New York gallery owner denied entry to US

[tenorly]

Source: CNN

An Argentine art gallery owner based in New York will miss the opening of his institution's newest show because he was denied entry to the United States.

Juan García Mosqueda, founder and owner of Chamber Gallery in New York City, claimed in an open letter that he was detained at John F. Kennedy International Airport after returning from a visit to Argentina. García Mosqueda says he was held for 14 hours without access to legal counsel. He was allegedly ushered by armed officers onto a return flight to Buenos Aires later in the day.

"During the following fourteen excruciating hours, I was prohibited from the use of any means of communication and had no access to any of my belongings, which were ferociously examined without any warrant whatsoever," García Mosqueda wrote in his letter. "I was deprived of food. I was frisked three times in order to go to the bathroom, where I had no privacy and was under the constant surveillance of an officer."

In a statement, US Customs and Border Protection said that while they wouldn't comment on individual cases because of the Privacy Act, "CBP not only protects U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents but also ensures the safety of international travelers who come to our country to visit, study and conduct legitimate business."

Chamber, located in New York's art gallery-filled Chelsea neighborhood, is described as a "21st century cabinet of curiosities for one-of-a-kind, rare and limited edition objects of design and art." García Mosqueda, who was born in Argentina and educated in the United States, where he has lived for 10 years, opened the gallery in 2014.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/01/us/gallery-owner-detained-argentina-trnd/

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[center]

Bad hombre: Chelsea art gallery owner Juan García Mosqueda[/center]

[MedusaX]

1. Obviously...

CBP/ICE New he was a SuPER EXTRA bad hombre as soon as they saw his name...

Juan García -- Bad Hombre - Mexican sounding names x2
MOSQUEda -- Radical Bad Hombre - sounds like one of them there Muslim Islamic Gee-Hadist recruitment places...

[iluvtennis]

2. Yep, profiling ppl by their names and what they look like. Wonder of they would detain a white guy.

...named Mohammed?

[tenorly]

3. That's right! How silly of us to fret over such an obvious threat to the homeland.

You realize how many good Republican church ladies could be sacred silly by his deviant art!

[marybourg]

4. Conspicuously missing from this article

is any description of the protagonist's immigration status. Leaving one (or at least me) to suspect he came and over-stayed his visa and has no legal status at all. I think transparency and common decency demands that whatever his status is should have been stated in the article, since the protagonist is outraged and we are being solicited to share his outrage.

[tenorly]

7. He claims legal resident status.

He went to school here and has operated a successful art gallery in Chelsea for three years - and seeing as the officials involved have not specified what if any immigration violations he may have committed, it's safe to assume he's telling the truth.

[metalbot]

37. I don't see why that is a safe assumption at all

Because the story doesn't really make much sense. If he was a Legal Permanent Resident (a green card holder), then there's no basis to be barred entry. Even when Trump's ban was in effect, green card holders were allowed in.

Occam's razor says that he was here legally, in the sense that he had a multi-year, multi-entry tourist visa, and he then admitted under questioning that he was in fact doing business and sort of living here. That story at least makes sense.

[still_one]

8. He isn't an American citizen. However the way he was treated is concerning if accurate:

"Mosqueda said he was detained for 14 hours and had no access to legal counsel. In all, he said the "nightmare" lasted 36 hours, including the round-trip flight.

"During the following fourteen excruciatingly painful hours, I was prohibited from the use of any means of communication and had no access to any of my belongings, which were ferociously examined without any warrant whatsoever," Mosqueda wrote in his letter posted Tuesday. "I was deprived of food. I was frisked three times in order to go to the bathroom, where I had no privacy and was under the constant surveillance of an officer."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/03/01/NY-gallery-owner-denied-US-entry-expects-to-miss-new-show/9101488423651/

[silverweb]

9. A legal resident for 10 years, according to him.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]That's in this and other articles. Immigration will not comment at this point, so it's unconfirmed.

However, he's certainly not one of the "bad hombres" involved in drug smuggling, gangs, and other criminality that the current misadministration claims to be focused on. He's a creative and productive taxpayer, and certainly didn't deserve the kind of treatment he received.

