Officials defend Hawaii deportation of Australian wife of US serviceman
An Australian woman denied entry to Hawaii while trying to visit her American husband has hit out at official US claims about her detention and deportation.
The US Department of Homeland Security on Monday defended a decision by border officials to deport 25-year-old Nicolle Saroukos.
Sydney-based Saroukos had told Hawaii News Now in May that she was held overnight in a federal prison and deported back to Australia after trying to enter Hawaii with her mother to visit her husband, Matt, a US army lieutenant stationed on Oahu.
Saroukos, who said she had visited Hawaii three times since her wedding to Matt in December, claimed things took a chaotic turn after border officials at Honolulu’s Daniel K Inouye International Airport flagged her for extra screening.
But on Monday – in what it said was a “fact check” – Homeland Security said Saroukos’s “recent long-term trips to the United States and suspicious luggage resulted in her being reasonably selected for secondary screening by CBP (customs and border protection)”.
“Officers determined that she was travelling for more than just tourism. She was unable to remember her wedding date just four months prior,” the statement said.
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Homeland Security questioned Saroukos’s relationship and the timeframe between her split with her former partner and her marriage to her US husband.
It said that during screening, border officers had noted “unusual activity on her phone, including 1000 deleted text messages from her husband because she claimed they caused her ‘anxiety’”.
“If you attempt to enter the United States under false pretences, there are consequences,” it said.
Saroukos, a former NSW police officer, she was “in disbelief at how ridiculous” the Homeland Security statement was. She claimed some of the information had been “twisted”.
“The reasons they came up with were not even justifiable to throw someone in prison anyway,” she told News Corp on Monday.
Saroukos strongly denied any plans to live permanently in the US. She said people had missed the point of her story, saying her issue was not that she had been denied entry to the country, but rather how she was treated.
“A country has a right to deport you if they don’t want you in their country, fair enough,” she was quoted as saying.
“But I don’t agree with the treatment … why are you throwing people in prison, why are they being subject to strip searches and cavity searches and being placed in handcuffs, like your rights taken away from you?”
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In her interview with Hawaii News Now, Saroukos said the officer checking passports “went from completely composed to just yelling at the top of his lungs, telling my mother to go stand at the back of the line and to … ‘shut up’ ”.
“I automatically started crying, because that was my first response.”
Saroukos said she and her mother were taken to a holding room. Their bags and phones were searched and she was bombarded with questions, including about her former work as a police officer, whether her tattoos were gang-related, and about her husband.
“When I did say that I was married to somebody in the US army, the officers laughed at me. They thought it was quite comical. I don’t know whether they thought I was telling the truth or not,” she said.
Saroukos was held for more screening, including fingerprints and a DNA swab, while her mother was allowed to go.
She was then denied entry to the US and told she spend the night in prison before being deported back to Australia, she said.
Saroukos said border officials told her they would let her husband know she was being deported – but they never did.
She was then submitted to a body cavity search before being marched through the airport in handcuffs and taken to the federal detention centre.
After arriving at the prison, Saroukos was strip-searched and detained. She was not allowed call her husband or mother to let them know what happened.
Saroukos said the following morning she was returned to the airport, where she received a call from the Australian consulate general in Hawaii. Eventually, she was able to speak to her husband by phone.
In April, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a warning to Australian travellers to the US as an increasing number of would-be visitors are being turned back at border control.
DFAT, via its Smart Traveller advice services, posted on X: “Entry requirements to the USA are strict. US authorities have broad powers to decide if you’re eligible to enter.
“Officials may ask to inspect your electronic devices, emails, text messages or social media accounts. If you refuse, they can deny your entry,” it said.
