Homeland Security posted what it says is drone footage of demonstrators in Los Angeles and called on politicians to end what it called a “rioting mob.”

“This is not calm. This is not peaceful,” the agency said Tuesday in a post on X.

The video showed a person in the middle of the street appearing to hit a van, and black smoke billowing from a car that was on fire. Protesters are seen swarming the city streets and sidewalks.

But Mayor Karen Bass said that trying to paint a picture of chaos in the city “is just not true.” In a Wednesday “Morning Joe” interview, Bass said there was no looting or vandalism on Tuesday night.

“We are a city of 3.8 million, 500 square miles. This is happening over about five or six streets in downtown Los Angeles,” she said.

Bass said having National Guard members deployed in city streets is “completely unnecessary.”

“There is no need for this. The city handled things perfectly last night and will continue to do so,” she said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said that a majority of protesters in the city did so peacefully. He slammed President Donald Trump for commandeering thousands of the state’s National Guard members, calling it a “brazen abuse of power.”

A curfew was issued for downtown Los Angeles beginning Tuesday night. The mayor did warn that vandalism wouldn’t be tolerated.

“I do not believe that individuals that commit vandalism and violence in our city really are in support of immigrants; they have another agenda. If you support immigrants and the rights of immigrants to be in our city, you would not be tearing the city apart,” Bass said at a press conference.

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Elzon Lemus is always on the road for work, traveling from one place to another.

But ever since federal immigration officers pulled the electrician over as he was driving to his first job of the day earlier this month in Nassau County, New York, Lemus has been on high alert, limiting his travel around town out of fear, he said — despite being a US citizen.

On June 3, Lemus says he was briefly detained during a traffic stop by federal agents because he resembled someone the agents were looking for, they told him and video from the encounter shows.

Lemus’ arrest, and other reports of American citizens being detained by immigration officials, highlights growing concerns over racial profiling and constitutional rights — for both the documented and undocumented — as the Trump administration’s broad mass deportation crackdown takes aim at people of all ages from children and families to suspected criminals by detaining people outside courtroom hearings, during traffic stops and in workplace sweeps.

It’s not legal for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest and detain US citizens, CNN legal analyst Joey Jackson said. But under certain circumstances, immigration officers can arrest citizens without a warrant if they witness an “offense against the United States” or a felony offense — otherwise, their powers are regulated to immigration matters, according to federal law.

‘You look like someone we’re looking for’

Lemus and his coworker had just left their boss’ home earlier this month when they were pulled over by officers, he told CNN. With Lemus’ coworker at the wheel of their work vehicle and the 23-year-old in the passenger seat, agents approached their windows simultaneously and asked for identification, without providing any of their own, Lemus said.

“You look like someone we’re looking for,” the agent says to Lemus, video of the incident shows.

Lemus declined to show identification several times.

If we don’t get your ID, then we’re going to have to figure out another way to ID you and that may not work out well for you,” the officer speaking with Lemus says on video.

Lemus said he was handcuffed and searched for at least 25 minutes until officers found his identification before he was released. The electrician believes he was pulled over because he and his coworker look Hispanic, a community that has often been targeted by Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

Under the Fourth Amendment, Americans are protected from random searches unless law enforcement has probable cause to believe they’re involved in criminal activity.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a statement to CNN, denied that Lemus was arrested or detained by ICE, and said he was not “even searched or ever placed in handcuffs.”

The video made available to CNN cuts off after Lemus exits the vehicle and does not show whether he was searched or handcuffed.

“The facts are ICE conducted a targeted enforcement operation to arrest an (sic) criminal illegal alien with a prior conviction of assault. An individual matching the criminal illegal alien’s description exited the surveilled location and got into a vehicle. For public safety, ICE law enforcement pulled over the vehicle and requested identification. Once it was confirmed that the criminal illegal alien was not in the car, Lemus and the driver of the vehicle were thanked for their cooperation and informed they were free to go,” the DHS statement reads.

“Because of the color of their skin, the accent in their voice or their ethnicity, people are being demanded to show their papers for no good reason,” Lemus’ attorney, Fred Brewington, said during a news conference.

