Melbourne, Australia - An Australian reporter claims he was recently deported from the US for his past work writing about pro-Palestine student protests.

On Sunday, writer Alistair Kitchen shared a thread on X detailing how he recently flew 15 hours from Melbourne to Los Angeles, only to immediately be detained by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.

Kitchen claimed the authorities had been waiting for him to depart the plane, and said they seemed to know everything about him despite the fact that he had "scrubbed" his online presence because he was "expecting ad hoc digital sweep."

The 33-year-old said an official told him, "We both know why you've been detained... it's because of what you wrote about the protests at Columbia."

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Kitchen, whose writings are available on his personal Substack, told The Guardian that he moved to New York City in 2018 to attend Columbia University. During that time, he began documenting the protests until he moved back to Australia in 2024. He recently traveled back to the States with the intention of visiting friends.

While detained, Kitchen gave the authorities his cell phone and, out of fear, agreed to give them the passcode to unlock it.

After snooping for some time, he was told they had "discovered evidence of drug use," and after being detained for 12 hours, he was then put on a plane back to Melbourne.

This comes as President Donald Trump has repeatedly labeled the college protesters and any apparent anti-Israel protest or publicly shared sentiment as antisemitic, and has sought to punish anyone who has engaged in such actions.

His efforts have received heavy backlash, with many critics arguing it's an attempt to suppress free speech rights granted by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

In a similar situation, left-wing US influencer Hasan Piker was detained and questioned for hours at an airport in Chicago last month regarding his criticisms of Israel.