A French scientist was denied entry to the US this month after immigration officers at an airport searched his phone and found messages in which he had expressed criticism of the Trump administration, said a French minister.
“I learned with concern that a French researcher who was traveling to a conference near Houston was denied entry to the United States before being expelled,” Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, said in a statement on Monday to Agence France-Presse published by Le Monde.
“This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy,” the minister added.
“Freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values that we will continue to proudly uphold. I will defend the right of all French researchers to be faithful to them, while respecting the law,” Baptiste said.
A diplomatic source told the French news agency that the incident occurred on 9 March. The scientist was on assignment for the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). The same source said that messages discussing the Trump administration’s treatment of scientists had been found. The researcher was reportedly then accused of writings “that reflect hatred toward Trump and can be described as terrorism”.
Another AFP source said that US authorities accused the French researcher of “hateful and conspiratorial messages”. He was reportedly also informed of an FBI investigation, but told that “charges were dropped” before being expelled.
The research minister, Baptiste, has been outspoken in his own criticism of the Trump administration, and Elon Musk, for making huge cuts to scientific research budgets.
On the same day that the researcher was denied entry to the US, Baptiste published a letter calling on American researchers to relocate to France. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” he wrote. “We would naturally wish to welcome a certain number of them.”
The next day, Baptiste posted a photograph of himself in a virtual meeting with a researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who had decided to take up an invitation from Aix-Marseille University to welcome researchers who wish to leave the United States.
On 12 March, Baptiste shared video on X, of a television appearance in which he deplored the way that research on health, climate, energy and AI “is being chainsawed in the United States”.
In the same interview, Baptiste said that he had “heard Elon Musk say that the International Space Station should be shut down in 2027. Who are we talking about? The boss of SpaceX? The head of the American public administration? None of this makes any sense.”
It was not immediately clear what conference the researcher who was denied entry to the US was planning to attend, but the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference was held outside Houston from 10 to 14 March.
“All persons arriving at a port of entry to the United States are subject to inspection on a case-by-case basis,” Hilton Beckham, a spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement to the Guardian. “As part of their critical national security mission, CBP officers routinely determine admissibility of foreign nationals using longstanding US immigration law. If an individual has material discovered on their electronic media that raises flags during an inspection, it can result in further analysis. Claims that such decisions are politically motivated are completely unfounded.”
Before Trump returned to office, Beckham was communications director for the America First Policy Institute, a rightwing thinktank that developed policies for Trump’s second administration, by drafting nearly 300 executive orders before the election, and creating a sort of shadow cabinet, led by Linda McMahon, Pam Bondi and Brooke Rollins, who now all serve in the current cabinet.
A CBP spokesperson also pointed to a section of the agency’s website which notes: “On rare occasions, CBP officers may search a traveler’s mobile phone, computer, camera, or other electronic devices during the inspection process.” Such searches of electronic devices, the agency policy claims, “are often integral to determining an individual’s intentions upon entry to the United States and thus provide additional information relevant to admissibility of foreign nationals under US immigration laws”.
