(AP) U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said Tuesday that border officials in Washington state “got a little overzealous” when they detained Iranian and Iranian-American travelers at the U.S.-Canada border 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 state the weekend of Jan. 5-6, following a U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.
Many of those detained were U.S. citizens. Some had even been cleared to participate in a program for trusted travelers.
The federal agency said at the time it had not targeted Iranian Americans based on their country of origin or issued any such directive to its officers.
