Travel Warnings and Detainments Cast a Shadow Over America’s Biggest Coffee Trade Show

Every year in April, the global coffee industry comes together for the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA)’s Expo trade show.

While it is just one of several annual conventions put on by the SCA and its partners around the world, Expo’s pedigree and location in the United States make it particularly influential. As its website states, Expo is “the ultimate event for the global coffee community” and “the most significant event of 2025”.

Drawn by this prestige, thousands of coffee professionals from around the world travel to attend Expo’s lectures and workshops, network and strike deals, and—presumably—drink far too much coffee. Last year was the largest edition ever, with more than 17,000 attendees from 85-plus countries converging on a convention centre in Chicago. This year’s event will be held in Houston, Texas, with the same or bigger numbers expected.

Or perhaps not? In the wake of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration—and the recent series of detainments and deportations of visitors to the U.S.—some international coffee professionals are rethinking their plans to attend. What’s more, Expo’s setting in Houston has made some American citizens wary of taking part, due to Texas’ regressive policies towards trans people.

Several sources, all of whom preferred to remain anonymous, told me that recent events had forced them to reconsider their U.S. coffee-related travel. They voiced worries of running afoul of immigration officials or a militarised and emboldened Customs and Border Patrol. (The SCA has not responded to multiple requests for comment on this article.)

The cost of attending SCA events has always been prohibitive for many would-be attendees, both local and international, but recent events represent a new element of concern. Especially given that there are a growing number of other coffee conferences happening elsewhere in the world, it isn’t surprising that some industry professionals would rather not take the risk.

‘A Disturbing Change’

“We were invited to Houston and discussed going, but finally decided against it because of the new presidency”, one European coffee business owner tells me. Their decision was both ideological—they list a number of reasons, from the administration’s attack on diversity initiatives to its pro-Russia stance—but also pragmatic.

Trump has threatened tariffs against the European Union, which in turn has vowed to issue retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. For European coffee businesses, this uncertainty makes the value of attending Expo questionable: “If I were to meet up with U.S. brands to import and distribute their product, [Trump’s] trade war has made this very difficult for me”, the business owner says.

They add that there’s also a personal element underlying the decision not to attend: “Being very vocal over my activism would’ve maybe also meant that I wouldn’t have gotten into the U.S. easily at this point, as this has been happening in a few cases with Europeans”.

The concern over entry to the U.S. was echoed by other coffee professionals based in Europe and elsewhere—and for good reason. Several countries have recently issued U.S.-specific travel warnings to their citizens. The U.K., for example, recently updated its guidance warning visitors to comply with border authorities “which set and enforce entry rules strictly”, noting that “you may be liable to arrest or detention if you break the rules”.

Denmark, as well as Germany and Finland, has also updated travel advice for transgender and non-binary visitors, noting that the U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization application only allows travellers to list male or female as their gender (Danish law allows citizens to identify their gender as X).

Over the past month, a growing number of travellers have been stopped at the U.S. border, with some being detained for weeks. Members of the punk band U.K. Subs were denied entry while travelling to a festival in California; a Canadian actress was put “in chains” and held for 12 days after her visa paperwork was rejected by immigration officials; and multiple Germans, including two tourists and a green-card holder, have also been detained.

Then there was the French academic who was denied entry after CBP agents found phone messages critical of Trump’s cuts to science funding. “The incident marks a disturbing change in how visitors to the United States are treated”, wrote Hafiz Rashid in the New Republic. “The idea that criticism of this would rise to the level of terrorism and result in someone being barred from the U.S. is absurd”.

Dystopian details aside, it seems portentous that when he was detained, the academic was en route to a conference—in Houston.

‘High-Risk Countries’

It’s worth noting that being caught up in the U.S. immigration apparatus is a regular and sometimes harrowing experience for many non-European visitors. Even just securing a visa can be expensive, time-consuming, and often unsuccessful. And it has impacted coffee professionals before.

In 2019, Zac Cadwalader reported for Sprudge that four World Coffee Championship competitors from Mexico and the United Arab Emirates had their visas denied shortly before the SCA’s Expo in Boston (one was later issued a visa). Four years earlier, Iran’s first Barista Champion was denied a visa to compete in Seattle, although he was eventually able to secure one at the last minute. And in 2009, another Mexican Barista Champion was also refused a visa to compete in Atlanta.

Although lacking exact data, World Coffee Events’ then-brand manager Alex Berson told Cadwalader at the time that there were on average three such visa denials during each recent competition season. But, as Bernson noted, “We don’t always receive full or even any reports from competitors and national bodies as to why they aren’t attending or sending a second place competitor instead of a first”.

Under the latest Trump administration, visas have become even more onerous to obtain. According to a BBC Travel report by Lindsey Galloway, a recent executive order “directs the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State to implement enhanced vetting for both visa applicants and those currently in the country”.

