Doctor who works at Maine hospital sues after she was denied entry into US from Canada

Doctor who works at Maine hospital files lawsuit after she was denied entry into US from Canada

An Iranian and Canadian citizen who has worked as a doctor at a Maine hospital for years is suing three federal officials because she is not being allowed back into the United States after crossing the border into Canada.

Roya Afshar, 52, filed a lawsuit earlier this week against Derrick Stamper, chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol's Houlton Sector; U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

According to the lawsuit, Afshar legally entered the United States in December 2022 on a valid H-1B nonimmigrant visa and has been employed as a family medicine primary care physician through a hospital in Presque Isle in the years since. Afshar resides in Presque Isle with her husband, who is also a physician at the hospital, and their 12-year-old daughter.

Afshar said her H-1B visa was renewed in November 2025 and she sought to renew her expiring Maine driver's license in February 2026. According to Afshar, she met with a representative of the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) regarding her license renewal, and that the BMV representative told her that the state's records system was not updated to show her renewed H-1B visa. Afshar said that nearly two months afterward, the BMV's system still did not receive updated U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) confirming her renewed visa.

On April 8, 2026, Afshar drove to the U.S. Port of Entry in Fort Fairfield, Maine, to present herself to CBP to request an updated H-1B visa stamp in an effort to provide the BMV with an updated stamp with just days remaining until her Maine driver's license expired. She said she perceived that the only means to check in with CBP for the updated passport stamp was by driving across the Canadian border and turning around to reach U.S. Port of Entry's intake. Afshar, who has a valid and unexpired Canadian passport, said she had repeatedly crossed the border without issue — most recently in or around August 2025 — and had no reason to believe that her ability to do so lawfully had changed.

According to Afshar, she was in Canada for a matter of minutes — if not seconds — before she presented her renewed H-1B visa and Canadian passport to CBP in order to reenter the United States. The lawsuit states that a CBP officer believed Afshar did not have the necessary documentation to reenter the United States and required her to submit to questioning about her immigration status through a process known as "secondary inspection." Afshar said she cooperated with CBP's requests and answered every question that was asked of her, and that she was held in CBP custody at the Fort Fairfield Port of Entry for 10 hours.

The lawsuit states that CBP ultimately determined Afshar could not return to the United States on Terrorism-Related Inadmissibility Grounds (TRIG) because her mother was a former employee of the Iranian government.

Afshar said she told CBP representatives that she and her family hate the Iranian regime, noting that her father was an activist against the regime and that her father-in-law was executed by the regime. She also said she fled to Canada in 2008 and has no intention of returning to Iran.

Maine's Total Coverage contacted Border Patrol for comment about Afshar's lawsuit, but has not heard back from the agency as of Friday afternoon.

In her lawsuit, Afshar has asked that the court find that CBP's determination that she cannot return to the United States is "unlawful, arbitrary and capricious," as well as award her attorney fees and costs.