A lawyer with a foreign-sounding name, who also happens to be a US citizen, was detained and threatened by Customs and Border Patrol while crossing the border back into the US from Canada.
New Hampshire real estate attorney Bachir Atallah is an American citizen. He was crossing the northern border after a trip to Canada and was detained without explanation.
NBC Boston reports that Atallah and his wife, Jessica Fakhri, were returning after a quick trip across the border on Sunday when they were stopped by CBP in Vermont. Atallah said that he “literally drove my car to Canada for the weekend, and on the way back, I was treated like a criminal.” An official from CBP denied his description of the event, calling it “blatantly false and sensationalized.”
Atallah described being forced from his car: “He asked me, ‘Exit the vehicle right now,’ and he reached for his gun. I said, ‘OK, I’m exiting the vehicle, keep your gun at your waist. They handcuffed me, they twisted my arm, my wrist. They walked me inside, and I was looking at my wife in the car.
He went on: “Even if you ask questions, they say, ‘We don’t know, it’s the government.”
Atallah started to feel sick and asked for medical attention. EMS determined he “was experiencing high blood pressure and needed further medical attention, which he refused after he says U.S. Border Patrol agents explained what they would do next.”
He claims that CBP asked to look at his phone, specifically his emails. He states that he “had to, under duress, give him permission to look through my email, through my priveleged information, and he made me write a statement, signed by me, saying that I gave him permission to look through the email.”
His sister, an immigration attorney, made this statement: “It’s not about the immigrants. It’s coming to us Americans, and it’s going to go after all of us.”
He and his wife were released after being detained for five hours. They are pursuing legal action.