Was a Naturalized Citizen Targeted by CBP for Political Speech?

Wilmer Chavarria is a school superintendent in Vermont. He became a U.S. citizen in 2018 after arriving in the United States a decade earlier to get an education. In April, he refused to sign his state’s request to certify to the U.S. Department of Education that no school district in Vermont was using “illegal” DEI practices.

He did so publicly, noting that his district is Vermont's most diverse. The controversial DOE request was one that 19 states, including Vermont, ultimately refused to comply with. Agree or disagree, Chavarria’s political speech should not make him a target for selective law enforcement.

Chavarria is making precisely that claim, suing the Department of Homeland Security for an incident at Bush Intercontinental that happened a suspiciously coincidental three months after he criticized the policy.

According to the lawsuit, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents detained him and demanded his device passwords. They threatened him and refused to say why he was being held. Only after agents promised not to look at confidential student records did he reluctantly relent. The agents then disappeared with his devices, returned them without comment, and immediately revoked his longstanding TSA Global Entry status, stating that Chavarria suddenly no longer met “program eligibility requirements.”

That day in July, he was returning home after visiting family in Nicaragua – something he had done many times before without trouble. When asked about such incidents, CBP consistently maintains that “lawful” travelers need have no fear of being detained. By that logic, it appears that New England schoolchildren and naturalized citizens are a greater threat to the republic than anyone previously realized.

In short, this story looks like political targeting, walks like it, and quacks like it. There are some 26 million naturalized U.S. citizens. And from the moment they finish swearing “so help me God,” they fall under the protection of the First Amendment, no less than a native-born citizen of Vermont or metropolitan Houston.
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As the lawsuit proceeds, Congress would do well to look under the hood of this detention and forced surveillance. If political dissent can trigger warrantless searches, credential revocations, and digital shakedowns at the border, then the problem is not one traveler – it’s the power over speech being exercised in our name.

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