ICE and DHS are power-drunk bullies set free of restrictions - and that is our shame.

[marybourg]

11. Thank you. I read the entire article and didn't see that. nt

[silverweb]

12. It was next to the article.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Top of the lefthand side. I confirmed in other articles.

[tblue37]

30. In an OP I posted last week, an ICE agent is quoted saying,

. . .we’re going to do whatever we want, we agents will finally get to decide who gets deported and who doesn’t."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028661785

[silverweb]

36. I read your post - or a similar one.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Their attitude is absolutely terrifying and echoes that of the entire Republican sector.

[metalbot]

38. The wording is peculiar

Because if he had a green card, it feels like he would have said so, or that he was a Legal Permanent Resident, not a "legal resident". For example, if you are a European, you can come here legally, and you can legally "reside" here as long as you leave the country frequently enough. That doesn't allow you to operate a business here.

[silverweb]

40. But he *owns* a business here.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I rather doubt that he could have started his gallery and obtained a business license if he wasn't legal, could he? Then again, I don't know NYC's procedures for granting or denying such a license.

[metalbot]

42. Anyone can start an LLC and file for a business license

The US doesn't have ownership restrictions on (most) businesses. You don't have to be a legal permanent resident in order to form a corporation, apply for licenses, or for that business to operate in the US. What wouldn't be legal would be for someone without status to work for or run that business from inside the US.

For example, a French citizen, from Paris, could buy a bakery in New York, and own the business, and pay someone to run it for him. The business operates as an investment that happens to be in the US. The same French guy could buy a condo in New York, and visit the US on a tourist visa. However, if he works in his bakery while here on his tourist visa, he's now in violation (and will lose his visa-waiver status if he gets caught).

[silverweb]

43. Thanks for that clarification.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]It seems there are more questions to be asked and answered. Regardless of his status, though, I don't believe this gentleman deserved the harsh and humiliating treatment he received at the airport.

[question everything]

5. Can he now get a lawyer to sue the shit out of these officers?

And I have to wonder: what kind of men go for these jobs? To watch others piss and poop? Perhaps their laptop should be searched for child porn, or something.

[silverweb]

10. A natural bully's dream job.

n/t

[silverweb]

6. K&R

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]Gratuitous bullying by power-drunk thugs. As we know from history, artists of all kinds are free-thinking, free-spirited beings, and thus a terrible threat to any authoritarian government.

[tenorly]

35. Absolutely.

This was meant as a message not only to Latin Americans, but to artists in general.

[silverweb]

41. Agreed.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]It's just more of this "we can do whatever we want" attitude from the current Republican misadministration, and ICE/DHS are their happy enforcers run amok. The fact that they're holding and interrogating lecturers (Henry Rousso), writers (Mem Fox), artists (the current case), etc, confirms their pointed hostility.

[zentrum]

13. 45 is going...

...to destroy America in ways we can't even imagine yet. Why will writers, artists, dancers, intellectuals, teachers from other countries ever want to come here ever again?

What a hideous, banal, vulgar, cruel, stupid, racist specimen 45 is.

[ananda]

23. Yes. Art and intellectualism ..

Being destroyed one immigrant, protester, dissident
and free-thinker at a time.

[lagomorph777]

26. America is going to destroy Agent Orange in ways he never dreamed of.

His administration is spinning down the toilet.

[littlemissmartypants]

15. Shameful.

Yet, the "history repeats itself" adage applies.

The Nazis systematically persecuted artists whose work they did not approve of, denouncing it as "degenerate art."

http://m.dw.com/en/how-the-nazis-destroyed-diversity-in-art/a-16719223

[neeksgeek]

29. Thank you for posting this

I was about to do so myself.

It's not just Muslims. Or Mexicans.

Artists. Atheists. Intellectuals. Writers. Non-Christians. White people in interracial marriages (neo-nazis call us "race traitors&quot .

It's anybody they have a problem with, and that means nearly everyone who's not just like them

[littlemissmartypants]

39. Exactly and You're Welcome.

And lest we forget, the differently abled are part of the list. If it weren't so disturbing we could find it funny that President Bannon's an ableist. He's such a "not the picture of health" and I suspect just a few white russian cocktails away from a stroke. In a perfect world, he's off the edge of Gibraltar in a freak wheelchair accident with Anne Marie Wilkes Dugan as his nurse.

