Brit 'devastated' after being kicked out of Dubai for having face tattoos
A British man was 'devastated' after being kicked out of Dubai for having face tattoos. Jordan Howman, 34, landed at Dubai International Airport on Wednesday for a dream week-long holiday with his fiancée Theresa, 38, and daughter Kaic, 16, when immigration officers took him aside, confiscating his passport. The 34-year-old plasterer from Crewe had 'worked his arse off' to save up for the £3,000 trip and was hoping to spend five days seeing the United Arab Emirates, his 'favourite country in the world'. But Mr Howman claims after six hours of being held, immigration officers sent him packing "because of his face tattoos". Jordan got the geometric cubes tattooed on his face around eight or nine years ago alongside words like 'blessed', 'family' and 'crazy life' and said it has never caused problems during his previous two visits to Dubai, he says.
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Soon, officers arrived and handcuffed Paola Clouatre, who handed her wedding ring to her husband for safekeeping. Adrian Clouatre takes a selfie of himself and his wife Paola on May 26, 2024, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Adrian Clouatre via AP Adrian Clouatre, eyes welling with tears, said he and his wife had tried to "do the right thing" and that he felt ICE officers should have more discretion over arrests, though he understood they were trying to do their jobs. "It's just a hell of a way to treat a veteran," said Carey Holliday, a former immigration judge who is now representing the couple. "You take their wives and send them back to Mexico?" The Clouatres filed a motion for a California-based immigration judge to reopen the case on Paola's deportation order and are waiting to hear back, Holliday said. Less discretion for military families Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement that Paola Clouatre "is in the country illegally" and that the administration is "not going to ignore the rule of law." "Ignoring an Immigration Judge's order to leave the U.S. is a bad idea," U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a June 9 post on social platform X which appeared to refer to Clouatre's case. The agency added that the government "has a long memory and no tolerance for defiance when it comes to making America safe again." Adrian Clouatre said the agency's X post does not accurately reflect his wife's situation because she entered the country as a minor with her mother, seeking asylum. "She was not aware of the removal order, so she was not knowingly defying it," he said. "If she had been arrested, she would have been deported long ago, and we would never have met." Prior to the Trump administration's push to drive up deportations, USCIS provided much more discretion for veterans seeking legal status for a family member, said Holliday and Margaret Stock, a military immigration law expert. In a Feb. 28 memo, the agency said it "will no longer exempt" from deportation people in groups that had received more grace in the past. This includes the families of military personnel or veterans, Stock said. As of June 12, the agency said it has referred upward of 26,000 cases to ICE for deportation. USCIS still offers a program allowing family members of military personnel who illegally entered the U.S. to remain in the country as they apply for a green card. But there no longer appears to be room for leeway, such as giving a veteran's spouse like Paola Clouatre the opportunity to halt her active deportation order without facing arrest, Stock said. But numerous Marine Corps recruiters have continued to post ads on social media, geared toward Latinos, promoting enlistment as a way to gain "protection from deportation" for family members. "I think it's bad for them to be advertising that people are going to get immigration benefits when it appears that the administration is no longer offering these immigration benefits," Stock said. "It sends the wrong message to the recruits." Marine Corps spokesperson Master Sgt. Tyler Hlavac told The Associated Press that recruiters have now been informed they are "not the proper authority" to "imply that the Marine Corps can secure immigration relief for applicants or their families."
