Manpreet Kooner with her fiance. She recently wanted to take a one-day trip from Canada to a Vermont spa, but was turned away at the border, possibly because of her race. |
And that's no matter how safe or unsafe or legal they might be.
Some of this is happening close to home, as I live near the Canadian border in Vermont.
One of the more disturbing incidents occured at the Highgate Springs, Vermont border crossing, which is just a 10 minute drive up the road from my house.
Recently, a Canadian woman from the Montreal area with a Canadian passport tried to get across the border into the United States via Highgate Springs because she was taking a day trip to go to a Vermont spa.
Manpreet Kooner, 30, was born in Canada to Indian parents who had become Canadian citizens. Kooner has always lived in Canada. She has a good job in a science lab at a local college and has no criminal history.
So what's the harm in letting Kooner into Vermont to get her nails done or whatever.?
Kooner, with her Indian heritage, has darker skin than the two white friends she was with when she tried to cross the border into Vermont Sunday, says the Canadian broadcaster CBC.
U.S. Border Patrol was going to let her white friends through, but they held Kooner for six hours. She got no explanation why, and the border patrol isn't talking. Border agents said they don't about individual cases.
A statement from the Border Patrol adopted a policy in 2014 that "prohibits the consideration of race or ethnicity in law enforcement, investigation, and screening activities, in all but the most exceptional circumstances."
Looks like that policy is out the window. CBC said Kooner told them one of the border agents told her, 'I know you may feel like you've been Trumped,' in reference to the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Kooner said the problems started in December when she tried to enter to the United States, and was subject to a random check, which happens to all of us sometimes.
This time the border agents noted Kooner was stopped in December, though there were no red flags in her file, CBC said.
On Sunday, in addition to being detained for six hours, Kooner was photographed, fingerprinted and told to sign a document withdrawing her application to go into the United States.
She was also given confusing advice to go to the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to get a visa to enter the United States in the future, but she was told by them to go to U.S Customs and Border Patrol.'
In other words, Kooner has dark skin. Stay the hell out of the United States.
At least it seems that way.
So, if Kooner, a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, with no criminal record, with a good job, no red flags, wants to enter the United States briefly as a tourist and is barred, what about other people?
What if, unlike Kooner, somebody is a Muslim with no criminal record who wants to enter the United States from Canada? There area already plenty of reports of that kind of thing going on.
Draw it to its logical conclusion, do the Trumpsters want only white English speaking people to enter the United States, even as tourists? That seems pretty limiting doesn't it?
I guess there's a crowd of Trumpsters out there who really want to turn us into a whites-only Fortress America.
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