NEW YORK

An attorney representing a student detained for participating in a pro-Palestine protest at the University of Michigan in 2024, said he was "targeted" when he was questioned and detained at a US airport.

“I think the purpose of stopping me was to intimidate me. I think it was done intentionally to try to dissuade from taking on some of these cases that I'm involved in,” Amir Makled, told Anadolu, adding the incident happened at the Detroit Metro Airport when he was returning from a family vacation to the Dominican Republic with his wife and children.

Makled said he was stopped for questioning at the airport by a group he had never heard about, called the Tactical Terrorism Response Team.

“At that point, I thought I'm being racially profiled. As an Arab American and as a Muslim American, whenever I'm traveling in the airport, we feel a little anxiety. I've never been stopped before. This is my first time they've ever stopped me and asked me for secondary screening,” he said.

Makled noted that once he was taken into an interview room, it became clear he was being specifically targeted when officials told him they knew he was an attorney and was handling “high-profile cases.”

“The only high-profile case I'm involved in is representing a University of Michigan student who was charged with felonies for protesting for the war in Gaza,” he said, referring to Samantha Lewis who was arrested, along with six others for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protest on campus.

Makled indicated that officers asked for his phone password to access its data. As an attorney, he refused to hand it to them to protect client confidentiality but allowed them to view his contacts to avoid having the device seized.

He was questioned about three to five people from his contacts and was released after being held for nearly two hours.

Stating that his family was especially concerned by the incident at the airport, he said: “I'm used to engaging government agents in my work. As part of my line of work, I'm a civil rights attorney and a criminal defense attorney. I challenge law enforcement all the time, and so when I was talking to these agents, it's not foreign to me, but it's the first time I've ever been the target of questioning, and that's a little different, unnerving.”

Makled, from a Lebanese background and having practiced law for 15 years, stated he is proud to represent students protesting the onslaught in the Gaza Strip.

“It's something that I made a part of my career early on to stand up for just causes, and I'm a firm believer in that work that I'm doing. So, it won't dissuade me. It won't change me. I don't suspect that I'll stop taking on cases. I think it'll do the opposite effect. I'll take on more, and I'll be more proud and more serious to move forward,” he said.

Makled, stating that the US is a "land of laws," referring to policies of the Trump administration, added: "America is going through a stress test right now. I think this current government is stressing the rights of all of us to see how far they can push and where they're going to land.”

Criticizing the treatment and threats against political opponents of the current administration, he added: “America is supposed to be a place of freedom. They've always said to us, the land of the free and home of the brave. But now we're seeing the government pushing and trampling the rights of individuals only for speech, not even for crimes. So, this is a concerning thing for me.”