An American citizen says he and his wife were detained for hours by U.S. border agents when they returned to the United States after a short trip to Canada.
Bachir Atallah told CNN he and his wife, Jessica, were driving back into the U.S. Sunday evening after visiting family in Canada for the weekend when U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents stopped them for a secondary inspection at the Highgate Springs checkpoint in Vermont.
Atallah, who is originally from Lebanon, said he was told to park his Range Rover and hand over his keys. When he asked the officer why, the officer placed his hand on his gun and told him to exit his vehicle, Atallah said. He said he was then handcuffed and led into a cell, where his belongings were confiscated. He said his wife was put into a cell across from his.
“Seeing my wife’s mascara running because she was crying, it was heartbreaking,” Atallah said. “It wasn’t humane.”
But not even the OK half of that chart is set in stone unless you have an obviously American surname like Smith or Jones. You could be a white fifth generation American with a surname that sounds remotely middle Eastern, east European, etc. and you could be in for a rude awakening…
Or if they think you may have said something vaguely critical of dear leader online.
We all knew Trump was a dictator, he said so himself. I did not expect this level of buy in from the rest of the country though.
They detained a white German tourist trying to enter with a German passport and valid visa for several weeks, while he begged them to just let him book the next flight back to Germany.