You don't think its weird to be strip searched, and kept from contacting worried parties, because you decided to play a non-profit show without a visa?
And how is CBP supposed to know his entire intention was just to play a couple of non-profit shows? He admits he will be compensated (tips and food) for the shows. Maybe after that he's planning on getting paid shows, or something.
As I understand the law, he could have stayed and appealed the decision. Not that they're going to tell you that or help you out - they're allowed to lie to you and so on.
Strip searching seems very excessive, as does the entire handling. But fundamentally, interrogating someone that appears to be going to violate their visa is one of the reasons for having CBP at all.
I wish there were honest statistics available, so that people could know for a fact that yes, there are or are not actually a lot of extreme cases like this.
The only "extreme" part is that we're deciding this guy is "innocent" and not worthy of the level of scrutiny. Being interrogated and searched is very commonplace. So you'd need stats that somehow report how many people they interrogated and searched that they didn't consider to be suspicious. I doubt they'll report a very high number, of course.
Best stat I can think of is "how many strip searches resulted in allowing the person to enter the country", which is also probably fairly low. By that time, they've probably decided to deny you entry.
Neither shows or prevents mistreatment that the CBP deems OK, which seems to be the case here.
As I understand the law, he could have stayed and appealed the decision. Not that they're going to tell you that or help you out - they're allowed to lie to you and so on.
Strip searching seems very excessive, as does the entire handling. But fundamentally, interrogating someone that appears to be going to violate their visa is one of the reasons for having CBP at all.