Photo: Press

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Seattle decided that the band Soviet Soviet were illegal immigrants despite the band being in possession of documents that legally allowed them to enter the States and deported them, according to a statement made on Facebook.

The band, like hundreds of others from outside the US who are coming over for the upcoming SXSW festival and other smaller shows, were travelling under ESTA (also known as the Visa Waiver Program), which allows citizens of nearly 40 countries to travel to the United States without having to obtain a visa. They were specifically in Seattle to do a KEXP

Paid work while traveling on an ESTA is prohibited and the band knew clearly that they would have to obtain work visas if they were to earn any money. They stated that they were only doing promotional unpaid showcases.They were also in possession of a letter from its American record label that supported this.

The documents were so legal that even their drummer Ale got through the border to begin with as he disclosed the promotional purposes of our trip to the police officer without any issue. But then Ale (guitarist) and Andrea (singer), who both explained the exact same thing, were held up and escorted to another office. Then Ale was called back and they were each interrogated individually.

After four hours of questioning, the three were treated like "criminals" taken to a jail and held overnight before being escorted to a plane and sent back to Italy.

The whole deportation was not based on fact but rather a hunch that the border officers had which concluded they were accepting payment for some of their shows. The statement on the bands Facebook writes: "The point is that the control agents who did a quick check on the concerts we informed them of noticed that two of the venues were asking for entry fees and this was enough to convince them that we needed work visas instead of an ESTA."

The general public has been outraged by this decision: