " I was like, "All right, so what's the purpose of this entire situation? I can just walk out right now.

" And basically, when I said that, the interview ended. So, I don't know if that was something that I should have said from the start. Am I being detained?

You know, what's the deal here? That's your fourth amendment, right? No, you don't have Okay, Chatters, I need you to understand something.

I need you to understand something. So, after I said, "Am I being detained or whatever? " He was like, "No, well, you know, we're He didn't like abruptly end it.

He kept asking uh some questions, but it pretty much ended after that. And I don't know if that's like uh I got lucky there cuz when I asked like am I free to go, that kind of stopped the uh the process a little bit. And I don't know if that's the reason why I didn't have them look through my phone, but I wasn't planning on letting them look through my phone anyway.

That was my point. Like there was a line where I was going to say, "I'm done with this. Either arrest me or, you know, let me go.

I don't know what the is happening here. " I got detained. I didn't get detained.

Yes. chatter. Yes, ICE agents took me to a detention center.

That is a de facto detention. Like, what are you talking about? The total run time of it was like 2 hours, which was uh definitely faster than I thought it was going to be, I will admit.

And um I probably should have asked, "Am I being detained from the start? " And uh I wonder what would have happened, but I basically asked him like, "Do you think this is going to happen again? " Right?

I was like, "Is this going to happen again? " And uh he said, "Uh maybe. " And he gave me this piece of paper, this sheet from Homeland Security.

What is DHS Trip? Okay. And you can, I guess, submit an inquiry at dhs.

gov/trip and ask why I was stopped. You will be prompted to describe your particular concerns and experience, provide contact information to which a response will be directed and be assigned a case number to help you monitor the progress of your inquiry, which I will do. Okay, I will do this.

And uh he basically said, you know, you can figure out what not to do so that this doesn't happen again. And I suspect the what not to do is just don't be a political commentator that speaks about American foreign policy, which is not something I'm planning on stopping. Now, why did I tell you guys about this experience?

Okay. Why did I tell you about this entire experience? Like cuz I in my mind I thought maybe I shouldn't reveal this stuff because I think like the goal here is to put fear into people's hearts to have a chilling effect on speech that like the government is unafraid of intimidating you in illegal ways.

Okay. The government is now officially willing and able to intimidate you for your speech. That is a direct violation of the first amendment.

I'm no first amendment auditor. I'm no big city libertarian. I'm no Mr Admiral Maritime Law.

But the reality of the matter is that as of this administration, they are totally willing and able to actually come after you for your speech. And even with like ridiculous like they're willing and able to go along with like stuff that gets written in the uh the free press or willing and able to go along with that even editors bring up. Okay, that's how stupid and silly the situation has gotten.

Now, of course, does this stop me from saying whatever the I want to say? Of course not. Don't be ridiculous.

But the reason why I wanted to talk about it was to give you more insight into what the government is doing and to speak out against this sort of stuff because I do have a position of privilege here and I want to make sure that like you should know your rights that you should not be fearful and uh you should not worry especially if you're an American citizen that these guys are going to come after you and like arrest you or some okay but it is pretty wild. I will say as someone who's been held up in airports many times over, it was actually shocking that these guys totally grab me knowing exactly who I am, knowing that I will most likely talk about this with the hopes that I think that they would uh at least stoke some fear and threaten people like myself and then also threaten others as a byproduct of this. I mean, it backfired in my situation, but I hope this doesn't discourage others from speaking out as well.

Let's They don't have the right to do this. Okay. They do not have a right to do this.

If you don't already know, your ops are doing mass email campaigns to the feds to try and get this exact same thing to happen. Yeah, I know. They can suck my for all of my dumbass ops.

I think it's really really crazy that the government is willing and able to work with like genuine schizophrenic stalkers, whether they be BAR or any other group. It is actually wild that they're willing and able to work with these people. It blows my mind.

But, you know, that is where we're at. It also blows my mind that there are people who see this kind of stuff and go, "Oh, that's wonderful. " It's like swatting, but this time it's a federal swatting that we can do.

We can get the federal agents to like jail people that my favorite content creator doesn't like. Airports are not constitutional free zones. That's a lot of ICE pushes to make you comply with them.

That's not entirely correct. lesbian bolavvar. There's years and years of precedent in post 911 war on terror world where they have actually created a structure where they can get away with violating your uh fourth amendment rights in airports like it's an illegal gray area.