“With no probable cause, without reasonable suspicion,” he added, saying the targeting was “reminiscent” of when Germany was under Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship and people were required to carry identification with them at all times, a comparison Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made last month. Walz came under fire for likening the actions of ICE under the Trump administration to the Gestapo, the secret police force of Nazi Germany.

ICE will often detain individuals who they have probable cause to believe are undocumented, or if agents have a warrant to execute, then leave the rest of their fate to the courts, legal analyst Jackson said.

“Due process not only starts with giving people notice and an opportunity to be heard and hearings and respecting their civil liberties, but it kind of starts with stopping people, because there’s a basis to do it,” Jackson said.

‘We are not safe in America today’

Nearly 3,000 miles away from Lemus on the opposite coast, Brian Gavidia has a similar story to tell.

Gavidia was working at a tow yard on June 12 in Montebello, California, where nearly 80% of the population is Latino or Hispanic according to US Census data, when he heard immigration agents were outside, he told CNN affiliate KCAL. When he went outside himself, an agent approached him. Although he told the officers he was an American citizen three times, they detained and questioned him about what hospital he was born in while they held him up against a fence, he said and video of the incident shows.

Brian Gavidia stands in a parking lot next to East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park on June 13 in Los Angeles. Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Gavidia said he couldn’t sleep after the incident because even though an agent gave him his phone back after taking it away, he said, they never returned his Real ID.

“I am American,” he remembers telling an agent. “I stated I was American. He still attacked me. We are not safe, guys, not safe in America today.”

CNN has reached out to an attorney for Gavidia.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on X that Gavidia was arrested because he assaulted US Border Patrol Agents, though the partial video attached to the post only shows him being held against the fence then handing his ID to the agents.

In a statement to CNN, DHS said it was conducting a “lawful immigration enforcement operation” when Gavidia “attempted to flee, assaulting an agent in the process. The subject was arrested for assaulting and interfering with agents during their duties.”

In the same operation, the tow yard’s owner, Javier Ramirez, a single dad of two and a US citizen, was arrested and detained, his family told CNN affiliate KABC. Officials appeared to target him after he yelled out to his staff, “ICE! Immigration,” when federal agents arrived on property. For hours after his detainment, Ramirez’s family worried about his whereabouts as he was without his medication, Abimael Dominguez, his brother, told the station.

CNN reached out to Dominguez.

Video obtained by KABC shows only a portion of the incident and captures Ramirez sitting on the ground with his hands restrained behind his back. It’s unclear what happened before or after the video.

In a statement, DHS said “Ramirez was detained on the street for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants.”

“These men did exactly what they were supposed to do,” American Immigration Lawyers Association President Jeff Joseph said. “They stated clearly that they were US citizens and ICE proceeded anyways. They did not resist. They calmly stated their rights and asserted their citizenship.”

“We’ve got a lot of danger here when you have raids that are not really thought out … just to meet a daily quota,” with US citizens getting caught in the crosshairs, Shira Scheindlin, a retired federal judge, told CNN’s Pamela Brown last week.

CNN has previously reported that the agency has been under pressure to meet quotas, with the White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller calling it a “floor, not a ceiling.”

When asked about the quotas and methodology used in immigration sweeps, McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary, told CNN, “We are not going to disclose law enforcement sensitive intelligence and methods. 70% of the arrests ICE made were of criminal illegal aliens.”

After confrontation with ICE, an American faces a felony

Just miles from where Gavidia and Ramirez were detained and days later, in neighboring Pico Rivera, California, 20-year-old Adrian Martinez was arrested by federal immigration agents following a physical altercation with them after a maintenance worker was detained at a shopping center.

Martinez, a US citizen, was on a break from work at a nearby Walmart. In video from the incident, he appears to drag the detained man’s equipment cart in front of the Border Patrol agent vehicle, blocking it from leaving. A CBP spokesperson said the detained man was undocumented.

Video Ad Feedback Border patrol agents arrest US citizen standing up for detained maintenance worker 1:33 – Source: CNN Border patrol agents arrest US citizen standing up for detained maintenance worker 1:33

Videos from the confrontation show Border Patrol agents scuffling with Martinez, shoving him to the ground at least twice. Meanwhile, the maintenance worker had already been driven away by agents, according to Oscar Preciado, a delivery driver who captured some of the incident on video.

