A Kenyan girl was denied
entry into the United States just days after courts barred President Donald
Trump from deporting immigrants.
The girl identified as
Ednah Chepkoton, was held at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport for many
hours after getting off a United Airlines flight on Saturday, February 4, 2017
The 25-year-old nursing
graduate had been given a five-year multiple entry visa by the US embassy in
Nairobi on Friday, January 20, 2017
Narrating to the sad
experience to the Star, she said:
'We landed at around 9.30
am but when I was clearing with the customs an immigration officer called
me aside and started questioning me. I was so confused and terrified. It was my
first trip out of Kenya, she said.
The officer then started
checking her luggage and documents. He asked her why she was carrying her
academic papers and if she did not plan to return to Kenya.
'I told him I always travel
with my papers and that I had a return ticket," she said.
After the interrogations
which took four hours, the officer demanded her cell phone
'He asked for the password
which I gave to him,' she said, adding she was then asked to leave the office.
'I went back to ask why my
case was taking long because my flight was leaving. It was at that juncture
that the officer, who was with a woman in uniform, told me he had two questions
for me,'
She was asked to choose
between being banned from the US for five years and having her visa withdrawn.
Ednah requested the
officers to let her call her cousin. They refused.
Caught between a hard rock
and a hard place, she chose the cancellation of her multiple entry visa. Her
visa now bears a United States Homeland Security stamp withdrawing it.
Ednah was bundled into a
return flight to Nairobi at around 6pm, more than eight hours after
setting foot in the US.
'I was really looking
forward to my one-month stay in the US. We had spent a lot of money on air
tickets. It is so sad that after all the vetting at the embassy in Nairobi I
was humiliated this much.
Upon returning to Kenya,
she, however, called the US embassy and was told to send her denial of entry
letter.
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