Lebanon-born Australian MP blocked from entering US despite having same visa as colleagues who got in

A Lebanon-born politician from Australia has been denied entry to the US despite having the same visa as the rest of his party.

Khalil Eideh, a Labor MP in Victoria, was stuck in Vancouver after a staff member from United Airlines told him he was not allowed to board a flight to Denver with his fellow politicians.

The group had been in Europe and Canada studying drug laws, and was on its way to the US for the next leg of the trip.

Sex party MP Fiona Patten, who was travelling with Mr Eideh, wrote on Twitter: “It was shocking we had all received the same US visa and were all traveling on official passports.”

“The United Airlines staff knew he had been denied entry to the US before any of us,” Ms Patten told AAP from Denver. “He was incredibly upset ... disbelieving.”

Ms Patten said Mr Eideh was not told why he wasn’t allowed on the plane. The Victorian government has sought an explanation.

“The Victorian Government has made representations to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and have asked them to seek an explanation from the US authorities as to why a Victorian Member of Parliament was refused entry to the United States,” a government spokesperson told The New Daily.

Mr Eideh was born in Tripoli in Lebanon to Syrian parents who follow the Alawite Islamic faith, according to The Guardian. He moved to Australia in 1970 at the age of 15.

Mr Eideh has previously come under scrutiny for comments he made in the early 2000s in support of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who US President Donald Trump has targeted.