A Syrian cinematographer whose film was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the Oscars was barred from entering the country by immigration authorities.
Khaled Khatib, 21, was preparing to make his way to Los Angeles when there was a last-minute decision to block him from traveling because officials found 'derogatory information' on the young Syrian.
Khatib will now not be able to attend Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony, where his harrowing 40-minute Netflix documentary, The White Helmets, was nominated for an award.
According to internal Trump administration correspondence, the Department of Homeland Security decided at the last minute to block Khatib from traveling to Los Angeles for the Oscars.
Khatib was scheduled to arrive Saturday in Los Angeles on a Turkish Airlines flight departing from Istanbul. But his plans have been upended because of the 'derogatory information'.
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.'
Khatib updated the news of his travel plans to his Twitter followers on Saturday. He said he was at an airport for three days because his passport was not accepted, despite having a U.S. visa.
He said in a previous interview with CNN: 'If I cannot enter the US, I will not give up: we know that we have many friends in US, that there are people that share our humanitarian values. I look forward to meeting them all one day.'
The White Helmets 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 6-year-old 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.
He had been issued a visa to attend the ceremony with Hollywood's biggest stars. But Turkish authorities detained him this week, according to the internal U.S. government correspondence, and he suddenly needed a passport waiver from the United States to enter the country.
The correspondence indicated he would not receive such a waiver. There was no explanation in the correspondence for why Turkey detained Khatib.
By Cheyenne Roundtree For Dailymail.com and Associated Press
