The US says this Australian writer was expelled because of a drug lie. He's not the first
A years-long legal battle followed. In 1975, Lennon triumphed. While the government had attributed its attempt to expel Lennon to his cannabis conviction, documents submitted to the court suggested the Nixon administration had been motivated by a fear Lennon could promote opposition to the president.
Judge Irving Kaufman would have none of it. 'The courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds,' he ruled.
Chaplin's exile was on flimsy grounds, too. Scott Eyman, who wrote a book on Chaplin's stoush with the US government, told NPR that authorities had no legal grounds to revoke the actor's entry permit because he had not committed a crime.
'What was not stated and what Chaplin did not know was that if he had turned around and come back and demanded a hearing to get back his re-entry permit, they would have had to give it to him,' Eyman said. 'So they actually had no legal justification for excluding him from coming back to the country.'
But times – and visa rules – have changed. ANU international law professor Donald Rothwell told the ABC that US border officials have complete discretion over whether to allow someone into the country, whether or not they hold a valid visa or visa waiver.
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'They don't have to give a reason, and there is very little ability for an Australian traveller to challenge that,' Rothwell said.
Along the way, they can search phones and luggage and detain people without providing access to a lawyer.
The system is not new, or particularly different to Australia's border regime, but the way in which it is being used has shifted. Cases of Australians being denied entry to the US are getting coverage they have never had before.
There was the man who told this masthead's Traveller in April he had been sent home from New York for taking a circuitous route to the US (which he said he did because it was cheaper).
And a former NSW police officer travelling to Hawaii to visit her American husband was expelled in May for taking three suitcases, which the Daily Mail reported made officers suspicious she would stay longer than allowed in the country.
Whether these deportations were caused by the Trump administration's aggressive new approach to screening remains unclear. What is obvious is that its rhetoric has shifted.
The US Department of Homeland Security issued a statement on social media questioning the circumstances of the marriage of the former police officer who had travelled to Hawaii, Nikki Saroukos. The department said Saroukos met her husband the same day her former partner left her, and that they had married one month later.
'I never want to return back to the United States,' Saroukos said, even before the statement was issued.
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It has barely dented other travellers' appetite to go stateside. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows 56,770 Australians travelled to the US in April 2025, down from 60,520 in April 2024.
Kitchen, the writer who was denied entry, says the US government has immense discretion that it uses to keep out people it doesn't like.
'The question [on the visa waiver application] asks if you've consumed illicit drugs in the past,' Kitchen said. 'If every Australian flying into Los Angeles International Airport answered honestly, the lines would get very short, very quickly.'
Chaplin's exile deeply hurt the star, who never returned to the heights of success he had enjoyed in America. He would not go back to the country for 20 years, but was greeted as a hero with a 12-minute standing ovation at the 1972 Academy Awards.
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Lennon stayed in America and was slain five years later.
Kitchen is back with his family in Castlemaine, north-west of Melbourne, and has achieved a dream of many young writers: The New Yorker published his account of his deportation.
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This is completely innocuous." The Prince of Wales is founder and president of the global environmental award and Blanchett helps pick the winners. "It's going really well, and it's really exciting," he said, while Blanchett told them their work was "really inspiring". The Prince of Wales and Cate Blanchett have donned lab coats as they witnessed the high-tech work of an environmentally friendly clothes dye company. William and the Australian Oscar winner visited labs in Norwich on Thursday where Colorifix, a biotechnology firm, creates its textile dyes. Colorifix, which was a finalist in William's Earthshot Prize in 2023, has developed a biological process that replaces the use of harmful chemicals in textile dyes. Since it was founded in 2016, the brand has partnered with fashion brands including H&M and Pangaia. 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