In a statement to CNN, a CBP spokesperson said Martinez punched an agent in the face and struck another agent in the arm after “agents were confronted by a hostile group.” The statement also says the videos “are missing critical moments and don’t tell the whole story.”

“U.S. Attorney Essayli and U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino outrageously alleged that Adrian assaulted a federal agent. However he has not been charged with an assault charge because he didn’t assault anyone, and the evidence of that is clear,” Martinez’s legal team, Miller Law Group, said in a statement to CNN.

No punch by Martinez is easily visible in three videos reviewed by CNN, including the surveillance footage that shows the entire encounter.

An ICE directive from February 2025 requires ICE agents and officers to use body worn cameras — with exceptions such as when agents are undercover or on commercial flights — “to capture footage of Enforcement Activities at the start of the activity or, if not practicable, as soon as safely possible thereafter.”

Martinez was “standing up” for the detained man, according to Preciado, but Joseph of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said while the desire to intervene is a very natural, human reaction, getting involved can cause further problems and fighting back “is only going to get you into worse trouble,” he told CNN.

“And those are the charges that ultimately are going to stick,” he explained. “… if you get aggressive and interfere, those charges are likely going to stick, because there’s going to be proof.”

In May, acting ICE director Todd Lyons released a statement saying, “obstructing federal law enforcement officers in the performance of their duties is a crime that jeopardizes public safety and national security.”

After he spent three days in detention, the assault charges against Martinez were dropped and “he has been charged with conspiracy to impede or injure an officer, a felony,” according to his attorney.

Martinez’s legal team called the charge “trumped up” in a statement, saying it was “filed to justify the federal agents’ violent treatment of Adrian.”

A judge ordered his release from federal custody on a $5,000 bond, his attorney announced on Friday, sharing that Martinez is home and recovering after needing medical care for abrasions and bruising across his body from the altercation.

A lingering fear

The anxiety that Lemus and others said they now carry with them as they try to resume their everyday lives isn’t unique to their experience with federal immigration agents.

43% of Latino voters think others may fear immigration authorities will arrest people, even if they are US citizens, UnidosUs, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization, found.

Jackson said with the Trump administration’s broad immigration enforcement tactics, “everything that’s happening right now kind of offends the sensibilities of what you learn in law school.”

As for Lemus, every car that even remotely resembles the SUV the agents drove that day gives him pause, he said, noting he still doesn’t know who the officers were, nearly a month after the incident.

“It just shows that even citizens don’t got rights,” Lemus said, adding his friends and family are concerned that “even though they were born here, they also think that it could happen to them too.”

CNN’s Taylor Galgano contributed to this report.

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Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

Permanent residents in the U.S. have faced detention and deportation, while even tourists have been turned away under the new immigration regime taking shape under the Trump administration.

The White House has been accused of targeting activists with opposing views, especially on the Israel-Hamas war, and rushing to deport people before they can fully access legal counsel.

When asked last month about the administration’s record of controversial and mistaken deportations, which has included deporting people protected by court rulings, President Trump brushed off any criticisms.

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“Let me tell you that nothing will ever be perfect in this world,” he told The Atlantic.

Here are some of the most notable cases.

A popular left-wing Twitch streamer questioned about his Trump views at a Chicago airport

Piker claims he was targeted for scrutiny because of his views on Trump and Gaza (AP)

On May 11, Hasan Piker, the most popular progressive online video streamer, was stopped for additional questioning as he traveled through a Chicago airport. There, Piker, a U.S. citizen who has nearly 3 million followers on Twitch, said agents subjected him to lengthy questioning about his views on Trump and the war in Gaza.

“The reason for why they’re doing that is I think to try to create an environment of fear, to try to get people like myself, or at least others that would be in my shoes that don’t have that same level of security, to shut the f*** up,” Piker, an outspoken critic of the Israeli war effort, later said on a stream.

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection told The Independent that Piker was stopped for routine additional inspection, and said, “Claims that his political belief triggered the inspection are baseless.”

Civil rights groups criticized the questioning.