Here was Lolo rules take DHS flagging and detaining one of us's largest leftwing voices for their political opinions while the Trump administ suggests they might suspend habius corpus does not portend well for the future. Yeah, that's where we're at. What was the reason for the detainment?

You know what the reason for the detainment was? It's because I am flagged in the flight manifest. Is this going to change the way you travel?

No, but it does actually gum up the works a little bit in terms of going to Cuba. I forgot. There was other questions that they asked like, "Have you traveled to the Middle East?

Have you been to any of the Gulf States? " All this. And you know, it is what it is.

I'm not discouraged. I'm not intimidated. I don't give a I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.

That was my Customs and Border Patrol experience. And yeah, it's it's just like pure intimidation tactics and it was very similar to the experience that that one Tik Tocker talked about. But luckily, I never got to the point of having them go through my phone.

And that was my red line like no matter what. That was where I was going to be like, "No, you can't do that. " And uh you know, arrest me then if you want to.

Oh, this is the experience that it closely resembled. By the way, ICE detains a woman who runs anti-Trump TikTok. She's a US citizen born and raised.

She was detained for hours as agents searched her phone and social media even demanding financial statements on how much she earns on TikTok. They never asked me for my financial statements either. The woman who goes by I of was returning from a European vacation to the Miami International Airport with a valid Global Re-entry card issued to her as a US citizen, but she also had Global Entry.

How worried were you about actually being arrested? I had no idea. I I had no idea if I was going to be arrested or not.

I didn't know if this was going to be moment where I was going to be the precedent set in court case. You know what I mean? Like that is definitely a worry that I have for sure.

It's something that I think about because eventually somewhere along the line someone is going to be the precedent setting court case of whether or not someone gets prosecuted for speech and speech alone because the line right now is material support and that line is being blurred by this current administration with Mahmud Khalil with Mosen Maktawi with Resaurk right some of those people have been released at this point but Mahmud Khalil is still very much in detention and according to Marco Rubio the argument that they are trying to use is that speech is material support, right? They are actively trying to blur the boundaries between what constitutes material support to try to make it seem as though things that would be protected under First Amendment would be considered material support. Expressing any sort of opinion is considered material support.

And that's maybe you shouldn't have said, "If they come for me, then it's over. " As if you'd be last. If you're a public figure dog, maybe you'd be first.

No. No. because they haven't come for me beyond like being a nuisance and being annoying and thinking that they can get away with like trying to put some sort of fear in my heart which is of course not going to work obviously.

Do you think that's all they wanted? I don't know. Maybe they're setting up an investigation for the future.

Who knows? We'll find out. We shall find out.

Sheamus said, "Been pulled into secondary screening many times at O'Hare CBP had the most involved in specific questions about Gaza for me by far. Glad to see you got out of there without having to give up your devices. Yeah.

Are you concerned about landing in LA? No, because that's domestic travel. There's no customs and border patrol experience during domestic travel.

That'd be insane. But yeah, I am my worst enemy in that regard. I did want to get this interaction out because I wanted to like figure out what the they were doing.

And I'm fortunate that I didn't actually get into any additional trouble, but I could have. You know what I mean? That could have certainly happened, right?

And um who knows I can't imagine how scared the other non-American citizens waiting there were. It's evil. Yeah.

It's so much worse for them cuz like I am profoundly privileged. As I say all the time, I'm profoundly privileged. I'm I'm rich.

I'm an American citizen. I was born here, you know? I mean, I'm a I'm a public figure on top of that.

So, all of this stuff plays a role in in how protected I am from additional scrutiny. I'm not doing anything that is uh illegal to begin with, but I'm not even doing anything that like reaches the territory of Edge, no matter how much slop tubers try to make it seem as though like I'm running around waving the Hamas banner every day or whatever the like, which still would be protected under first amendment and would not stop the Gestapo from denying me entry into my own country. I'm not doing that regardless.

like all the stuff that I have talked about on this broadcast are still completely not only first amendment protected but also on top of that like not even reaching the standard of like truly questionable speech regardless of what like Mudahar or Asmin Gold claims it is right it doesn't reach that standard and that's precisely the reason why they have to actively clip out of context and desperately try to create drama surrounding this so they can get Twitch to enforce some action on it so they can make it seem as though this is actually truly radical speech that's like reallyed up. Does that make sense? Cuz like when a platform like Twitch actually does take action against someone like myself, then other institutions will basically use that as a as a way to say, "Oh, he did do something bad.

He did do something up.