Daigo Saito is one seriously cool dude. I mean, just look at his 2JZ-swapped GR Yaris. Or his Ferrari 599 drift car. Or this adorable photo of his cat. Wait, that’s not a link to an older Jalopnik post. That’s a link to an Instagram post where Saito claims he was deported while trying to enter the U.S. to compete in Formula Drift. That’s not good. Still, at least he was reportedly allowed to return to Japan instead of being sent to a death camp in El Salvador or held in detention indefinitely. So there is that.
According to Saito’s Instagram post:
They told me that I was not allowed into the country with my current Visa Waiver Program (ESTA) … the reason was because it says that I am a professional driver on the internet… I thought my current Visa situation was ok since I am not getting paid in the states and instead I am paying to drive but that doesnt really matter. They said it would have been okay if I was competing for a Japanese team. It was too complicating for me to understand.
It would be nice if we had more details on why Immigration decided to kick him out of the country, but apparently paying to participate in an event counts as professional work that you need a different visa for? It isn’t like Saito is new to international racing. He’s done the whole visa thing before and competed in Formula Drift in the U.S. several times. It really feels like this was less of a screwup on his part and more like the same agency that sent a tourist home for having JD Vance memes on his phone was power tripping and looking for any excuse to kick yet another person out of the country.
Long way home
Of course, ICE couldn’t make it too easy for Saito to get home. They told him he had to get on a flight to Amsterdam, which is, notably, not in Japan and, in fact, on the other side of the world. Here’s how he explained it on Instagram:
So I was being deported, a flight to Amsterdam which is the complete opposite way I came from. So I basically left Japan and flew all the way around the world. The total time I spent including layovers was 60hours. I wasnt feeling too well so I asked if it was okay for me to pay for my own flight and fly straight to Japan from Minneapolis. They pretty much asked who the hell do I think I am and threatened me, either they will cuff me and throw me in jail or shut up and get on the flight to Amsterdam….pretty much treated as a criminal.
Saito also claims ICE refused to allow him to take his medication and kept harassing him to move faster as he walked to his gate to fly to Amsterdam. And while he did eventually make it home, he was understandably left with what sounds like a lot of resentment over how he was treated for simply trying to compete in Formula Drift. As he wrote in his post, “After all this I pretty much hate the United States that is under the Trump administration.”
Yeah, I get that. I’d be mad as hell, too. And while I’m sure there are plenty of bootlickers in the comments who will try to justify this, don’t pretend you wouldn’t be upset if you got kicked out of the U.S. — or worse — on the whim of some random ICE agent.