“No U.S. citizen should be detained by law enforcement, at the border or anywhere, because of their protected speech,” Ari Cohn, of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression free speech watchdog group, wrote on X.

Australian wife locked up and kicked out on way to visit her husband in U.S. Army

Couple says Australian woman has completed trips in past without incident (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Also this month, Nicolle Sourokos of Sydney, Australia, had alarming issues of her own at a U.S. airport.

She and her mother had arrived at the airport in Honolulu, Hawaii, on their way to visit Sourokos’s husband, a U.S. Army lieutenant stationed in Oahu. Sourokos, 25, had made the visit three times already since she married her husband Matt last December, so she wasn’t expecting any issues, she said.

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Soon, however, security agents allegedly began yelling at her and the pair were selected for additional screening. Officers then allegedly searched their bags and phones while questioning Sourokos about whether her tattoos were gang-related and allegedly subjecting her to a cavity search.

Sourokos said she was held in detention overnight, then sent out of the country with her mother.

“It’s not only myself, it’s my mother and my husband that also had to endure that pain, my husband being a current serving member, to serve his country and to be treated in that way I find very disgusting,” she told Hawaii News Now.

Potential deportation looms for mixed-status Ohio family

Family argues deportation would amount to cruel and unusual punishment of U.S. citizen children (AFP via Getty Images)

Last week, a pregnant Mexican mother in Ohio sued the Trump administration, arguing a likely deportation order would separate her from her U.S. citizen child, a 9-year-old who receives special needs care for autism, and amount to illegal treatment of her unborn child.

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Carmen G. Guerrero Sandoval, who was reportedly denied asylum five years ago, was recently ordered to present herself to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in June, raising fears she would join the many arrested at routine check-ins.

Under Ohio law, unborn children are legally considered people, and people in the state can sue if the government interferes with their family relations against the best interest of the child. The lawsuit argues that removing Sandoval would violate her son’s due process rights and amount to unconstitutional cruel punishment, as well as differential treatment of the child based on his ethnicity. It also raises the question about what rights Sandoval’s unborn child, due in October, has in the situation.

This week, a federal judge denied a request to temporarily pause the immigration appearance request, and Sandoval has appealed before an immigration panel.

A pregnant Guatemalan asylum-seeker separated from her newborn

Pregnant Guatemalan migrant had been wandering in desert alone for two days when she was apprehended (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

In late April, immigration agents apprehended a pregnant Guatemalan migrant, identified by her attorney only by her first name, Erika, who had been wandering alone for two days in the Arizona desert.

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Erika was taken to a hospital where she gave birth on April 30, as federal authorities waited outside. The new mother was then immediately separated from her child and put into immigration detention, where she was fast-tracked for removal. Her attorney told The Independent he scrambled to reach the woman and ensure the child, a U.S. citizen, was protected, but said he was denied entry to the hospital and had calls to officials ignored.

Soon, calls began to flood the Tucson Medical Center and federal offices, a development attorney, Luis Campos, thinks was pivotal to securing Erika a temporary reprieve.

“In the end, it was a grassroots effort that turned the tide,” he told The Independent.

Erika has since been discharged and is living in Tennessee as she prepares to appear before an immigration judge, where she will likely seek asylum.

A two-year-old U.S. citizen deported after ‘no meaningful process’

Others are raising alarms about deportations that have already taken place.

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Last month, a two-year-old U.S. citizen was deported alongside her mother, a Honduran citizen, after the family was arrested at an immigration check-in in New Orleans.

Federal officials say the mother requested her children be deported alongside her, but a Trump-appointed federal judge, Terry Doughty, wrote with concern that the government “just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”

“The government contends that this is all OK because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her,” he wrote. “But the court doesn’t know that.”

The child’s father is seeking to return the girl to the U.S.

U.S.-born citizen detained despite evidence

On April 17, Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a 20-year-old citizen of the U.S., was held in a Florida jail at the request of federal immigration authorities, despite his mother presenting his birth certificate and Social Security information to a judge.

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Lopez-Gomez was taken to Leon County Jail after a traffic stop, accused of being undocumented.

Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez was released from jail after being detained by ICE. He is a U.S.-born citizen, but was still arrested during a traffic stop. (Thomas Kennedy/X)

The charge was dropped, but the Leon County judge said that she did not have jurisdiction to release him after Immigration and Customs Enforcement requested that he remain in detention, according to court records. He was released hours later, though it is not clear what led to the change.

Tufts University doctoral student who co-authored op-ed supporting Palestine detained

Activists have also been targeted, though the Trump administration has suffered repeat setbacks in court.

Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student, was detained by ICE on March 25 near her home in Massachusetts.

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Surveillance footage captured plainclothes federal agents approaching Öztürk, 30, from the street outside her off-campus apartment before putting her in handcuffs, even though there were no criminal charges against her.

Öztürk is a PhD student in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the university and is legally in the United States on a non-immigrant F-1 visa.

On May 9, Öztürk was released from detention, and she continues to challenge her immigration proceedings and the constitutionality of what her attorneys argue is a retaliatory arrest.

A judge wrote in releasing Öztürk that the government had “no evidence” justifying putting the scholar in detention, beyond an op-ed she wrote that was critical of Israel.

Mahmoud Khalil, former Columbia student and pro-Palestinian activist, detained

Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student at Columbia University, was detained by federal agents on March 8 – despite being a lawful permanent resident – due to his involvement in last year’s protests and encampments in support of Palestine.

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His wife, a U.S. citizen who was eight months pregnant at the time, said that he was seized by agents in front of her at their university-owned apartment.

Federal officials said they collected evidence that Khalil, 30, was actively, but not materially, supporting Hamas – a designated terrorist organization.

A DHS spokesperson said that Khalil was detained “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism.”

People demonstrate outside Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in New York, on the day of a hearing on the detention of Mahmoud Khalil (REUTERS)

Officials concede that Khalil has not committed any crimes but are relying on a rarely used Cold War-era statute to justify his deportation. It gives Secretary of State Marco Rubio the power to deport those who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

Last week, Khalil briefly met his newborn son, but he remains in immigration detention. He is challenging his arrest and deportations in court, arguing they are retaliatory and will put him at risk of “assassination, kidnapping, [and] torture.”

Georgetown University professor detained at home in Virginia

Georgetown University postdoctoral scholar and Professor Badar Khan Suri, originally from India, was detained on March 17 at his home in Arlington, Virginia. Masked agents said his J-1 visa had been revoked.

A spokesperson for DHS accused Suri of “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media” as well as having “close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.”

Suri is in the country on a J-1 visa – issued for people who take part in approved programs of teaching, studying, training and research.

By May 15, Suri was released from detention, and he continues to challenge his detention as a violation of the First Amendment.

“Justice delayed is justice denied,” Suri told reporters after his release from a detention facility near Dallas.

Unnamed French scientist detained because of texts

A French researcher, whose name has not been made public, was reportedly stopped from entering the U.S. earlier in March because of text messages criticizing the Trump administration’s academic research policies.

The scientist was on his way to a conference close to Houston at the time, according to Le Monde.

A spokesperson for DHS denied the text messages were responsible for blocking the researcher, saying instead that the man was found to have “confidential” data from a U.S. lab. He did not elaborate.

The French minister of higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, said in a statement that “freedom of opinion, free research, and academic freedom are values ​​that we will continue to proudly uphold. I will defend the right of all French researchers to be faithful to them while respecting the law.”

Baptiste took to X to say that he had asked for an emergency meeting with other European ministers to establish a plan to defend academic freedom.

“Europe must rise to the occasion to protect research and welcome the talents who can contribute to its success,” he said.

Milwaukee mother deported to a country she has never been to

Ma Yang, a 37-year-old Hmong American, was detained and then deported in March to Laos, a country she had never been to, nor a country where she speaks the language.

Yang was stripped of her green card by the Trump administration in February, some two-plus years after being released from federal prison, where she served 30 months on marijuana-related charges.

Although she was born in Thailand, Yang had been living in the U.S. since she was a baby and was a legal resident with a green card.

Ma Yang was deported in February to Laos, a country she has never set foot in (Facebook)

ICE told Yang to report to the agency’s Milwaukee facility. When she showed up, agents detained Yang, sent her to Indiana, then Chicago, and finally she was shipped off to Laos. She says she doesn’t know anyone in the Southeast Asian country and can’t speak the language.

