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‘Go back where you came from’: Yassmin Abdel-Magied on ‘humiliating’ customs

Aug 17, 2018

She was previously denied entry to the US as she had the wrong visa. Source: Getty.

Just months after the controversy surrounding Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s alleged “deportation” from the United States, the outspoken activist has now taken aim at airport security admitting she feels “humiliated” every time she goes through customs.

Writing in the Evening Standard, Abdel-Magied described herself as a “proud Aussie” but slammed security and immigration staff at European airports, who she claims judge her purely based on her Muslim faith and Sudanese heritage.

“I’m an Australian and have been so for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I’ve always considered myself ‘Aussie’, and proudly so — with the obvious caveats around our treatment of First Nations people, asylum-seekers, performance at the World Cup, etc.

“But no matter how Aussie I feel, how broad my ocker accent, or how blasé I am around poisonous creatures, customs lines at airports see me a little differently. There I’m less ‘Aussie’, more ‘Muslim’. Less ‘larrikan’, more ‘African’. Less ‘life of the party’, more ‘danger to national security’.”

https://twitter.com/yassmin_a/status/1030086503073046529

Abdel-Magied, 27, who is now based in London, said she felt mortified in a UK customs queue, revealing that she feels paranoid about border staff being prejudiced against her because she was born in Khartoum, Sudan, despite holding an Australian passport.

“Standing in the UK customs line — or any customs line in Europe — reduces me from being a real person with hopes, dreams and an Instagram page begging for holiday snaps to someone who (apparently) poses a threat to a nation’s social fabric,” she added.

Read more: Yassmin Abdel-Magied weighs in on US border controversy.

She went on to say that America is even more challenging for dual citizens such as herself, due to more stringent visa controls. These comments come just four months after she claimed she had been deported from the US due to a “crackdown on immigration”, after decrying her treatment by American immigration officials in a series of angry tweets.

However, hours later, she admitted that she had actually attempted to enter the US on what immigration officials said was the wrong visa. Like most countries, the US does not allow entrants on visitor or tourist visas to work while in the country.

Former ABC presenter Abdel-Magied is no stranger to ruffling some feathers though as she previously sparked outrage among Aussies due to her “disrespectful” comments about Anzac day in 2017, when she tweeted: “Lest. We. Forget. (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)”

Earlier this year she set tongues wagging again when she repeated the message, this time retweeting a message from Sally Rugg which read: “What if thousands of us tweeted ‘lest we forget (Manus)’ next week on April 25th…”

Abdel-Magied incited her own followers to take action, writing “do it” alongside the tweet, sparking an outpouring of anger.