Experts told Galloway that they expect more scrutiny to be placed on those coming from so-called “high-risk countries”, and that a re-enactment of Trump 1.0’s travel ban is imminent. Charlie Savage, Ken Bensinger, and Allison McCann reported in the New York Times that the administration has already begun drafting a list of countries to include in the new ban. These countries, they report, “are generally Muslim-majority or otherwise nonwhite, poor and have governments that are considered weak or corrupt”. Many also happen to be coffee-producing countries.

People from “red-list” countries, including Yemen and Cuba, would be “flatly barred” from entering the U.S.; Sierra Leone, Myanmar, and Haiti are on the “orange list” of countries where only wealthy people would be allowed entry; while the “yellow list” of countries at risk of being banned should they not “clear up perceived deficiencies” includes Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.

Although the ban has yet to be implemented, it is already difficult for people from many coffee-producing countries to secure a visa. I heard from one producer who was trying to acquire a visa for a team member to travel to Houston, but was struggling due to extended processing times. 

The United States tourism industry is already forecasting a fall in visitors. If these trends continue, it is not hard to envision a time when coffee professionals from targeted countries simply cannot attend events in the U.S.—at significant cost to their businesses and careers.

More Clear, More Extreme

It’s not just visitors. Legal residents of the U.S. have also been targeted by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement—the disappeared student activist Mahmoud Khalil was on a student visa, while one Venezuelan citizen illegally deported to a hellish mega-prison in El Salvador had refugee status. Others are too worried about being detained upon their return to travel out of the country, even to attend a family member’s funeral.

While the administration says it has specifically targeted “criminals”, law professor David Hausman told Will Craft and Maanvi Singh in The Guardian that its enforcement “appears to be becoming more indiscriminate ... They explicitly have the goal of spreading fear among immigrants in the United States, and indiscriminate arrests accomplish that as well”.

After the comparably welcoming recent destinations of Portland and Chicago, Expo’s setting in Houston adds another layer of worry for trans coffee professionals in particular. “Texas has provided a blueprint over the last decade for states that have sought to restrict trans rights”, reports Jo Yurcaba for NBC News. Since the latest legislative session began in January, lawmakers in the state have filed more than 100 anti-trans bills.

Republican State Rep. Tom Oliverson recently introduced a bill which seeks to amend the state’s penal code to charge trans residents with felony “gender identity fraud”, a crime punishable by prison time. A person would commit this crime, the bill states, by “knowingly [making] a false or misleading verbal or written statement” to a governmental entity or their employer that identifies their “biological sex as the opposite of the biological sex assigned to the person at birth”.

While Yurcaba reports that the bill is unlikely to pass, it is “among the first of its kind nationally and is an example of how legislation targeting trans people has become more clear in its intent and more extreme in recent years, particularly in Texas”.

I have heard from two trans coffee professionals who told me that they would not be attending this year’s Expo because of its location in Houston, with one specifically referencing Oliverson’s bill as a reason.

Lost Opportunities

In 2017, the SCA announced that several World Coffee Championships would be held in Dubai the following year. The host cities for these events rotate annually, but the choice of Dubai sparked backlash among some SCA members, as well as reporting by Sprudge on the United Arab Emirates’ dismal human rights record—specifically its treatment of migrant workers and LGBTQ+ people.

The SCA quickly relented, noting in a statement that “it is clear that the UAE’s human rights issues were not taken into consideration in the selection process. This is a serious problem that shows that our selection process was not broad or inclusive enough and we at the SCA intend to correct it”.

(A year later, the SCA announced plans to begin hosting a new permanent annual trade show, World of Coffee Dubai. Since 2021, it has taken place every year with little protest, although Nick Brown in Daily Coffee News did point out the hypocrisy at the time.)

Today, if you look at Amnesty International’s summary page on the UAE, many of its list of key issues could just as easily refer to the United States under Donald Trump: Arbitrary detention; cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; lack of freedom of expression; attacks on LGBTQ+ people’s rights.

In fact, the U.S. was recently added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, a research tool published by a global network of civil society groups that includes Amnesty International. “Restrictive executive orders, unjustifiable institutional cutbacks, and intimidation tactics through threatening pronouncements by senior officials in the administration are creating an atmosphere to chill democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal”, Mandeep Tiwana, interim co-secretary general of CIVICUS, said in a press release.

The SCA has worked in recent years to expand the reach of its coffee conventions to further afield than just the U.S. and Europe, providing more options for international coffee professionals. There is now a World of Coffee Asia, for example, as well as the aforementioned conference in Dubai. For European coffee professionals, there is a World of Coffee in Geneva in June as well as HostMilano in October. There are also other independent events in many countries. It is much easier, not to mention cheaper, to attend one of these shows rather than risk deportation or detention in the United States. 

Right now, there are individuals who have decided against attending the 2025 Expo and will lose out on opportunities as a result. But in the long run, as coffee professionals and businesses choose to go elsewhere, these punitive and senseless policies mean it will be the American coffee industry that loses out.