Federal customs agents allegedly subjected Hasan Piker, one of the country’s most popular progressive online streamers, to lengthy questioning at a Chicago airport over the weekend about his views on Trump and the war 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 said on a stream, suggesting the administration wanted to “get something out of me that I think they could use to basically detain me permanently.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection told The Independent that Piker was stopped for routine additional 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 said. “Our officers are following the law, not agendas.”
The commentator, who has nearly 3 million followers on Twitch, said agents seemed aware of his past videos and asked him about his opinions on President Trump, if he’d interviewed members of militant groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah, and whether he considered Hamas a terror organization or a resistance group.
“I kept repeating the same statement over and over again,” Piker said 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 comment.
Civil liberties experts 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 in fact singled out because of his views, it would mark an escalation of the Trump administration’s continued campaign to prosecute activists and academics it deems as holding unacceptable views, which has so far concentrated on non-citizens.
Tufts University scholar Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student, was held in immigration detention for six weeks and continues facing potential deportation after co-writing an op-ed with Tufts students in a student newspaper that criticized Israel’s war in Gaza.
“Simply and purely,” she was detained for “the expression she made or shared in the op-ed” critical of Israel, Louisiana federal Judge William K. Sessions III said 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 said. “That literally is the case. There is no evidence here as to the motivation, absent consideration of the op-ed.”
The Trump administration is also reportedly using artificial intelligence to “catch and revoke” the visas of foreign students who officials perceive as supporting Hamas and other designated terror groups.
Trump signed an executive order in January calling on agencies to review migrants for their views, ensuring immigrants both seeking to enter and already inside 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 those accused of aligning with them, have fled the country for fear of unjust prosecution by the administration.
