Judge makes public directive to detain Iranians in Blaine that CBP earlier said was false
U.S. Customs and Border Protection documents released Tuesday show officers were directed to detain all people of Iranian decent, including U.S. citizens, attempting to enter the U.S. last January at several ports of entry, including the Peace Arch Border Crossing in Blaine.
The documents, including the directive, were made public Tuesday, Dec. 29, by the Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Washington and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project in a release following an order by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington to make them public. A link to the directive was included in the release.
“The Court’s order makes clear that the government unlawfully sought to conceal illegal conduct, as the directive unlawfully targeted individuals based solely on their national origin,” rights project Legal Director Matt Adams said in the release. “The directive that we are releasing today demonstrates the need for greater accountability.”
Tuesday’s release comes more than a month after a court previously ordered a release of documents that showed that more than 250 people of Iranian descent, including 80 U.S. citizens, reportedly were referred for secondary inspection at the Blaine Peace Arch Border crossing by CBP in January. Some were detained for more than nine hours, according to the documents.
According to the directive that was including as part of a Jan. 3 email sent on behalf of the CBP’s Tactical Analytical Unit from the Seattle Field Office, a “High Threat Alert” was issued following the U.S. assassination of Iranian Major General Qassim Suleimani in Baghdad and a threat of retaliation made earlier that day.
“(Tactical Analytical Unit) is issuing this high alert to the frontline,” the directive read. “Effective immediately, (Tactical Analytical Unit) will be operating 24x7 working with (Tactical Terrorism Response Teams) and frontline officers to conduct vetting on all individuals” born between 1961 and 2001 with birth, travel or citizenship links to Iran, as well as Palestinians and Lebanese.”
Those fitting that criteria were to receive secondary questions including:
▪ If, when and where they served in the military.
▪ If they were granted a military exemption, why and what did they do instead.
▪ Did any males in their family serve, and if so, where.
▪ What schools they attended, what degrees they attained, who their advisor was and who funded their schooling.
▪ What their occupation was and as much information as possible about what they did and the company they worked for.
“This highlights that the detentions at the border were in fact unlawful. And as a result, the government has now released the actual directive,” Adams told The Bellingham Herald in an email. “The government previously refused to confirm the leaked directive, but now they were forced to confirm the directive exists and its release makes absolutely clear it targeted people based solely on their national origin.”
The document was ordered released by U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington Chief Judge Ricardo Martinez, after he ruled CBP had unlawfully withheld the directive, according to Tuesday’s release.
““This event revealed how government agencies like CBP assume that by invoking the magic words, ‘national security,’ they can get away with discriminatory and illegal practices, and courts will uphold their actions without scrutiny,” Council on American-Islamic Relations-Washington’s Legal and Policy Manager Brianna Auffray said in the release.
“With this decision, Judge Martinez has shown that these words have started to lose their magic and that blanket deference to ‘security’ will no longer rule the day. What happened in January 2020 was wrong, and CBP’s cover-up was an unsuccessful attempt to justify depriving people of their liberties.”
Council on American-Islamic Relations and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project are awaiting a further court-ordered release of emails from Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan, according to the release.
CBP refused to comment on the directive because the litigation is still pending, spokesperson Jason Givens told The Herald in an email, adding, “however, lack of comment should not be construed as agreement or stipulation with any of the allegations.”
Detained at the border
On Jan. 4, Council on American-Islamic Relations-Washington sent out a news release stating that it was assisting more than 60 Iranians and Iranian-Americans who had been detained and questioned for a lengthy time in Blaine.
CBP denied the claims at the time, as spokesperson Michael Friel told The Herald in an email, “Social media posts that CBP is detaining Iranian-Americans and refusing their entry into the U.S. because of their country of origin are false. Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false.”
The claims came in the wake of a U.S. airstrike near Baghdad’s airport Jan. 3 that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force and the mastermind of its interventions across the Middle East. Iran promised to seek revenge, and the U.S. said that it was sending thousands more troops to the region as tensions soared.
According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations news release at the time, Iranian-Americans were preparing to cross from Canada into the U.S. at the Peace Arch crossing to return to their homes following an Iranian pop concert Jan. 4 in Vancouver, B.C. Those who were detained reported having their passports confiscated and being questioned about their political beliefs and allegiances, according to the release, and that CBP officials at Blaine refused to comment on the reasons for the detentions.
The incident brought calls for answers from a number of Washington lawmakers, including Gov. Jay Inslee, who called the reports “deeply alarming” in a Jan. 6 statement.
The Nov. 17 release reported that an email from CBP Seattle Field Office Director Adele Fasano to CBP Executive Director of Field Operations Randy Howe stated that on Jan. 3-4 more than 250 people were referred for secondary inspection bases on their national origin. Eighty of those people were U.S. citizens.
Though most people were detained between three and four hours, the release states that emails showed some were held for more than nine hours.
The release also stated that emails showed that, despite the CBP statement at the time denying there was a directive to detain people of Iranian descent crossing the U.S.-Canada border following the assassination of Soleimani, the Seattle Field Office had ordered agents to “refer all encounters with individuals from areas of national concern for additional inspection and vetting.”
Later emails instructed the Seattle Field Office to stop discriminating based on national origin, the release states.
“The Constitution makes clear that discrimination based on national origin like this is unlawful,” Adams said in the Nov. 17 release. “Yet, the records plainly demonstrate that CBP officials detained hundreds of people, including scores of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents solely because of where they were born. Moreover, the records make clear that authorities then lied about it.”