All the best to you neeksgeek. ♡

[defacto7]

16. lets see...

There have been artists, professors, doctors, childrens book authors, the elderly... interesting spectrum of choices... but no dangerous illegal immigrants. When are they going to mistakenly stop a conservative corporate billionaire or two?

[snort]

17. Those guys fly in different jets.

Wrong club.

[redwitch]

18. Don't forget the Tibetan girls. High School age soccer team

denied entry for a soccer tournament to be held in Dallas.

[HockeyMom]

21. Mohammad Ali, Jr.

Born in Philly with a US Passport. In Dtrump's world American citizens better not have a Muslim or Hispanic sounding name. Janet Jackson would be well advised to keep her original Christian birth name on her passport.

Terrifying country we now live in.

[ecstatic]

24. Wow, that's crazy! I thought US citizens would

at least be exempt but I see that's not the case. I'm traveling abroad in 3 weeks, and I have a funny sounding surname.

[tblue37]

31. Also the former prime minister of Norway, b/c 3 years ago he spoke at a human rights

conference in Iran. nt

[defacto7]

44. add that and the ones mentioned above...

It certainly isn't a diverse group. It doesn't cover anything that could be construed as equality.
I see non-whites of any persuation or nationality, foregn sounding names (whatever that is) or whites who are possibly liberal, educators or that could be involved in civil rights.
This is illegal in the United States that I have known. This is not the same nation. They won this battle but must not win the war.

[yuiyoshida]

19. When I read shit like this it makes me wonder if I will ever get to visit Asia any time soon

and the answer to that is probably no. Some stupid Security person will accuse me of being North Korean or some such shit... and next thing you know, I will be on a flight to Pyongyang.

[FailureToCommunicate]

22. We all would vouch for you!

(Maybe that wouldn't help the predicament, come to think of it)

[yuiyoshida]

25. that would be nice but...

You guys don't know me from Adam!

[LittleGirl]

20. I'm flying into EWR

next week...as a citizen, I'm very worried. I have no reason to be detained, but my British dual citizen spouse might be when he joins me later. WTF? OH I forgot to mention, he was born in India so he has brown skin and has a US passport now. damn it.

[napi21]

27. What the hell kind of documentation can these people carry that would ensure they would

avoid insane treatment?

I've been thinking about this. How could I prove I was a valid US Citizen who should be clear to enter the US? This whole thing is getting out of hand quickly. I hope some attorneys will take this issue to court and force our new dictator to behave like a rational American.

[marybourg]

32. A green card.

They're required to, if in fact they are a legal resident.

[mwooldri]

33. Not even that... not even a US Passport.

If Muhammed Ali Jr. gets detained as a US citizen, and legal permanent residents get put back on planes to their original country... not even carrying around the proper card will save you.

It's one reason why I'm not leaving the US until I've naturalized. I'm whiter than white skin-wise, Anglo name, from UK. The US should IMO be pushing for open borders across the Americas, not closed.

[marybourg]

34. I'm still suspicious about this case.

The article mentioned a lot of irrelevant facts, like he went to school in this country, he owns a gallery, he's lived here 10 years, but the REAl crux of the issue: does he have a green card was not mentioned, at least in the article itself; a poster above said it was stated next to the article that he was a legal resident.

The rot comes from the head, as with fish. I don't blame the minions just trying to do the job. And I blame the press for an incomplete (at best) story.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

28. It seems like ICE and CBP

have been totally let off the leash under Trump, which, so far, hasn't seemed like much of a good thing for a lot of people. I know that the Trumpublicans probably are gushing over their aggressive Gestapo-like tactics (they're just busy making America great again!) but I can't imagine that many immigrants- even those with some kind of legal status- are sleeping well at night anymore- and that's not something that I want our country to be known for (and not even something our country has traditionally been recognized for).

I wonder if there are ICE and CBP agents whom are a bit unhappy about how their agency is treating people nowadays? I haven't heard about a lot of pushback.