A CNN star, Christiane Amanpour, says she was so “afraid” of visiting America that she brought a “burner phone” with her and prepared as if she were visiting one of the most repressive countries in the world. 

Ms. Amanpour, who was born in London and now lives there, opened up about her trip to speak at Harvard during the Wednesday episode of her podcast “The Ex–Files,” which she co-hosts with her ex-husband, Jamie Rubin, a New York-born former Clinton operative.

“I must say, I was afraid,” Ms. Amanpour said. “I’m a foreigner. I don’t have a green card. I’m not an American citizen. I’m fairly prominent, and I literally prepared to go to America as if I was going to North Korea. I took a burner phone, Jamie, imagine that.”

She said she had “nothing on the burner phone” except for the numbers of Mr. Rubin, her assistant, her lawyer, and her son. 

“I was really afraid. I even talked to the CNN security person because … I’ve heard that many, including British citizens, are being stopped at the border and being questioned for hours and hours and hours,” she said.

Despite her concerns about being questioned at length or denied entry to America, Ms. Amanpour said that “luckily” the immigration officer she encountered at Boston “could not have been nicer.”

She also said the officer “thanked” her for her work, and she theatrically breathed a sigh of relief before asking, “Can you imagine? If I’m afraid, what do others think?”

Ms. Amanpour was CNN’s biggest star in the 1990s, known for her brave reporting during the Bosnia war and vocal advocacy for human rights. In later years, she has hosted CNN shows on world affairs. She had a brief and unsuccessful tour at ABC News in 2010-11. For decades, she has been dogged by allegations of anti-Israel bias.

During her speech at the Harvard Kennedy School, Ms. Amanpour told graduates to “go abroad and start your career.”

“I say that in many graduations, and I’m saying it today for a reason. Find your government work and your public service while you need to, in other countries. The world needs you, and most certainly, America needs ambassadors like you,” she said. 

She also criticized the Trump administration and compared it to authoritarian regimes, telling graduates they will “have to learn how to play cat and mouse with the current crackdowns and the current system.”

Turning to the administration’s battle against Harvard, Ms. Amanpour said, “Everywhere we look — left, right, and center — we see democratic institutions, the distressing side of them bending. But guess who’s not bending? We the press. You. Harvard.”

“They are coming after us, but you can still find plenty of excellent fact-based, evidence-driven, consequential, and even game-changing journalism right now in the ‘1984’-‘Animal Farm’ vortex that we are caught up in,” she said. 

Her speech came roughly a week after the Trump administration ramped up its battle against Harvard when the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said the federal government had revoked the university’s student and exchange visitor program certification and would not be able to enroll foreign students. 

Ms. Noem said the move came after Harvard declined to comply with a request for information on protests, and as the school is “perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policies.”

A federal judge blocked the government from revoking Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students. However, on Wednesday, Mr. Trump announced he was using a different method to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students by stopping the university from participating in the student visa program.