CAIRO: A Palestinian blogger and journalist was deported back to the United States after being denied entry into Egypt and held at the Cairo International Airport for two days.
Leila Al-Haddad and her five-year and one-year-old children were sent back despite not having a valid entry visa to the United States.
Al-Haddad was planning to cross over to Gaza through the Rafah border to visit family.
“I thought I could get in, I exhausted all options. They said I needed security clearance [to go home], Al-Haddad wrote on twitter.com where she blogs updating her situation.
She is expected to face problems with American immigration authorities as her visa expired and is yet to be renewed. This, she says, was part of the reason she left the US in the first place.
Despite carrying a letter from the Egyptian consulate in Washington explaining her situation, she was being threatened with forced deportation by state security and was put in a detention room with other foreigners denied entry.
“I was placed in a detention room with 17 others for three hours then taken to a room and asked if that’s what I wanted for the foreseeable future, Al-Haddad wrote.
Al-Haddad and her two children Yousuf and Noor spend their time between Gaza and the US as her husband, a Palestinian refugee, is denied the right to return to Palestine.
