U.S. Denies Entry To Leader Of Movement To Boycott Israel
April 11, 2019 10:28 AM ET
HANNAH ALLAM
A Qatari-born Palestinian, Omar Barghouti (shown in 2016) is a leader of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel known as BDS.
Nasser Nasser/AP
Updated at 12:26 p.m. ET
The U.S. government has denied entry to Palestinian activist Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement, which urges boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel on security and settlement policies in the West Bank.
Barghouti was at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel on Wednesday when airline staff informed him that he wouldn't be flying despite holding valid travel documents, according to the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based advocacy group that arranged the trip. He was told that U.S. immigration officials had ordered the U.S. consul in Tel Aviv to deny him permission to enter the United States.
"Barghouti was not provided an explanation for his denial of entry beyond 'immigration matter,' " the Arab American Institute said in a statement. The group said Barghouti typically faces travel hurdles from Israel — not the United States. He has a master's degree from Columbia University and spent a decade in the U.S. in the 1980s.
A State Department official told NPR, "Visa records are confidential under U.S. law; therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases."
Gandhi Peace Award from a Connecticut activist group. Yale issued a statement stressing that it was unaffiliated with the award but honors requests from the community to "invite speakers and groups to campus in accordance with our mission of fostering the free exchange of ideas."
In February, the watchdog group Amnesty International demanded that Israel "end the arbitrary travel ban on human rights defender Omar Barghouti." Israel later issued Barghouti a travel document. He holds a U.S. visa that is valid through January 2021.
Barghouti is among a growing list of international figures barred entry to the U.S. by the Trump administration. Earlier this month, U.S. authorities revoked the visa of the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, reportedly over her attempts to investigate alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
Last month, dozens of women — primarily from African and Middle Eastern nations that fall under the administration's travel ban — were denied visas to attend a United Nations women's conference. In accordance with a 70-year-old treaty, the United States, as host nation, is obliged to admit visitors to the U.N. headquarters in New York.
In some cases, there is a clear political or security backstory to the denial of entry. In others, the reasons are opaque. In 2017, an Afghan all-girls team of students that was invited to a robot-building contest was denied entry. U.S. authorities eventually issued visas for the girls after a backlash from human rights groups.
NPR correspondents Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem and Michele Kelemen at the State Department contributed to this report.
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