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.”
I’ve been seriously reconsidering my vacation to Mexico scheduled for the second half of this year. I’m Asian and I have no doubt that I will be “randomly selected” to go through extra screening.
I have seen some rhetoric about this, like “a few bad apples,” but here’s the problem with this and a lot of enforcement jobs.
- Polite and decent people, on average, dislike confrontation. Thus, are not particularly attracted to these types of jobs.
- This leads to an uneven amount who are fine with confrontation or even like it. Some of these people are sociopaths and psychopaths.
- People who are psychopaths are actually very attracted to position where they have power over people.
- US Customs are not regulated under the same laws as police or military. They can do what they want, when they want, with little to no discretion.
Are all US customs agents bad? No, of course not. But unchecked power is dangerous for anything. I can’t tell you what percentage is or is not, because you can’t measure a negative. But I see this in military, police, hired guards, and politics.
Many years ago, they cavity searched an underage girl at my local airport (Dulles) as she returned with her family from a vacation in Jamaica. They separated her from her family, did not tell her family, and searched all her holes “for drugs.” They defended their actions by saying, “if we told people we didn’t cavity search babies, they’d hide drugs inside babies.” Essentially admitting, with no shame, they’d cavity search an infant. All in the name of “stopping drugs.” Oh and the girl? US citizen, but dark skinned. The mistake they made was her dad was a powerful attorney and went public.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-106hhrg66023/html/CHRG-106hhrg66023.htm
https://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/circle/raceprofiling/stories.racial.profiling.html
Bachir Atallah
Yeah, I think I know why they detained him.
Fuck this country.
It has never been this explicit.
Well since the 90s anyway.
First they came for…
Move up the list.
They came for…
They are coming for us all. Act accordingly.
It is awfully suspicious. Who in their right mind would return from Canada under the current circumstances?
They were US citizens. Canada doesn’t let you stay longer than 6 months when just visiting. They had no choice but to return home at some point.
Pretty sure the comment you were responding to was sarcastic.
Anyone making sarcastic internet comments in text expects some subset of people to take it seriously. Its part of the fun!
You don’t say!
You are the one who said who in their right mind would return?
That implies they shouldn’t have returned.
I haven’t used a “/s” yet and I’ll be damned if I’m going to start now.
good. /s ruins the fun
oh come on, the best jokes are the ones that are either patiently explained, or where you’re informed it’s a joke in advance.
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Magats will jerk off to this, this is what they wanted with their vote
yeah - the dogwhistle language was pretty much “jail the brown people”.
i’m sure my mother is estatic. she told me she is scared all the time because one of her neighbors is chinese (she doesnt know them or talk to them; i have never met them… and neither has she, officially). that is the only basis for her fear - she makes up stories about them and everything. the last story she made up was how they were running an international crime ring to get more chinese people to live near her…
fucking white people :(
Fucking hell, doesn’t sound far off from my mom other than the situation. I finally had to just block her number cos she wouldn’t respect my wishes of not talking about religion or politics cos she’s just a hate filled little shit bag
Dr Fu Manchu is your neighbor!
Multiple orgasms for the first time…
You’ve conjured images in my mind. I wish you hadn’t.
Even if CBP had legal justification to detain them, can someone explain to me why the officer put his hand on his gun when asked a verbal question? Is that not brandishing?
Pretty sure they now have qualified immunity (and then some) anywhere within like 100 miles of any border or point of entry. Specifically included permission to detain anybody, citizen or not, without any paperwork. At least, best I can remember. It was one of many truly disgusting supreme court rulings in my life.
Edit: corrected the word “detain”
That’s not the question. Why did he put his hand on his gun?
Umm, what do you mean it’s not. He put his hand on his gun because there are absolutely no consequences for doing so. To put it even more simply, he did it because he can.
Are you sure you’re asking the question you want answered???
Small dick energy.
It’s a standard cop intimidation tactic. There was this really toxic concept that cops were (still are?) taught that they need to “take command” of every situation and one of their first priorities is to intimidate and scare anyone who doesn’t immediately start blindly following their instructions. They perceive asking questions as a threat to their “authority” that needs to be eliminated at all costs.
As someone who believes in the right to bear arms for self defense, that guy should never be near a gun.
That seems to apply to the majority of law enforcement who in general seem to be the absolute last people that should have any kind of authority over anybody else. There’s a reason something crazy like 60%+ of police commit domestic abuse.
Yes it was. The short answer to your question is very obvious: because he can get away with it and it gives him a feeling of power to threaten people. It’s the why OP answered for you.
Because we don’t have a legal system. We have fascism.
Perfectly legal in maga 'merica.
Due process what…?
Because he would not be socially acceptable for him to put us hand on is dick.
Because he is an insecure little shit who needs to bully his betters.
And this will keep on happening until people react
Don’t tell that to Americans on Lemmy- they’re absolutely itching to get defensive and indignant at the suggestion that “being upset” doesn’t quite count as “action.”
Flying home from international now.
Wish me luck my homies!
Just be white, and you’ll be fine. Kinda like my other advice. Just be rich and you’ll be fine.
<Sigh>
It’s not like they have thrown white Tourists from Germany or Canada in the prison the last few weeks instead of refusing them at the border
Good luck! Let us know how it went!
If you don’t hear from me hello from El Salvador!
Because of Schindler’s list, Ann Frank’s diary and history classes, I totally understood why Vietnamese people here in the US wanted to change their name to a more American name. I found it funny at first when I met my first Viet person ever. But it was then pretty normal and I think the Chinese do it too. Now we are living the same pressures against other migrants. Will they go from Juanes to John’s? Will Maria become Jessica?
OMG! Even that is not possible due to the laws where one cannot change our name and also vote.
Slightly irrelevant, but I used to work with a guy who moved from Vietnam and changed his name to a more American one. Motherfucker was named Joe Cobra.
Ah! Hilarious. I worked with a bunch. But my favorite one was Kevin. Imagine an elder skinny Vietnamese gentleman.
Anyway, I’m gonna be going from Francisco to Jake. Jake last name Fromstatefarm, mother’s middle name Wearingkakis.
Bachir Atallah
I think I found the explanation.
Ah, another case of the ol’ caucasian deficiency.
It’s happening to white people as well.
Not enough to make any material impact … yet, if ever.
Wait until a celebrity is handcuffed at the border whilst live streaming the experience.
Even then, the brainwashed will still claim that it was justified.
Not until it happens to them will anything like this resonate.
I think things like DHL no longer accepting personal shipments into the USA valued at over $800 will have a bigger impact than this all too familiar story.
That already happened, a Canadian actress was detained for like 2 weeks months ago
Yet here we still are
And she was a US resident renewing her visa at the border, she was living here legally
You said it yourself, “Canadian actress” … I think right there is their excuse to ignore this.
I mean yeah but things have progressed since then. They’re snatching anyone.
If it’s brown, flush it down.
Funny how so many of these detained US citizens share certain, ahem, characteristics about their names
Trump might as well just make it illegal to travel in or out of the Untied States
Wouldn’t surprise me if that is his plan. We can both name a few countries where it is very hard to travel in or out of the country. They aren’t nice places to live
