‘Environment of fear’: Popular US leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker says he was grilled about Trump by Customs brokers at Chicago airport | EUROtoday

Federal customs brokers allegedly subjected Hasan Piker, one of many nation’s hottest progressive on-line streamers, to prolonged questioning at a Chicago airport over the weekend about his views on Trump and the struggle in Gaza, prompting concern from civil liberties advocates.

“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 others that would be in my shoes that don’t have that same level of security, to shut the f*** up,” Piker, a U.S. citizen, later mentioned on a stream, suggesting the administration wished to “get something out of me that I think they could use to basically detain me permanently.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection advised The Independent that Piker was stopped for routine extra inspection, a “process that occurs daily, and can apply for any traveler.”

“Claims that his political belief triggered the inspection are baseless,” a CBP official mentioned. “Our officers are following the law, not agendas.”

The commentator, who has almost 3 million followers on Twitch, mentioned brokers appeared conscious of his previous movies and requested him about his opinions on President Trump, if he’d interviewed members of militant teams just like the Houthis and Hezbollah, and whether or not he thought-about Hamas a terror group or a resistance group.

“I kept repeating the same statement over and over again,” Piker mentioned of his responses to the questioning. “I kept saying … I’m on the side of civilians. I want the endless bloodshed to end. I am a pacifist. I want wars to end.”

The Independent has contacted the White House for remark.

Civil liberties specialists condemned Piker’s alleged questioning.

“No U.S. citizen should be detained by law enforcement, at the border or anywhere, because of their protected speech,” Ari Cohn, of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression free speech watchdog group, wrote on X.

If Piker was actually singled out due to his views, it will mark an escalation of the Trump administration’s continued marketing campaign to prosecute activists and teachers it deems as holding unacceptable views, which has thus far targeting non-citizens.

Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral scholar, was held in immigration detention for six weeks and continues going through potential deportation after co-writing an op-ed with Tufts college students in a scholar newspaper that criticized Israel’s struggle in Gaza.

“Simply and purely,” she was detained for “the expression she made or shared in the op-ed” essential of Israel, Louisiana federal Judge William Okay. Sessions III mentioned in a ruling this week granting the Ozturk bail.

“I put the government on notice they should introduce any such evidence … That was three weeks ago, and there has been no evidence,” Sessions mentioned. “That literally is the case. There is no evidence here as to the motivation, absent consideration of the op-ed.”

The Trump administration can be reportedly utilizing synthetic intelligence to “catch and revoke” the visas of international college students who officers understand as supporting Hamas and different designated terror teams.

Trump signed an government order in January calling on businesses to evaluation migrants for his or her views, making certain immigrants each in search of to enter and already contained in the U.S. “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.”

As The Independent has reported, pro-Palestine activists, or these accused of aligning with them, have fled the nation for concern of unjust prosecution by the administration.