Jan 12, 2020
Hello, it’s Sunday, Jan 12. The escalating tensions between Iran and the United States may feel a world away for some, but it hit close to home for dozens of Persians stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at the crossing between Washington and British Columbia. While some fear talking about their experience publicly, one Bellevue woman shared her story with Crosscut.
An Iranian-born woman in her 30s with Canadian citizenship says she was detained for 11 hours on Saturday at the Canadian border as she tried to return to the U.S., where she holds a green card and works for Microsoft. Seen reflected in frosted glass, photographed in Bellevue on Monday, January 6, 2020. (Lindsey Wasson for Crosscut)
I started hearing about Iranian Americans held at the border last weekend, when a source texted me. By that Sunday morning, the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Washington put out a press release, noting more than 60 Iranians and Iranian Americans had been detained at the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine, Wash.
The Customs and Border Patrol office there had become so full, CAIR said, that some Iranians had been turned away. The advocacy group learned some travelers had attended an Iranian pop concert over the weekend. CAIR was concerned more concert-goers would be returning from the event on Sunday and that they’d also be forced to wait for hours.
Immigration advocates questioned border patrol about why Persians, in particular, had been put through secondary screening and had had their passports confiscated. Was there a national directive to detain people from Iran? Why had no one else experienced delays?
While CAIR said an anonymous source had told them that the Department of Homeland Security had issued a national order to report and detain anyone with Iranian heritage deemed potentially suspicious, regardless of citizenship status, CBP officials denied such reports.
On Monday, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal held a press conference with Negah Hekmati, an Iranian-American mother who was held up at the border with her two children. She was visibly shaken. Hekmati later wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about her experience.
While some Iranians were too frightened to talk to the press, a woman in Bellevue who works for Microsoft who had been detained for 11 hours was willing to speak to me. The Bellevue woman was able to relate what the room was like, where dozens of Persians had been held, and bear witness to the shame and guilt some experienced.
The Bellevue woman said she had been motivated to speak out in part because of border patrol’s denials about what had happened.
There is still more to the story. Dozens of members of Congress have pushed back and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties has opened an investigation. Stay tuned.
— Lilly Fowler
Crosscut immigration reporter
