“We don’t have any problem with the library,” he said. He insisted the RCMP doesn’t patrol the area regularly and only goes there when called. Border Patrol works closely with our Canadian counterparts, as well as the local community, to prevent illegal cross border activity,” McCarthy said in a statement.Įrique Gasse, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada’s federal law enforcement agency, denied that the agency had threatened to shut the library down. and Canadian authorities have threatened to close it. border officials or on the library staff member’s allegation that U.S. A spokesman, Michael McCarthy, declined to comment on the families’ accounts of their interactions with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, declined a request for an interview about the library. The Trump administration says its travel ban is necessary to protect the United States, arguing that the countries in question – Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and, to a lesser extent, Venezuela – don’t share enough information that would confirm their citizens are not a threat, or are the source of terrorism threats. government doesn’t accept this situation, and they put a lot of pressure on us,” said Sina Dadsetan, an Iranian living in Canada who traveled to the library to see his sister the same day Estahbanati saw her family. American and Canadian officials have threatened to shut the library over the visits, one library staff member said. border officers have at times detained them for several hours, tried to bar them from entering the library, told them they shouldn’t be visiting each other there or said they should limit their visits to just a few minutes. Although several Iranians said they hadn’t faced any obstacles from immigration authorities, others said U.S. The Iranian families have undertaken fraught, costly journeys for the chance of a few hours together on the library’s grounds. Drawn by word-of-mouth and a smattering of social media posts, they have come to the geopolitical gray zone at the rural frontier library, located at once in Derby Line, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec. Here, dozens of Iranian families have reunited at the Haskell library. southern border, a more nuanced reality has been playing out on the northern frontier with Canada. This year, as migrant families from Latin America were separated at the U.S. “The time I was just hugging my parents,” she said, “I was thinking, I wish I could stop all clocks all over the world.” Remembering the moment, her smile turned down with the effort not to cry. He took a deep breath as he held his daughter tight. When they hugged each other, it felt as if her father had shrunk. After approximately two hours, they were released and allowed to join Estahbanati at the library. visas, and they had been detained by American border agents. Because of construction near the library, their GPS device had sent them to the line for the U.S. But two hours later, her parents and sister still had not appeared from the Canadian side, and her calls to her sister’s cell phone went unanswered.įinally, she saw them. The 31-year-old parked her car and, excitement battling with anxiety, walked to the entrance of the Victorian building. at the library, which through a historic anomaly straddles the U.S.-Canada border – and today has been thrust into an unlikely role as the site of emotional reunions between people separated by the administration’s immigration policies. Estahbanati and her family had agreed to meet around 9 a.m.

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