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.
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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.