British actor who joined anti-ISIS fight says he's having trouble gaining re-entry to England, U.S.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/actor-who-joined-anti-isis-fight-having-trouble-re-entering-countryhttps://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/actor-who-joined-anti-isis-fight-having-trouble-re-entering-country
As the final ISIS enclave in eastern Syria shrinks almost into non-existence – a sign that the terror group's last fragment of territorial control that once spawned large swaths of Iraq and Syria is almost over – one Western fighter, Michael Enright, who left his Hollywood career to take up arms against the brutal insurgency, says he has been left languishing without a country to safely return to.
“I always felt I owed America a debt because it had always been so good to me. I love Americans and I love America. I didn’t go (to Syria) to help the Kurds, I went there to fight for America,” British-born Enright, 55, told Fox News. “I ended up falling in love with the Kurds, but I went there for America and because of what ISIS did to Americans.”
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In particular, it was the video that emerged in August 2014 of journalist James Foley being beheaded by British jihadist Mohammed Emwazi, who operated under the alias Jihadi John, that riled him enough to abandon his Los Angeles life in early 2015.
“When I first left America I knew there would be a risk I would not be able to come back, but I felt so compelled to go,” he explained. “I had first come to America when I was 19. I had no work experience and no family there, but it became my home.”
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Enright said the United States served as his home for decades as he gained a foothold in Hollywood through an array of minor roles in major productions such as “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Old Dogs” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” But all that came to an end in November 2015 after he completed his first intense YPJ “tour” battling the burgeoning ISIS abroad and tried to enter California on its southern border with Mexico.
In this handout photo provided by Kurdish journalist Mohammed Hassan, taken on May 19, 2015, Michael Enright, center, a British actor who has had minor roles in Hollywood films, wears the Kurdish fighters military uniform after he joined them battling against the Islamic State group, near Tel Tamr town, northeast Syria. Enright, who played a deckhand in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” appears in a video released by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, known as the YPG. The video shows him in a trench with other fighters firing an assault rifle.
In this handout photo provided by Kurdish journalist Mohammed Hassan, taken on May 19, 2015, Michael Enright, center, a British actor who has had minor roles in Hollywood films, wears the Kurdish fighters military uniform after he joined them battling against the Islamic State group, near Tel Tamr town, northeast Syria. Enright, who played a deckhand in “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” appears in a video released by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, known as the YPG. The video shows him in a trench with other fighters firing an assault rifle. (The Associated Press)
Enright said he was flagged entry from Tijuana for having overstayed his visa dating back to his young adult days. He said he was detained for six weeks in a cell, often referred to as a pod.
“At first they were going to do voluntary deportation, which meant I would have paid for my own flight back to the U.K. and I would have tried to work it out with the embassy,” he explained. “But when they found out I had been in Syria it wasn’t voluntary anymore and I was detained.”
According to Enright, those six weeks were the most eye-opening in his life — he said he was detained alongside around 100 other men, many of whom vowed to be “political refugees” claiming asylum all the while openly voicing support for brutal terrorist outfits and insurgencies including ISIS, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and the Taliban.
“There was one guy who was an Afghan pretending to be Pakistani who even told the guard that Taliban were very good and helping a lot of people,” Enright recalled, noting that he wrote about the incident to his supervisor and the facility’s psychologist, but never heard any more about it.
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He said he was eventually flown back to the United Kingdom – escorted by three Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers – and interviewed by more American officials on arrival. Enright said he remembered one official telling him that if he assisted them to “catch a bad guy,” they would allow him re-entry to the U.S.
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Yeah, we not falling for it.