Wish you weren't here? US tourism drops amid Trump's immigration crackdown

High-profile arrests and detentions of travellers on flimsy grounds may worsen existing downturn

- Robert Tait

A string of high-profile arrests and detentions of travellers is likely to cause a big downturn in tourism to the US, with the latest figures already showing a serious drop-off, tourist experts have said.

Several western travellers have recently been rejected from the US border on increasingly flimsy grounds under Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, with some of them shackled and held in detention centres in poor conditions for weeks.

Germany has updated guidance for travelling to the US, warning that breaking entry rules could lead not just to a rejection, as before, but arrest or even detention.

Three German citizens have been held for prolonged periods, despite apparently having committed no crime or any obvious violation of US visa or immigration rules, including one US green-card holder who was detained at Boston’s Logan airport.

The UK Foreign Office, too, has bolstered its travel advice to warn of a risk of arrest after Rebecca Burke, a tourist from Wales who had been backpacking across the US, was stopped at the Canadian border and held for three weeks in a detention facility.

Last week, two members of the British punk band UK Subs were denied entry and detained after they landed at Los Angeles airport.