December 21, 2018
A small library that straddles the border between the United States and Canada has become a meeting place for Iranian
families who fear trying to cross the border legally.
The library is literally right on the border line—the line is drawn on the library’s floor. The northern part of the library lies in Stanstead, Quebec. The southern part is in Derby Line, Vermont. The library serves both towns.
And now it is serving Iranian families who fear the new immigration rules laid down by President Trump.
The library officially has forbidden family gatherings there. And the Canadian and American police are supposed to prevent them. But, in reality, many in the area sympathize with the Iranians and blink or look the other way while the families re-unite.
What drives the family gatherings are Trump’s crackdown. Iranian students in the US are afraid to leave the United States to visit their families in Iran because they would then have to get a new visa—which might be denied. The families have a lot of trouble getting American visas to visit—but it is fairly easy for them to get Canadian visas.
As a result, they end up the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, where a black line drawn across the floor tells you which country you are in.
Reuters recently traveled with Shirin Estahbanati, 31, an Iranian student in the US who hadn’t seen her family in three years.
She parked her car and walked to the entrance of the Victorian building. But her parents and sister did not appear from the Canadian side. They had gone to the legal crossing point in error and been detained for two hours by American border guards.
Dozens of Iranian families have reunited at the Haskell library. 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.
The Iranian families have undertaken costly journeys for the chance of a few hours together on the library’s grounds. Although several Iranians said they hadn’t faced any obstacles from immigration authorities, others said US 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. American and Canadian officials have threatened to shut the library over the visits, one library staff member said.
US Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, declined a Reuters request for an interview about the library.
Erique Gasse, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada’s federal law enforcement agency, denied that the agency had threatened to shut the library down. “This is not the way we talk,” he said. “We don’t do that.” He insisted the RCMP doesn’t patrol the area regularly and only goes there when called. “We don’t have any problem with the library,” he said.
Several Iranians told Reuters they’ve also met relatives in recent months at Peace Arch Park, which spans the border between Washington state and the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the western side of North America.
The Haskell library is vulnerable to pressure from authorities because, although the building sprawls across American and Canadian land, its entrance is on the US side. US officials allow staff and visitors from Canada to walk a few yards onto American soil without going through an official port of entry.
“Often there’s altercations with either RCMP or [US] border security,” head librarian Joel Kerr told Reuters in early November, on a day in which two Iranian families reunited at the library. “They mostly harass us and threaten to shut us down.”
Kerr, who only started in his position in October, said he couldn’t provide any details of how the agencies had threatened to shut down the library. Members of the library’s board of trustees, which recently issued a policy barring the visits, either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment at length.
The library is a relic of a time when Americans and Canadians, residents say, could cross the border with simply a nod and a wave at border agents. The library was the gift of a local family in the early 1900s to serve the nearby Canadian and American communities.
But after the September 11, 2001, attacks, the northern border hardened. And in September 2018, a Canadian man was sentenced to 51 months in prison for smuggling more than 100 guns into Canada, some of them through the Haskell library.
Still, inside the building itself – decorated with wood paneling, stained-glass windows and, on the Canadian side, a moose head – the old ways mostly prevail. Patrons and staff freely cross the international boundary.
But the Estahbanatis had lots of problems reuniting. Nearby construction had cut off water to the library, and it was unexpectedly closed. A library staff member had given the families written permission to meet on its grounds, but US Border Patrol agents objected to their meeting there.
“It was really stressful, because I just wanted to be with my parents,” Estahbanati said. She pleaded with the agents, and they relented, allowing the family to meet outside the library for 20 minutes. That 20 minutes passed, and though the agents watched from close by, they allowed the families to meet for several hours that day.
On the second day, the Estahbanatis met inside the library. At least two other Iranian families were also there, they said. Several of the mothers had cooked elaborate Iranian dishes for their children to enjoy.
It is difficult to know exactly how many families have reunited at the library, but a signature book near the front entrance shows around 12 obviously Iranian names between March and November. Reuters identified seven other families, all Iranian, who had visited the library or tried to do so this year.
Kerr, the librarian, said he planned to hold a meeting between library officials and both countries’ authorities to try to draw up a plan to deal with the visits.
“We don’t want to put a stop to it, necessarily, but we need to somehow control it in order for us to stay open,” Kerr said. “It’s basically only tolerated by both sides, because technically, it shouldn’t really be allowed.”
On a Saturday in early November, two Iranian families met at the library, chatting quietly in its two reading rooms. The normal business of the library continued amid the tearful reunions and goodbyes in its corners: Parents and children, Canadians and Americans, streamed in and out to return books and browse the stacks. Teenagers accessed the Internet on library computers and leafed through its DVD collection.
The Iranians were mostly oblivious to signs stating in English and French that, by order of the library’s board of trustees, “family gatherings are not permitted.” Kerr said the signs had gone up just the week before. He obviously was not enforcing the rule.