Presque Isle doctor back home in Maine after being denied entry by Border Patrol
When Dr. Behnoosh Dashti crossed the border into Canada in April, she thought she’d be back home in Presque Isle in time for an on-call shift that evening.
Instead, it took more than four months.
Dashti, a family care physician for the women’s health clinic at Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital, has been fighting in federal court for the last month to come home after she was deemed inadmissible on April 8 by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Dr. Behnoosh Dashti is a family care physician at Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital. (Photograph by Dennis Walsh)
Dashti dismissed her lawsuit against CBP officials on Monday after the agency agreed to let her back in the country.
“It was such a relief,” Dashti said in an interview Wednesday, her first day back to work. “I couldn’t wait to come back. I wanted to come back sooner, to go back to my normal life.”
Dashti, a dual citizen of Iran and Canada, has lived in Maine since late 2022, when she arrived on an H-1B visa for work. She is the only primary care provider for the clinic, treating roughly 800 patients in a medically underserved community. She moved to Presque Isle from Toronto after her husband got a job at the same hospital.
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“We found it very peaceful,” Dashti said. “It was totally opposite to where I was before. No traffic, lots of farms, and with beautiful scenery, lakes.”
Her home is about 30 minutes from the nearest border crossing, in a community where she said people cross the border on a daily basis and she has crossed the border many times without any issues.
Dashti said she went to the border around 2 p.m. on April 8 to obtain a stamp from U.S. border officials, because she thought it would help renew her Maine driver’s license. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles told her at the time that they weren’t able to see the renewed visa in their records, and she thought the action would trigger something.
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A spokesperson for the Department of the Secretary of State, which oversees the BMV, said they are required by federal law to check for the legal status of anyone who applies for a REAL ID.
“If something appears to be missing in that federal system, we are prohibited from issuing a REAL ID driver’s license,” spokesperson Jana Spaulding wrote in an email. “In those situations, which are not uncommon, individuals are advised to check with their attorney or USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services).”
Dashti said she was relaxed during her interviews with U.S. Border Patrol agents, even when they took her phone for a security check and wouldn’t let her contact home or work. She said an agent notified the hospital system she wouldn’t make it for her on-call shift, and that her husband drove to the border crossing twice to check on her but was turned away.
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“It took awhile for me to digest the information, that what ‘inadmissible’ means is that I cannot go back,” Dashti said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Maine, which represented the CBP officials in Dashti’s lawsuit, declined to comment on Tuesday.
In court records opposing Dashti’s request for emergency relief — to be allowed back into the country — an assistant U.S. attorney did not offer any explanation for the inadmissibility finding, instead arguing that the U.S. District Court did not have jurisdiction over Dashti’s case, because they argued she had not exhausted all of the administrative options.
Dashti said she never believed she was going to be waiting as long as she did. Northern Light reserved her job, but she wasn’t getting paid. She couldn’t do any work from Canada, due to insurance regulations, yet she thought of her patients often. She said she was nervous particularly for her behavioral health patients, who need predictability.
“That can trigger someone, when they feel that their provider has vanished all of a sudden,” Dashti said.
Dashti said she called her husband and daughter frequently, but they were not able to see each other. They were afraid that if they attempted crossing the border, they would also not be allowed back.
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“I lived in Iran during my childhood youth and it was under a dictatorial regime,” Dashti said. “I witnessed wars, and when I immigrated to Canada, and I had to start over, which means I have faced difficulty and hardship in my life. It’s not that I’m unfamiliar.
“But this was the hardest for me. I didn’t know what’s going on, and it was unpredictable and uncertain. And those elements add to the difficulty of the situation.”
She shuffled around various hotels and Airbnb rentals close to the border, often staying in places for one or two nights because she believed Border Patrol would let her come back.
The days were long, unpredictable and hard to fill. She took to writing, exercised regularly and practiced mindfulness. She even began running for the first time.
Dashti said she was encouraged by the support and kindness she received from the community, following news reports of her lawsuit and situation.
“It’s a very nice feeling to be back home,” Dashti said. “And the home, with all the love and support that I received, feels more like a home to me now that I’ve returned, compared to when I left.”
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Tagged: aroostook county, border, immigration, Northern Light, U.S. District Court
Emily Allen covers courts for the Portland Press Herald. It's her favorite beat so far — before moving to Maine in 2022, she reported on a wide range of topics for public radio in West Virginia and was. More by Emily Allen
