Members of the U.K. Subs have said they were denied entry into the US for a show at Los Angeles’ Punk Invasion festival.
The veteran punk band’s bassist Alvin Gibbs posted on Facebook on Wednesday (March 19), explaining that he and bandmates Stefan Häublein and Marc Carrey had been detained at customs in LA and denied entry into the country. The three were then deported back to the UK.
Frontman Charlie Harper was the only band member to be allowed into the US and he ended up playing the scheduled show at The Belasco as part of the festival with stand-in musicians.
Gibbs said that after landing at the Los Angeles airport, he and his partner were told they would be questioned after being flagged for two reasons. The first was that Gibbs was told he had an incorrect visa, while the authorities refused to disclose the second reason.
“I can’t help but wonder whether my frequent, and less than flattering, public comments regarding their president and his administration played a role – or perhaps I’m simply succumbing to paranoia,” he said.
“What followed was far from pleasant,” Gibbs added. “Two police officers escorted me to another section of LAX, where I found Stefan and Marc already detained in a cold holding pen, along with a group of Colombian, Chinese, and Mexican detainees. My luggage, phone, and passport were confiscated.”
He said his partner waited 25 hours for him to be released from detention. “By the time we were escorted on to the flight at 8pm the next day, I had gone without sleep for well over a day, surviving only on a pot noodle and a couple of cups of tea.”
“It seems my relationship with the country is over for the foreseeable future,” he said.
Watch Harper’s performance at the LA festival here:
The controversial detention comes amid reports that other individuals known to have been publicly critical of Donald Trump have also been denied entry into the US. Earlier this month, the Guardian reported that a French scientist was also turned away by immigration officers after they searched his phone and found anti-Trump messages. The White House later denied that the messages were a factor in his case.
The French minister of higher education and research Philippe Baptiste responded to the situation by saying: “This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy.”
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