Those Canadian Muslims denied entry include a prominent Guyana-born Toronto imam who serves as a chaplain with the Peel Regional Police and an Iraqi Turkmen community leader who has family members fighting ISIS in the Middle East, according to CBC Canada.
The two men were not traveling together and were denied entry at different border crossings. They are among at least six Canadian Muslim men who have been stopped at the U.S. border and turned away within the past two weeks.
Interestingly, neither Iraq or Guyana are among the countries on the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban” executive order. Just days after Trump became president, he signed an executive order that affected travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen – causing scenes of disruption at several airports across the U.S.
It seems that the border patrol officers weren’t well-informed about the regulations or they were just plain vindictive and stupid – because both men were told they needed to apply for visas at the U.S. consulate in Toronto. Only then could they return to the border and apply for entry.
All six men are represented by the Toronto-area immigration firm CILF — Caruso Guberman Appleby. Lawyers for the firm are wondering just how many more Canadian citizens are facing similar problems at the border.
“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,” Daud Ali, a lawyer at CILF, told CBC News.
“But it’s hard to know what you’re going up against when you’re not told why you’re denied entry. The fact that they’re all Muslims, that raises some concerns about whether these people are being targeted or if this is a new form of some sort of ban.”
Border officials were asked if there had been any changes to current policy with respect to Muslim citizens traveling from Canada into the U.S. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the agency “has not had any new policy changes.”
The CBP spokesperson went on to say: “Applicants for admission bear the burden of proof to establish that they are clearly eligible to enter the United States. In order to demonstrate that they are admissible, the applicant must overcome all grounds of inadmissibility.”
The CBP has over 60 grounds for inadmissibility, including health-related reasons, criminality, security reasons, illegal entry, documentation violations, and immigration violations.
Imran Ally, a resident imam at the Toronto and Regional Islamic Congregation (TARIC) mosque for the last 20 years and a chaplain with Peel Regional Police, was traveling with his wife and three children to attend his best friend’s daughter’s wedding in the New York City borough of Queens.
Ally and his wheelchair-bound, special-needs son were questioned for over five hours. Ally was questioned about his work as a religious leader, photographed and fingerprinted and ultimately denied entry because he was told his name “matches that of a bad guy.”