first reported by Westside Current<\/a>.<\/p>\nFormer Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the incident brought to mind Sen. Alex Padilla, who was arrested and handcuffed June 12 while trying to ask a question during a Los Angeles press conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy former chief of staff and political consultant, Rick Taylor, was detained at Miami International Airport by federal authorities after returning from an international vacation,\u201d he said in an email. \u201cAs Senator Alex Padilla said a couple of weeks ago, \u2018if it could happen to me, it could happen to anyone.\u2019 This Federal government operation is OUT OF CONTROL! Where will it end?!\u201d<\/p>\n
A representative from the Customs and Border Protection in Florida said an inquiry made by the Los Angeles Times and received late Friday afternoon will likely be answered next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Mr. Taylor feels the need to, he is more than welcome to file a complaint online on our website and someone will reach out to him to try and get to the bottom of things,\u201d CBP Public Affairs Specialist Alan Regalado said in an email.<\/p>\n
Taylor, a partner at Dakota Communications, a strategic communications and marketing firm, said he was more concerned about traveling and returning to the U.S. with his wife, a U.S. citizen and native of Vietnam.<\/p>\n
He said he reached out to a Trump administration member before leaving on vacation, asking if he could contact that individual in case his wife was detained.<\/p>\n
The family flew American Airlines and landed in Miami on June 20, where he planned to visit friends before returning to Los Angeles on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In a twist, Taylor\u2019s wife and daughter, both Global Entry cardholders, breezed through security while Taylor, who does not have Global Entry, was detained, he said.<\/p>\n
He said after the agent confirmed he was a Los Angeles resident, he placed a small orange tag on his passport and was told to follow a green line. That led him to another agent and his eventual holding room.<\/p>\n
Taylor described \u201c95% of the population\u201d inside the room as Latino and largely Spanish-speaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was one of three white dudes in the room,\u201d he said. \u201cI just kept wondering, \u2018What I am doing here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the lack of communication was \u201cvery intimidating,\u201d though he was allowed to keep his phone and did send text message updates to his family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have traveled a fair amount internationally and have never been pulled aside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
About 45 minutes into his holding, Taylor said an agent asked him to collect his luggage and hand it over for inspection.<\/p>\n
He said he was released shortly after.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe agents have succeeded in making me reassess travel,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cI would tell others to really think twice about traveling internationally while you have this administration in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran Los Angeles political consultant Rick Taylor said he was pulled aside by U.S. Customs and Border Protection…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[18917,1582,276,12088,18914,18916,3603,12817,246,18918,6276,2961,224,2444,5337,9099,18912,18915,18913],"class_list":{"0":"post-20325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-border-protection-agent","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-campaign","12":"tag-cbp-agent","13":"tag-consultant","14":"tag-daughter","15":"tag-email","16":"tag-family","17":"tag-global-entry-cardholder","18":"tag-l-a","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-times","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-room","24":"tag-taylor","25":"tag-u-s-customs","26":"tag-wife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114757939083448991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}