US immigration authorities barred entry to a 21-year-old Syrian cinematographer who worked on a harrowing film about his nation's civil war, The White Helmets, named after a rescue group and nominated for an Academy Award.
According to internal Trump administration correspondence seen by The Associated Press, the Department of Homeland Security blocked Khaled Khatib from travelling to Los Angeles for the Oscars.
Khatib was scheduled to arrive on Saturday in Los Angeles on a Turkish Airlines flight departing from Istanbul.
But before leaving Istanbul, his plans were upended after he was detained by Turkish officials who said that US officials reported that they had found "derogatory information" about him.
Derogatory information is a broad category that can include anything from terror connections to passport irregularities.
Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Gillian Christensen, said: "A valid travel document is required for travel to the United States."
On Sunday morning (Aleppo time), Khatib tweeted a statement by war rescue organisation The White Helmets that said his visa had been cancelled by Syria.
"Unfortuntaely Khaled Khatib was not able to travel to the Oscars due to his passport being cancelled by the Syrian regime, despite having been issued a US visa specifically to attend the awards ceremony," it said.
The White Helmets, a 40-minute Netflix documentary, has been nominated for Best Documentary Short. If the film wins the Oscar, the award would go to director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara. Khatib is one of three people credited for cinematography; Franklin Dow is the film's director of photography.
The film focuses on the rescue workers who risk their lives to save Syrians affected by civil war. Many of the group's members have been killed by Syrian President Bashar Assad's air forces.
The group also was nominated for last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
The White Helmets includes emblematic scenes of the deadly six-year-conflict: people digging through destroyed homes looking for survivors, at constant risk of "double tap" attacks that target first responders after they've arrived at the scene of a strike.
