US Custom agents have been denying entry to Canadian Muslims crossing the border

Sept. 3, 2019 por Isolda Barrera

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From what we know right now, at least six Canadian Muslims have been denied entry at the Canada-U.S. border in the past two weeks, news reports mentioned on Friday.

Two from what is known were eminent, one of the persons denied, a Toronto based man, who is chaplain to a regional police force. The other person is an Iraqi-Turkmen, who is a community leader and has relatives that are fighting Daesh in the Middle East.

They were each traveling by separate from each other, but with their families and were turned away at different points of entry in the Canada-US border. They were in no way tied to each other.

Both men were given very little information as to why their entry to the country was denied, and were told that in order to advance further they would need to apply for Visas at the Toronto’s U.S. consulate. It is uncommon for Canadians with passports to have the need for Visas, but in some cases it might be necessary.

The U.S. President Donald Trump, had recently made a list of countries from where traveler might be denied entry to the country, it was an executive order named by many as the “Muslim ban”, as many of the countries on the list are those that have a majority of Muslims presents.

Canadian immigration lawyers said there has been an increase recently in situations where a Canadian Muslims has been turned away at U.S. border crossing points.

"We've seen a lot more in the last few weeks and we don't know what to attribute it to. We know the climate there in the U.S. has changed, it's a bit different, but at the same time there are processes and procedures and people should be afforded opportunities to challenge a case" mentions a Toronto-area immigration lawyer.

Tighter control at the border, especially when the six persons from Canada denied aces where all Muslims, it worries immigrations advocates that the situation is getting to this point. U.S. Customs and Border Protection mentioned that there have been no new policy changes. This does not mean that Canadian citizens are not automatically entitled to enter the United States without being questioned or having their phones checked at border crossing, something that has been happening more. In these cases, it will really depend a lot also on the discretion of the U.S. Customs agent, as they do have more freedom to dismiss entry to anyone that they feel are not deemed safe.

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