As she sat in an in any other case empty interrogation room face-to-face with a U.S. border agent, Shirin Fahimi discovered herself in a situation she’d solely ever seen within the motion pictures.
An extended desk separated her from the officer. On the ceiling have been 4 screens. Her coronary heart was beating quick.
“Are you Muslim?” Fahimi recalled the agent asking her.
“That was a stunning query for me,” she advised CBC News. “I do not know if another Canadian on the border is being requested this query of what do you consider.”
Fahimi, a 31-year-old Toronto-area artist, was born in Iran. Over the years, she mentioned she’s confronted additional questioning in alternate for the liberty to journey the United States.
But on Feb. 4, shortly after she checked in at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, Fahimi was led to a room the place she mentioned she was peppered one-on-one with questions she by no means imagined she would face as a Canadian citizen.
What was her place on the Iranian authorities, why did she transfer to Canada and why was her husband’s identify so lengthy have been some of the questions.
‘Who is Canadian now?’
The interrogation lasted about 45 minutes and ended with Fahimi in tears. Not solely was she denied journey to San Francisco for a scheduled efficiency, she was additionally left questioning if the Canadian citizenship she’d waited so lengthy for was by some means value much less as a result of of the place she was born.
“Who is Canadian now?” Fahimi mentioned. “You query your belonging.”
Fahimi is not alone. CBC News has interviewed 5 different Iranian-born Canadian residents who have been denied entry even after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) admitted that officers at its Seattle area workplace have been wrongly detaining Iranian-born travellers amid escalating U.S.-Iran tensions following the killing of Iranian normal Qassem Soleimani on Jan. 3.
Two of these individuals mentioned that they had served within the Iranian army earlier than transferring to Canada — which is obligatory in Iran.
The circumstances have some questioning if the refusals are half of a broader technique targeting Iranian-born travellers.
During the Jan. Four weekend, as much as 200 travellers of Iranian descent travelling from British Columbia have been reportedly detained and questioned for a number of hours on the Peace Arch border crossing in Washington state.
Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. as a result of of their nation of origin are false. Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a associated directive are additionally false.
—@CBP
The company denied any such directive got here from the highest, with CBP appearing commissioner Mark Morgan telling reporters the actions have been “not according to our course and in order that was instantly corrected. And it was very distinctive to that one sector.”
The targeting was mentioned to have ended after Jan. 5, as tales of Iranian-born travellers who had been stopped on the border started coming to mild, in line with a U.S. border officer, whose identification CBC News withheld over considerations of repercussions from his employer.
On Jan. 31, Saman Zamanzadeh, 35, was heading to Orlando, Fla., for an engineering convention. A Canadian citizen since July 2018, he’d travelled to the U.S. quite a few occasions with out challenge.
This time, at secondary screening, he was requested a couple of time — earlier than he turned a Canadian — when his utility for a customer’s visa was denied. That was across the time of U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial journey ban that barred people from seven predominantly Muslim nations from coming into the U.S.
At the time, Zamanzadeh cancelled his journey, deciding it may wait. His entry woes ended when he turned a Canadian citizen — solely to return once more in latest weeks.
It was the identical for Ahmad Keshavarzian.
The 59-year-old development marketing consultant and his spouse have been planning to journey to Orlando with their daughter when he was stopped at Pearson airport. Keshavarzian, who turned a Canadian citizen in 2017 had at all times been in a position to cross the border after answering a couple of questions.
This time, after 20 minutes of interrogation, Keshavarzian was deemed inadmissible, and advised he didn’t have the required visa to cross the border. Canadian residents typically do not require visas to journey to the U.S. besides in very particular circumstances, in line with the U.S. Embassy’s web site.
‘No coverage’ to detain based mostly on nationality: CBP
The two Iranian-born Canadian residents who had served within the Iranian army advised CBC News that they had by no means earlier than undergone secondary screening till the killing of Soleimani. One was held up at a land crossing on the Champlain–St. Bernard de Lacolle crossing connecting Quebec and New York on Jan. 17; the opposite at Pearson airport on Jan. 20.
In an emailed assertion this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection advised CBC News “there is no such thing as a coverage or rule that may allow CBP to focus on or detain people based mostly on nationality alone.”
Why not make the Americans accountable for circumstances like this?– Immigration lawyer Len Saunders
CBP officers “are educated to implement U.S. legal guidelines uniformly and pretty, and they don’t discriminate based mostly on faith, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation,” spokesperson Jason Givens mentioned within the assertion.
The assertion went on to say people who current a sound Canadian passport might be processed for entry to the U.S. as Canadian residents however to show that they’re admissible, it is as much as the applicant to “overcome all grounds of inadmissibility.”
When Fahimi was denied entry, she requested the border agent why she was suddenly inadmissible regardless of having travelled to the U.S. so many occasions beforehand.
“Well, they made a mistake earlier than,” she recalled the agent saying. “How may the border company make a mistake that many occasions?”
Canadian authorities’s silence ‘disturbing’
For Zamanzadeh, the one recourse he sees is for the Canadian authorities to step in and ensure its residents aren’t being discriminated towards.
“I’m not a citizen of the U.S., and I can not demand something from their authorities, however I’m a Canadian citizen who voted for this Liberal Party on this election, and one huge cause is what was introduced up by Prime Minister Trudeau: ‘A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,'” Zamanzadeh mentioned.
“This means rather a lot to us,” he mentioned.
CBC News contacted each Global Affairs Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency this week to ask if the federal authorities is conscious of and anxious about circumstances of Iranian-born Canadians being interrogated or refused entry on the border. CBC News additionally requested if any motion is being taken to make sure Canadians of Iranian origin are usually not subjected to any unequal therapy.
Neither federal company supplied a response, referring any inquiries to the U.S.
For Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer in Blaine, Wash., the silence from the Canadian authorities is “disturbing.”
“They’re so keen to offer the Americans this carte blanche autonomy on Canadian soil,” Saunders mentioned. “They’ve allowed U.S. officers to … principally interrogate Canadians indefinitely at pre-flight clearances, to advocate prices if Canadians do not co-operate with U.S. officers.”
“Why not make the Americans accountable for circumstances like this?”
‘A catch-22’
Since tensions between the U.S. and Iran have ramped up, Saunders mentioned he is obtained dozens of calls from Iranian-born Canadians who’ve been given no strategy to resolve their circumstances.
“They’re advised to go to the U.S. consulate to use for a visa. And the second they go to the consulate, the consulate says you are Canadian, you do not want a visa. And so it turns into sort of a catch-22.”
“It’s profiling,” Saunders mentioned.
“These individuals haven’t violated any immigration legal guidelines. These individuals haven’t had any felony convictions or something which stands out as grounds of inadmissibility. The solely widespread issue — and I hate to say this — most of them are born in Iran.”
For now, Fahimi is not positive if she is going to ever give you the option journey to the U.S. utilizing her Canadian passport.
As she stared out of the prepare window on her approach again house from Pearson, the skyline whizzing previous, she thought: “After all the pieces my dad and mom went by way of for us to have this freedom, this occurs.”
“Do I belong right here?”
