3mo ago

U.S. citizen says he and his wife detained without explanation after returning from Canada

www.ctvnews.ca

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.”

92 comments

Bachir Atallah
Yeah, I think I know why they detained him.
Fuck this country.
- First they came for...
  Move up the list.
  They came for...
  They are coming for us all. Act accordingly.
  
  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…
  
  It has never been this explicit.
  Well since the 90s anyway.
- 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.
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.
- The victims in this case are magats.
  "My brother voted for President Trump. What he and his wife regret is the trauma they endured on U.S. soil—both handcuffed without cause, separated, humiliated, and treated like threats instead of citizens."
  They'll jerk off to it until it's their turn.
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.
  
  You don't say!
- He thought he was white adjacent enough and voted for Trump though.
  
  As a not white, I keep telling these people they aren't white and they won't get in the club and they DO NOT LISTEN. you better give a shit about immigrants because no matter how long you've been here they still hate you for not being white.
- https://www.newsweek.com/trump-voter-bachir-atallah-detained-border-agents-2060893 and he voted for Trump apparently... 🤦‍♂️
  
  My sympathy for them instantly vanished.
  They got the day they voted for.
- feels like the borders of who is white are being policed harder too
  
  Ok but even Native Americans are brown 🤔
  Border agents would have better results enforcing their "whites only" policy at the border of Scandinavian countries.
- So: is this the FO of FAFO, or leopards? Or both?
  
  Just the leopards. Too much wool over the maga eyes to find out anything.
- First thing I check for is a picture or name.
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
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?
- Because we don't have a legal system. We have fascism.
- Perfectly legal in maga 'merica.
  Due process what...?
- 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
- Because he is an insecure little shit who needs to bully his betters.
- Because he would not be socially acceptable for him to put us hand on is dick.
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
  
  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.
- Good luck! Let us know how it went!
  
  If you don’t hear from me hello from El Salvador!
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.
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.
- 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.
- If it's brown, flush it down.
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.
  
  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?
  
  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.
- Too many consonants
Funny how so many of these detained US citizens share certain, ahem, characteristics about their names
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.
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
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
A recent comment here explained why he could have potentially thought he was safe.
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.
Without reason??? His name is "Bachir Atallah"! Clearly, a sinister sounding name like this must be detained, whereas John Smith will be allowed to enter. Part of Making America Great Again is returning to the xenophobia of the 1950s and earlier. Isn't this what ~half of the voters wanted?
To be honest, secondary inspections are fairly commonplace at the US-CAN border. A (white) Canadian friend of ours was deported back to BC and barred from entry for 5yr because she overstayed her tourist visa. This article said he was detained Sunday evening and released by 11pm, which is like 6 hours tops- I’ve heard of people staying 8+ hours.
CLEARLY the fact that his name is Atallah and he and his wife are Lebanese had everything to do with this, but at some point it’s like, read the room. Don’t do int’l travel and expect it to go well in Trump’s Amerika
I hope every single one of these cases results in a lawsuit.

92 comments