Iranian-Americans Questioned at the Border: 'My Kids Shouldn't Experience Such Things'

Source: NYT

Up to 200 people were held by border agents, with some of them reportedly asked to share their opinions about the situation in Iran and Iraq.

SEATTLE — Arriving at the United States border in Washington State early Sunday morning after a skiing trip to Canada, Negah Hekmati and her family were pulled out of line for further questioning by Customs and Border Protection agents.

The family found itself in a room filled with fellow Iranian-Americans, many of whom had already been held for hours. The agents wanted to know the identities of Ms. Hekmati’s parents, siblings, uncles and cousins. Her husband, a software engineer at Microsoft, was asked about any military service in his past. The agents left, and then came back with more questions.

During the five overnight hours they were held at the Peace Arch Border Crossing on their way back home to the Seattle area, Ms. Hekmati said, her 5-year-old would not sleep, worried about the prospect of jail. The young girl asked Ms. Hekmati to stop speaking Farsi, hoping that might help avoid further scrutiny.

“My kids shouldn’t experience such things,” Ms. Hekmati said. “They are U.S. citizens. This is not O.K.”
More than 100 people of Iranian descent appear to have faced similar delays at Washington’s border with Canada over the weekend, a process Gov. Jay Inslee described on Monday as the inappropriate “detention” of people — some of them United States citizens — who had done nothing wrong.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/06/us/border-iranians-washington-patrol.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage