Popular Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker, who has more than 2 million followers on the live-streaming platform, said he was detained and questioned by federal authorities at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport for more than two hours after arriving in the U.S. on an international flight.
This happened as Piker, 33, was headed to speak at the University of Chicago on Sunday after he returned from a family vacation in Paris. Piker, a prominent Turkish American live streamer who has openly spoken out against the war in Gaza, told the Institute of Politics crowd at UChicago that he believes he was targeted at O’Hare for his criticism of the Trump administration.
No video of the interaction has surfaced — but Piker had some specific claims about his interaction with U.S. Custom Border Protection agents.
“They took me to the back room, into a detention center. An agent came out and took me into the interrogation room … and they started asking me about crazy [expletive], like, ‘Do you like Donald Trump?'” he said.
The American-born Twitch streamer and left-wing political commentator recounted at length to his millions of followers his two-hour encounter with federal agents after he arrived in Chicago from Paris. He claims he was asked not only about the president, but he was questioned about his opinions on Israel, Hamas and the Houthis rebels in Yemen.
“Everything I’ve done is fully protected under the First Amendment, OK?” Piker said. “And none of these questions are actually valid questions to ask.”
Piker said this applies no matter what one’s political beliefs are.
“It’s illegal for them to even ask me those questions, like, they can’t deny me entry into my own country,” Piker said. “It’s like, even if I was like, ‘I love Hamas,’ they can’t do that. Like, what do you mean?”
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin acknowledged that Piker was detained, but took issue with his account of what happened.
McLaughlin said: “This is nothing but lying for likes. Claims that his political beliefs triggered the inspection are baseless. Our officers are following the law, not agendas.”
Piker, who said he has Global Entry, the CBP program for pre-approved and low-risk travelers, addressed McLaughlin’s comments on a Tuesday live stream.
“They openly admit to it taking place, right?” he said. “Saying that I’m lying for likes is very funny, because they don’t even deny that it took place, deny that it was a political targeting.”
CBS News Chicago took the issue to legal analyst Irv Miller, who said the location is important here.
“I suspect because this happened in an airport — an entry point into the country — that there were cameras everywhere,” Miller said.
Miller said international travelers do give up certain Fourth Amendment rights to search and seizure — but there is a line.
“Immigration has an absolute right to ask you who you are, and to see your identification — but they don’t have a right to ask you questions and demand answers of things other than your identity and your citizenship,” Miller said.
Miller said travelers always have a Fifth Amendment right to stay silent, but acknowledged that doing so has practical problems. Anyone who stays silent may be held longer, particularly at a time when border enforcement is an administration priority.
“The government is trying to be tougher. It is trying to be more invasive, and it’s getting close to that line whether or not something is constitutional or not constitutional,” said Miller, “and it always ends up in the courts.”
Miller said he tells clients to go with the flow until they feel uncomfortable, at which point they can ask for a supervisor.
Piker said Tuesday that he was answering some of the questions while he was detained, instead of choosing to stay silent, because he wanted to see the line of questioning. He was released and has since returned to Los Angeles.