“I literally drove my car to Canada for the weekend, and on the way back, I was treated like a criminal,” Atallah, a New Hampshire real estate attorney who has been an American citizen for 10 years, told NBC10 Boston.
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A CBP official has claimed that Atallah’s account is “blatantly false and sensationalized.”
“He asked me, ‘Exit the vehicle right now,’ and he reached for his gun,” Atallah said. “I said, ‘OK, I’m exiting the vehicle, keep your gun at your waist.”
“They handcuffed me, they twisted my arm, my wrist,” he said. “They walked me inside, and I was looking at my wife in the car.”
“It was like a shock for me,” Fakhri said.
The real estate attorney asked why he was being detained, according to NBC10 Boston.
“Even if you ask questions, they say, ‘We don’t know, it’s the government,'” he said.
Atallah says he began feeling unwell and asked for medical assistance. An EMS report indicated he had high blood pressure and required additional care, but he declined treatment after U.S. Border Patrol agents explained the next steps they planned to take.
“They’re definitely going to escort me to the hospital and have an officer guard me and being me back and start from zero,” he said.
ah says CBP agents asked to access his email on his phone, but he refused, citing attorney-client privilege.
“So I had to, under duress, give him permission to look through my email, through my privileged information, and he made me write a statement, signed by me, saying that I gave him permission to look through the email,” Atallah said.
After several requests, Atallah says CBP contacted his sister, an immigration attorney. Nearly five hours later, he and his wife were released—and are now pursuing legal action.
Newsweek: US Citizen Detained After Visiting Canada: ‘Treated Like a Criminal’
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