A Metro Detroit attorney who represents a local demonstrator arrested last year at a Pro-Palestinian rally on the University of Michigan campus says he was recently detained by federal customs agents while returning home from a family vacation.
Dearborn-based attorney Amir Makled says Customs and Border Protection agents — over the course of a 90-minute interrogation this past Sunday at Metro Airport — attempted to take his phone, which he refused to hand over.
“The agent was walking me out and telling me, ‘You know, we’re just doing our job here,’ and one, two, three, I said, ‘That’s fine, I’m okay with that.’ And I asked him, ‘Well, you know, why did you guys do this?’ And he wouldn’t give me an answer to that either. But I suspect that it’s because of the high profile case that I’m recently undertaking, which is the student protester case,” Makled said.
Makled says he is going public, including on national news programs, in an effort to end what he calls “intimidation practices” by federal agents.
