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Courtesy: Wilmer Chavarria<\/p>\n
Wilmer Chavarria, a school superintendent from Vermont, was detained for several hours this week at Houston\u2019s Bush Intercontinental Airport despite being a naturalized U.S. citizen.<\/p>\n
A school superintendent from Vermont is speaking out about his experience being detained<\/a> for several hours at Houston\u2019s Bush Intercontinental Airport.<\/p>\n Wilmer Chavarria is the superintendent of the Winooski School District in Vermont and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He says earlier this week he was returning from visiting family in Nicaragua, when he was detained by Customs and Border Protection agents for hours, and his personal electronic devices were searched.<\/p>\n Chavarria told Houston Matters with Craig Cohen<\/a> he has made this particular journey many times before \u2014 including connecting through Houston \u2014 without incident.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never really been through something like I went through this week,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so something clearly has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Chavarria said he was held for four to five hours and interrogated by numerous people in plain clothes, some of whom never displayed badges or identification. He said he was told he had no constitutional rights as a U.S. citizen at a port of entry, which is incorrect<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cEven when I was not a U.S. citizen, I was never put through something like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Chavarria said the officials questioned whether his marriage was legal, something the federal government would have confirmed and examined during his naturalization process. And they questioned whether he was indeed a school superintendent.<\/p>\n Also, Chavarria did not want to relinquish access to his school-issued phone and laptop, which contained files and information about students. State and federal laws, including FERPA<\/a>, protect the privacy of certain student data.<\/p>\n \u201cThey harassed me relentlessly about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Eventually the officials confiscated those devices saying they would not look at the files containing student data.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I have no guarantee that they didn\u2019t, because they did it away from me,\u201d he said. \u201cThey took my devices away for a long time, and I don\u2019t know what they did to those devices.\u201d<\/p>\n They were later given back to him.<\/p>\n
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