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A New Hampshire couple was detained this past weekend by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents, who held them in separate cells without explanation and demanded to go through the husband’s emails.
Both individuals — Bachir Atallah, a real estate lawyer, and his spouse, Jessica Fakhri — are U.S. citizens. The two were stopped by CBP agents as they crossed from Canada into Vermont.
The two recounted the ordeal to an NBC News affiliate station in Boston and The Independent.
The couple was told to exit their vehicle by the border agents, one of whom appeared to reach for his gun. “I said, ‘OK, I’m exiting the vehicle, keep your gun at your waist,'” Atallah recollected.
Atallah said he was “treated like a criminal.” He and his wife were kept in separate cells, with neither allowed to wear shoes or a jacket.
“It was freezing,” Atallah said.
The experience was so overwhelming to Atallah that his blood pressure rose to 153 over 112, causing border agents to call for paramedics. He refused to be treated because CBP officials told him it would delay the process of being released.
Agents also demanded to see Atallah’s email correspondences, which included clients’ names. At first refusing to hand over his phone due to attorney-client privilege, Atallah eventually conceded, saying that, under duress, federal agents “made me write a statement” permitting them to look through his device.
Atallah says he is now pursuing legal action over how he and his spouse were treated. He is dismayed that this is happening under the Trump administration’s watch.
“I really thought things would change after this administration, when we have Mr. Trump in office, things would change to the better. Things actually changed to the worse,” Atallah said.
A spokesperson for CBP insists that the incident was routine, part of a “secondary inspection” that can “apply for any traveler.” However, several other U.S. citizens have reported being harassed by Trump administration officials or detained by immigration agents in recent weeks.
Two lawyers in Massachusetts received letters from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) telling them that their immigration paroles had been revoked, and that they should leave the country voluntarily or risk being deported. Both lawyers are U.S. citizens.
“Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you,” the letter told them.
Lisa Anderson, a physician born in Pennsylvania who now resides in Connecticut, also received an email from DHS telling her, “It is time to leave the United States.”
And according to a Washington Post report from earlier this month, at least seven people, some of them children, have been detained by federal immigration officials as part of the administration’s sweeping raids against immigrants in the U.S.
“As immigration officials become more indiscriminate about who they’re targeting — all while they’re pressured to deport people faster and to avoid immigration court proceedings — it creates a situation in which the possibility of illegally detaining and deporting a U.S. citizen rises immensely, because citizenship is not something that we can spot on people’s foreheads,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, speaking to the Post.
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