I'm not sure what exactly happened, but this is what I gather from the translation.
John was visiting the United States from London.
He was planning on traveling through California with his girlfriend, then traveling through the south on his own, eventually meeting up with his aunt in Alabama.
After landing, he had a problem in customs. He had a guitar with him and told the agent that he would be playing some shows in the US.
He was then sent away from the US because he didn't have a work visa and he was here doing work.
It sounds like this was a perfect storm of shitty situations. Take an overworked/stupid/bad (take your pick) security agent, someone who doesn't speak native english and may have had some trouble explaining his situation, an expired student visa (adds to confusion) and a weird "working" on vacation situation and you have a recipe for a bad time.
We don't know how good the translation is but I've read the article in German and there it clear that he studied in the US and presented a paper at a conference: http://www.euce.org/eusa/2011/papers/9d_farneti.pdf. I'd say it was not a communication problem.
Also: How did they know about his musician alias and his concert dates? From the article it looks like they read his emails. He could also have posted the dates for all to see on Facebook.
John was visiting the United States from London. He was planning on traveling through California with his girlfriend, then traveling through the south on his own, eventually meeting up with his aunt in Alabama.
After landing, he had a problem in customs. He had a guitar with him and told the agent that he would be playing some shows in the US.
He was then sent away from the US because he didn't have a work visa and he was here doing work.
It sounds like this was a perfect storm of shitty situations. Take an overworked/stupid/bad (take your pick) security agent, someone who doesn't speak native english and may have had some trouble explaining his situation, an expired student visa (adds to confusion) and a weird "working" on vacation situation and you have a recipe for a bad time.
It sucks.