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.”
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
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
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.
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?
First, LEOs can do as much brandishing as they want. They are trained that any resistance or hesitation to their orders is a threat. They are only trained to escalate situations with threats of violence. That officer was communicating that they will not elaborate or answer any questions.
We need new laws because that is bullshit
Agreed
Because he is an insecure little shit who needs to bully his betters.
Because we don’t have a legal system. We have fascism.
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 detail 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.
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???
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.
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.
People who want authority over others/any kind of power should be prevented from having it.
Only people who don’t want to be cops due to moral issues should be cops.
But we live in a system that rewards the worst of us with the largest rewards (capitalism), so this won’t change until our whole society changes accordingly.
Perfectly legal in maga 'merica.
Due process what…?
Because he would not be socially acceptable for him to put us hand on is dick.
Flying home from international now.
Wish me luck my homies!
Good luck! Let us know how it went!
If you don’t hear from me hello from El Salvador!
Just be white, and you’ll be fine. Kinda like my other advice. Just be rich and you’ll be fine.
<Sigh>
White people may be detained to. I know one elderly white man who was made to repeat ‘I love the US’ three times before being allowed entry.
He did it and managed to get in unscathed so perhaps this is not the best example. But I imagine they would have detained him if he refused.
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
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.
Even more irrelevant:
My grandfather was named Ignazio. He didn’t like people calling him Iggy, so he changed his name to Harry.
How the hell do you go from Ignazio to Harry?
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.
That depends how you count. Guantanamo Bay was used after 9/11 and many or most of the people who were locked up there didn’t commit any kind of crime. Although, I suppose most of them were not kidnapped on US soil, so it’s not quite the same of course.
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…
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.
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.
First they came for…
Move up the list.
They came for…
They are coming for us all. Act accordingly.
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He also voted for trump
If he did, then I guess he’s having the day he voted for. But I still detest that I live in the kind of country that would do this shit.
Absolutely, I would hate it where I am if it happened here
So basically anyone non-white should never visit, and if youre not white and plan to leave, plan on it just being for good.
Murica
I guess I’ll see about my uncle and his wife. They’re up in Canada this weekend for the holiday. Her family is there.
I hope every single one of these cases results in a lawsuit.
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.
Been saying for awhile now if you plan on leaving the country, plan to move.
Nobody should be coming here right now. It’s too dangerous.
Not with the head of ice saying shit like “we want prime but for people” regarding deportations
I think people in here didn’t read the article. Border patrol explained that he was just overreacting. Being cuffed and placed in a cell for hours is part of normal operating procedure. It’s all fine. Everything is fine.
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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
I am going to say right now, the actual phrase is “a few bad apples spoil the bunch” and it is to literally say that yes, one or two massive assholes in any collective will eventually fuck shit up for everyone if not dealt with. I don’t know why the second part of that phrase stopped being acknowledged but it isn’t supposed to be just a hand wave to say oh it’s just one guy so let it go.
also go be clear, i am talking about ICE, not the american citizens illegally detained for daring to return to their county while being human.
