Women’s March Protesters Refused Entry to U.S.

On Thursday six Canadian and two French activists traveling from Montreal, Quebec to Washington, D.C. to attend Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington were stopped, questioned, and ultimately refused entry at a land border crossing near Champlain, New York.

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“We said we were going to the Women’s March on Saturday and they said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to pull over’,” Sasha Dyck, told the Guardian.

For the next two hours, U.S. border agents searched their cars, examined their cell phones, and fingerprinted each of the eight-person contingent.

Dyck, a Canadian citizen and resident of Montreal, said that border guards then told the two French nationals that they were being denied entry into the U.S. No reason was given.

Despite the fact that neither French nor Canadian citizens require a Visa to travel to the U.S., the border guards told the French nationals they would require a Visa for any future visit.

“Then for the rest of us [Canadians], they said, ‘You’re headed home today’,” Dyck said, adding that they were told that they would be arrested if they tried to cross the border again any time over the weekend.

At the same crossing U.K. national Jason Kroese reported that he was fingerprinted, photographed, and ultimately refused entry because, a border agent explained, he and his companions were planning on attending a “potentially violent rally.”

Kroese said his group was also told they should not attempt to travel to the U.S. for “a few months” and he was personally told he would need a Visa for future visits, despite the fact that U.K. citizens do not require Visas to visit the U.S.

Another protester, Joseph Decunha of Montreal, told the CBC that he was also refused entry at the border after being asked for his political views.

“The first thing [the agent] asked us point blank is, ‘Are you anti- or pro- Trump?’” said Decunha.

“They told me I was being denied entry for administrative reasons. According to the agent, my traveling to the United States for the purpose of protesting didn’t constitute a valid reason to cross,” Decunha said. “It felt like, if we had been pro-Trump, we would have absolutely been allowed entry.”

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Hundreds of thousands are expected to take to the streets of Washington, D.C. Saturday as part of the Women’s March on Washington, including many thousands who did manage to cross the U.S.-Canada border over the past few days.

While political interrogation, fingerprinting, searches, and ultimately refusal of entry at the U.S. border are nothing new for Indigenous, Muslim or South-Asian travelers, the specific refusal related to a peaceful protest reminds some of the most recent attempts by Republican lawmakers in five states to criminalize a variety of forms of peaceful protest.