“I must say I was afraid. I’m a foreigner. I don’t have a green card. I’m not an American citizen. I’m fairly prominent, and I literally prepared to go to America as if I was going to North Korea,” Amanpour said, reflecting on a recent trip to the US last month to deliver a speech at Harvard Kennedy School.
The 67-year-old British-Iranian journalist added that she brought only a burner phone with limited contacts, leaving behind her usual devices out of concern. “I took a burner phone. Imagine that. I didn’t take a single… not my mobile phone, not my iPad, nothing, and I had nothing on the burner phone except a few numbers,” she said.
Despite her fears, Amanpour noted that her arrival in the US was uneventful. “So, huge sigh of relief I breathed, but wow, can you imagine if I'm afraid, what do others think?” she added.
She also said she had consulted CNN’s security team before her trip, citing stories from other British nationals who were reportedly detained or turned away at the border.
Rubin weighed in, saying: “With Donald Trump’s basically weaponization of the immigration and naturalization service to scrutinize people, to imagine that every single non-American is a threat to the United States, is a war on what our country has been since its founding.”
President Trump announced a new executive order Wednesday targeting Harvard University’s international programs. Titled Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University, the order suspends the university’s student visa program. Trump described the program as a “privilege granted by our government, not a guarantee.”
He has also accused the school of violating federal law and said restricting foreign students was necessary to protect national interests.
The order cited long-standing FBI concerns about foreign adversaries exploiting US higher education institutions to “steal technical information and products, exploit expensive research and development to advance their own ambitions and spread false information for political or other reasons.”