In a previous interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Yang said her attorney in the case never told her deportation was a possibility.

Defense attorney Matt Ricci, who represented Ma Yang in the 2020 marijuana case, disputed this, saying his files and notes showed otherwise. He said he told Yang at the time that deportation “could happen,” but that he didn’t think it “would happen.”

Welsh tourist detained after problem with visa

Rebecca Burke, 28, a Welsh artist, was detained on February 26 after she “set off on the trip of a lifetime across North America,” according to a GoFundMe page. She was reunited with her family in March after spending 19 days in a processing center after being denied entry at the border between the U.S. and Canada.

Rebecca Burke was detained on February 26 at the U.S.-Canada border (Instagram/r.e.burke)

Burke had been residing with host families, with whom she helped out with chores in exchange for her stay. As she attempted to enter Canada, authorities informed her she needed a work visa, and she was told that she had to go back to the U.S.

“She was refused re-entry and classified as an ‘illegal alien,'” her father wrote. “Despite being a tourist with no criminal record, she was handcuffed and taken to a detention facility in Tacoma, Washington.”

Her father complained she had been led onto the plane in chains “like Hannibal Lecter.”

With reporting from Rhian Lubin, Kelly Rissman, Ariana Baio, Alex Woodward, Justin Rohrlich and Joe Sommerlad

An Aussie traveller is $15,000 out of pocket after being detained by US immigration and missing his cruise.

He was eventually deported, with the stated reason being that he had travelled an unusual route to the country, flying via Hong Kong.

The US has seen its largest drop in Australian tourists since Covid.

An Aussie traveller has flown to New York to get on his $15,000 cruise, just to be detained by US immigration for eight hours and miss the whole thing.

The Sydney Morning Herald spoke to the anonymous traveller, who told them how he was held at John F. Kennedy in New York for eight hours, where his laptop and smartphone were examined by border guards.

Eventually, he was told he was being deported back to Australia and wouldn’t be able to board his cruise, meaning he is now $15,000 out of pocket.

The traveller was told he would not be permitted entry to the USA because he had taken an “unusual route” to reach the country. He travelled via Hong Kong.

“Eight hours later, after three interview teams and extensive examination of my laptop and iPhone, (the decision of US immigration) was that I had come to the US on a very unusual route from Australia via Asia. I flew premium economy and Cathay Pacific had the cheapest airfare.”

The traveller says he would not consider visiting the country again under the current administration.

“I feel like returning to the US under the current administration would be the equivalent of going back for your hat after escaping a devastating house fire.

“I have no wish to be burnt again.”

Following the lead of many other countries around the world, Australia’s Smart Traveller had update its warning for travel to the USA.

“Entry requirements are strict. US authorities have broad powers to decide if you’re eligible to enter and may determine that you are inadmissible for any reason under US law.

“Check US entry, registration, transit and exit requirements. Whether you’re travelling on a visa or under the Visa Waiver Program, ensure you understand all relevant terms and conditions before attempting to enter the United States.”

While this is an isolated incident, there are clearly many Australian’s who don’t feel enthused about the idea of travelling to a Trump-led USA.

Australian visitors to the USA have fallen 7% from last March compared to this March, the sharpest drop since the pandemic.

Other countries such as Germany, Spain, the UK and more have also recorded sharp drops in visitation to the USA.

Tourism Economics, USA’s internal body for travel forecasts, had previously predicted 8.8% tourism growth this year, but are now looking at a 5% decline.

Analysts believe the USA could lose billions in tourism revenue, as the current administration strains their relationship with various countries and their immigration processes grow more and more notorious for their strictness.

Well-known trade website Skift reported today that travelers from several countries say they are less likely to visit the U.S. as a result of the political environment and policies of the Trump administration after an exclusive survey.

Among the findings: Nearly half (46%) of respondents across five countries surveyed say they are less likely to visit the U.S. due to Donald Trump’s presidency, with negative sentiment strongest in Canada (62%) and Germany (59%).

Survey results reflect the sentiment of 1,250 respondents who said they planned to travel internationally in the coming year from five countries: Canada, Germany, India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.