Te Rawhitiroa Bosch, right, canceled his trip to the U.S. due to concerns that his moko mataora (Maori face tattoos for men) could get him detained at the border. Ihirangi Heke, left, is a New Zealander who encountered questioning at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport about his facial tattoos.

If you ask Ihirangi Heke what he does for a living, he might say his job description is on his face.

Inked on Heke’s skin lies the Maori creation story, where sacred axes severed the embrace between Papa­tuanuku, the earth mother, and Ranginui, the sky father, bringing light and life into the world.

“Those two axes are drawn on each side of my jaw because when my jaw moves, it’s meant to represent the equivalent of those arms being removed, so that when they separate, the light comes in and we can pursue knowledge,” said Heke, an environmental and artificial intelligence consultant. “When (the axes) move, it’s meant to represent that process over and over again, of enlightenment.”

Ta moko, or Maori tattoos, are symbols of pride. They’re ancestral, cultural and self-identifying, Heke said, similar to the origins of body tattoos seen across Polynesia.

But recently, ta moko, especially moko mataora (face tattoos primarily worn by men) like Heke’s, have been a source of hesitancy for some Maori people traveling to the United States, including to Hawaii, as confrontations and deportations conducted at American ports of entry have made them particularly wary of how their ta moko could be interpreted by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers.

Some Maori visitors are not planning to travel to the United States for the next three years for political reasons, according to Te Rawhitiroa Bosch, a Maori photographer and activist, who said he and his family and friends “don’t feel safe” because of President Donald Trump’s “blatant abuse of power and abuse of violence against the population,” citing Trump’s massive deportations of illegal immigrants across the nation.

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Hawaii has had its own share of deportations at Hono­lulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in recent months. German teens Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, told a German newspaper that they were imprisoned and handcuffed in April because CBP erroneously thought they were here to work. However, CBP said the teens had entered under false pretenses.

Nicolle Saroukos, a 25-year-old Australian woman, told various media outlets in May that she was denied entry to Hawaii, imprisoned overnight and deported due to having too much luggage. However, the Department of Homeland Security said it had questions about her “long-term trips to the United States and suspicious luggage” along with her rapid marriage to an army lieutenant stationed on Oahu.

The Maori visitor footprint is too small for hesitancy to cause major damage to Hawaii’s entire tourism industry. There were only 50,241 visitors from New Zealand to Hawaii in 2023.

However, a drop in visitors from New Zealand could cause an unwelcomed barrier between Native Hawaiians and Maori, a relationship that dates back 1,000 years, according to Manulani Meyer, the konohiki (facilitator) at University of Hawaii at West Oahu’s Kulana o Kapolei.

The relationship and genealogy of Native Hawaiians and Maori differ depending on whom you talk to, and oral traditions vary slightly from culture to culture, but in Meyer’s view, “Maori are Hawaiians.”

“People have different versions that (the Maori) left here for specific reasons,” Meyer said. “Their politics is theirs, all I know is (that) they look like us.”

The sharing of knowledge has always been crucial across the Pacific Islands, and Meyer said that Maori do not need to travel to stay close.

“We are continually in relationship with our Pacific cousins,” Meyer said.

In June, Heke and Bosch, who also has a traditional Maori facial tattoo, were scheduled to visit Kauai to work with local nonprofits and connect with community organizations after attending a summit on Indigenous wellness and climate change in Montana.

But Bosch said he canceled the trip to the U.S. as a whole before applying for a visa because his family became concerned that his moko mataora could get him detained.

Bosch said that he was also concerned by updated cautions from the New Zealand’s Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry in May that stated “the US government has strict rules for entering and staying in the country. You may encounter scrutiny from US border authorities.”

“I had talked to my wahine and I said, ‘Should we cancel?’ and she said, ‘Yeah,’” Bosch said. “I’m gutted about that. I was looking forward to seeing all of the whanau (family) again and just spending some time over there this year, but yeah, it just doesn’t feel safe. Who knows how long we would be detained?”

A CBP spokesperson told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser in a statement that “body art itself is not a factor that determines a traveler admission” and that “CBP officers take in consideration the totality of circumstances.”

“Law abiding bona fide international visitors should not fear traveling to Hawaii,” the statement read.

But CBP said officers have discretionary authority to pull people aside for further inspection, regardless of any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Heke, who has had his facial tattoos for years, said that he has previously encountered questioning at the Honolulu airport. However, he never felt uncomfortable coming to Hawaii before.

“I’ve had white (officers) come up to me and say, ‘What’s on your face? Can you explain it to me? What does it mean?’ And I’m looking at them going, ‘I didn’t ask you about your face. Why you would wear that kind of jewelry? I don’t even know you.’” Heke said. “So they believe it’s their right if I’m in Hawaii, as white Americans, to ask me questions that are personal. I barely tell my own people.”

Heke referenced the deportation of Saroukos at the Honolulu airport as a cautionary tale; she alleged that she was racially profiled and had been targeted due to her arm tattoos.

“It would always be 50/50 for us coming (to Hawaii) and (CBP officers) taking offense to us or not,” he said.

Bosch got his tattoos done in April and said it’s just one layer of his hesitancy to come to the U.S.

An active advocate for Maori rights, Bosch has around 47,000 social media followers who watch him lead land rights protests in Aotearoa calling for the preservation of Maori rights — moves that have been outwardly against New Zealand’s top government officials.

In 2019, Bosch came to Hawaii to protest the Thirty-­Meter Telescope. Since then, he said that on every trip flown through or to the U.S., he has been pulled aside for “random questioning” by CBP officers.

Bosch said that the random questionings only started to occur after his involvement in the Mauna Kea movement.

“Now, if (CBP) is checking phones and everything, they’ll see I’ve got posts saying how stupid Donald Trump is or against the New Zealand government,” Bosch said. “It’s all those layers: my moko mataora, one layer; my activism over here, one layer; my activism over there, another layer. It’s just layer after layer after layer.”

Electronic searches are not new, the CBP statement said, and in fiscal year 2024, less than 0.01% of arriving international travelers encountered by CBP at a port of entry had their electronic devices searched. CBP told the Star-Advertiser that search data for 2025 is not available at this time.

Ultimately, Bosch said that his moko mataora is “a part of me.”

“It’s another expression of who I am and where I come from, what I stand for,” Bosch said. “Without saying anything, just being there with a mataora, that makes a statement and says something.”

While he said he promises that he’ll return to Hawaii one day, Bosch believes that American politics is getting in the way of making cultural connections face-to-face.

“It’s a barrier to connection between our peoples, between us cousins across the Pacific,” Bosch said. “It’s another form of oppression against Indigenous peoples because we can’t just be ourselves. There’s barriers to just being yourself.”

Both Bosch and Heke said they do not consider Hawaii as part of the United States, but feel torn that their hesitancy to travel prevents them from meeting with their “cousins.”

Meyer, whose wife is Maori from New Zealand and has similar concerns, said that connections across the Pacific can outlast temporary obstacles.

“We have always traveled the world, Pacific peoples,” Meyer said. “We wait for the storms to come and the tides to change. This is nothing more than that.”