Border Issues

First heard about this on www.lostinthewillderness.com
....The Toronto Star did a report on it...read below!

Canadians detained at border for 7 hours

Debra Black
STAFF REPORTER

A group of young black Canadians on their way to see Barack Obama sworn into office say they were detained for seven hours at the U.S. border on Monday because of religious and racial stereotyping as their passports were checked and rechecked.

They eventually made it to Washington yesterday to see the inauguration of the 44th president.
Tyrone Edwards, organizer of the three-bus trip to Washington for black youth involved in the Toronto-based Remix Project, a cultural non-profit group, said 168 people from local non-profit groups made the 800-kilometre trek.

The buses left Toronto on Monday morning but were stopped at the Peace Bridge just outside Buffalo at around 1 p.m.

Speaking to the Star by phone, Edwards, the 27-year-old head of Remix, said the first bus cleared customs, as did the second bus, where he was seated. But the third bus was boarded by U.S. customs officers who asked about 14 young girls, all wearing hijabs, for their passports. Because Edwards was the organizer of the trip, he kept the second bus waiting until the third cleared customs. Initially he thought it would just be a short delay.

But after the girls’ passports were taken, customs officers boarded the second bus again and asked for Edwards’ passport as well as the passport of colleague and seatmate Adel Prince Nur.
The customs agents also asked for the passports of two sisters on the second bus. Their last name was Mohammed, Edwards said.

All of them – who all held Canadian passports – were then fingerprinted, photographed and questioned by U.S. customs officers.

“There was no legitimate reason to hold us up. They wasted a lot of time.”

Edwards was born in Canada, but all the others were either born in Somalia or Saudi Arabia, he said. And their Canadian passports listed their place of birth. That’s why he thinks the buses were detained.
At one point, he said, a U.S. officer showed two girls on the bus some pictures and asked them if they recognized three Somali men. They told the officer they weren’t from Somalia, but Trinidad, Edwards said.

He believes the only reason the two girls were questioned was because they were wearing hijabs.

During the seven hours they were detained their luggage was also X-rayed and their personal hand luggage was searched, Edwards said.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation officer was also called in to question them. “I have his card in my back pocket,” said Edwards, who was angry about being stopped.

The border officers asked a lot of questions about who organized the trip and why they were going to Washington.

“I really commend the young ladies who were humiliated and treated so unfairly and it was blatantly obvious they were being singled out,” Edwards said.

Nur, who works as a DJ known as Future with the Remix Project, was also questioned about his reasons for going to Washington. He, too, had a Canadian passport but was born in Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. border guard said he simply didn’t understand why Canadian youth would want to go to Obama’s inauguration.

“I told him this is a big moment in history,” said Nur. “I told him as a young black man I find a lot of inspiration from Barack Obama’s story.”

U.S. Customs at the Peace Bridge referred all questions on the incident to its media spokesperson, but no one was available to take the call.

Nur, Edwards and the others on the trip were determined, however, not to let the seven-hour delay ruin what was a momentous moment in history.

“We tried to frame it this way – any type of significant historical moment in black history has always come out of a struggle,” said Edwards. “This is why it’s so important for everyone (on the bus) to get to the inauguration. That’s why we’re going from Toronto to Washington to stand out in the cold and listen to a man speak – because that man symbolizes so many things such as hope and change.”

Edwards hopes incidents like the one they experienced at the Peace Bridge will become less and less frequent now that Obama is president.