Democrat demands answers after Iranian-Americans delayed at Canada-U.S. border

"Reports that DHS/CBP has issued a related directive are also false", CBP press secretary Matt Leas said in a statement Sunday. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran's elite Quds Force and the mastermind of its interventions across the Middle East. Iran promised to seek revenge, and the USA said Friday that it was sending thousands more troops to the region as tensions soared.

Among the allegations by CAIC was that a 24-year-old American medical student named Crystal was allegedly detained and interrogated for more than 10 hours with her family at the Peace Arch Border Crossing before being released early Sunday morning.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, tweeted that reports have emerged of Iranian Americans - some of whom are US citizens, are being detained at the Canadian border.

The claims come in the wake of last week's US airstrike near Baghdad's airport that killed Iranian Maj.

Another family they were traveling with was similarly detained, and they said they saw about two dozen other families - all of Iranian descent - in the same waiting area, Hekmati said.

CBP declined to comment on reports that some people were questioned at the point of entry about their political views. "We will continue to update the community and other civil rights organizations as we obtain more information".

A source at CBP allegedly told CAIR that the Department of Homeland Security issued a national order to CBP to "report" and detain anyone with Iranian heritage entering the country who is deemed potentially suspicious or "adversarial" regardless of their citizenship status. We kept asking why we were being detained and asked questioned that had nothing to do with our reason for traveling and was told "I'm sorry this is just the wrong time for you guys,"' Crystal said according to a CAIR-Washington report.

They also said that CBP was refusing Iranian-Americans entry due to a lack of capacity for them to be detained.

Jorge Baron, executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said he went to the border crossing at Blaine on Sunday in response to the reports.

URGENT: we are hearing credible reports of detentions at United States borders, both of Iranian Americans and permanent residents.

"My office is working as quickly as possible to gather information and to direct those being impacted to resources", Habib said.

The spokes asserted that increased border security is a standard response to heightened tensions with Iran, and stressed that longer wait times were an unintended outcome for some travelers but did not elaborate on who those particular travelers would be, according to The Hill.

In the wake of Soleimani's killing, Iran vowed to take "severe revenge" before announcing that it would no longer be adhering to the restrictions on sensitive nuclear activity that it had previously agreed to under the 2015 nuclear deal. He urged anyone affected to contact his office.