Hasan Piker, a prominent Twitch streamer known for left-leaning political commentary, says U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained and questioned him for more than two hours at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in May 2025. He had landed from Paris, on his way to speak at the University of Chicago after a family trip. In a 40-minute YouTube video and on his Twitch stream, the 33-year-old U.S.-born citizen said he was taken to a back-room detention area despite being enrolled in Global Entry.
What Piker says happened
Piker says CBP officers asked about his political views, pressing him on Donald Trump, Hamas, Israel, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. He believes he was singled out because of his anti-war stance and frequent criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. “The goal here is to put fear into people’s hearts,” he said, arguing the encounter was meant to chill speech.
He described a windowless room where officers separated travelers for additional checks. He said he chose to answer some questions to document the experience, not because he felt obliged. Piker has 2.8 million followers on Twitch and is widely known online as “HasanAbi.” He framed the incident as government intimidation of constitutionally protected speech, calling it a First Amendment violation.
DHS response and the legal stakes
The Department of Homeland Security pushed back hard. Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X that Piker was “lying for likes.” In a formal statement, DHS called the stop a routine referral and said “claims that Hasan Piker’s political beliefs triggered a CBP inspection are baseless” and “CBP officers follow the law, not agendas.” The agency said he was released promptly after inspection.
Secondary inspections are common at major airports and can happen to any traveler, including U.S. citizens and Global Entry members. Global Entry offers faster processing but does not shield travelers from extra screening. Referrals can be random or tied to paperwork issues, travel patterns, or database mismatches. O’Hare handles a huge daily volume, and secondary units process people all day, every day.
Legally, the border is different from the rest of the country. Under the “border search” doctrine, CBP can question travelers and search belongings without a warrant to enforce customs and immigration laws. Courts have long allowed routine searches at ports of entry. For digital devices, policy is more nuanced: CBP’s directive permits basic searches without suspicion but sets higher thresholds for advanced forensic exams in many jurisdictions. The rules vary by circuit, and litigation is ongoing.
For U.S. citizens, there is no question about admissibility—they must be allowed back into the country. But they can still face delays for inspection. During routine screenings, there is generally no guaranteed right to counsel in the interview room. Citizens can decline to answer some questions, but that may extend the process or lead to seizure of devices. Officers can keep a phone for a time; they cannot keep a passport indefinitely without cause.
Piker’s argument centers on the First Amendment: the government cannot punish people for their views. To prove unlawful retaliation, a claimant usually needs to show protected speech, a harmful government action, and evidence that the speech motivated that action. At the border, where officers are granted broad discretion and records are opaque, that link can be tough to establish. That’s why critics push for clearer guardrails on questioning that touches politics, religion, or activism.
These fights are not new. In 2016, photojournalist Ed Ou said he was detained at JFK and had his devices searched before being turned away from a reporting trip; civil liberties groups cried foul. In 2019, Palestinian student Ismail Ajjawi had his visa canceled at Boston Logan after officers said they found troubling posts by his social media contacts; he later entered the U.S. after the case drew public attention. Each case reignited debate over how border powers meet free speech rights in a digital age.
What triggers a secondary referral can be murky. CBP cites a range of factors and random checks, while travelers often only learn they’ve been flagged after landing. That opacity fuels suspicion, especially when questioning veers into politics. DHS says officers “follow the law, not agendas.” Piker says the questions themselves—about Trump, Israel, Hamas, and the Houthis—are the point, a signal to critics that they can be pulled aside and pressured.
For travelers wanting a paper trail, there are pathways. People can file a complaint with DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, seek records through the Freedom of Information Act, or use the DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program to address recurring screening issues. Attorneys often advise keeping notes right after an encounter: the date, the officers’ badges if visible, the specific questions asked, and whether devices were requested or searched. That documentation can matter if a formal challenge follows.
As for Piker, he says the experience won’t change his coverage of the Gaza war or U.S. politics. DHS says it was just another day at the border. The gap between those two explanations—targeted intimidation versus routine screening—is where the larger fight sits, with civil liberties on one side and sweeping border authority on the other. In a season of raw political debate, that tension is not going away.