CBP Commissioner says officials in Blaine were “a little overzealous”

SEATTLE, Wash. (AP) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan says agency officials at the Blaine border crossing were “a little overzealous” when they detained Iranian Americans early last month.

Last month as many as 200 people of Iranian descent were held up for as long as 12 hours as they crossed the border from Canada into Washington the weekend of January 5-6, following a U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.

The Acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection Mark Morgan said Tuesday the agency does not target people based on nationality, but “in that one instance, leadership just got a little overzealous” when they detained Iranian and Iranian-American travelers at the U.S.-Canada border.

The Northern Light newspaper reported on January 29th that an immigration lawyer had provided it with a memo from the CBP Seattle office that instructed personnel at the border to do extra vetting of travelers with connections to Iran and some other Middle East countries.