US denies French researcher expelled over Trump messages

Competing narratives have emerged between Washington and Paris over why a researcher was recently denied entry to the United States, in the latest example of an immigration refusal under the Trump administration testing international relations, writes Saskya Vandoorne for CNN.

France on Thursday 20 March said the unnamed researcher was blocked from entering the US earlier this month after authorities found messages about US President Donald Trump on his phone. US officials have since rejected that claim and said the researcher held “confidential information” on an electronic device.

France’s Minister of Higher Education and Research Philippe Baptiste said that the researcher was traveling to a conference near Houston on 9 March when US authorities found that his phone “contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policies”. However, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement on Thursday that “any claim that his removal was based on political beliefs is blatantly false”.
Full report on the CNN site