Bordering on Insanity
You can never go home again, Oatman... but I guess you can shop there.-- Grosse Pointe Blank
I've often spoken, in the past, about the little ways in which my experience with the Canada-US border is sometimes different from a lot of people that I know. I grew up in the border city of Sarnia.
I crossed the Canada-US border probably a coupl'a times a month for the first eighteen years of my life. Some of my friends have been confused when I tell them that. They ask, "why did you need to cross the border so often?" We didn't need to cross the border. We crossed the border because we didn't even think about it. Because the nifty fried chicken place was in Port Huron, Michigan. Because some weeks, eggs were cheaper at the Port Huron grocery store. Because there was a good comic book shop over there. Because certain medicines were over-the-counter there, but prescription-only here.
And it worked the other way, too. As a teen, I bused tables at a popular Chinese food restaurant near the border, and the Port Huronites would come across for dinner. (To this day, I still expect all Americans to have the Michigan accent, and am jarred when it's not true).
I have walked across the bridge several, and that part was kind of unusual. It took the US customs people a bit of time to figure out how to process pedestrians. But it was no big deal. People were sometimes turned back at the border but it seemed like a big game: "they turned one of our people back at the border today, so we'll turn one of their back today as well." Petty, but like an annoying family, in a way.
Officially, Port Huron and Sarnia were two different cities of different countries, but from our perspective, it was one big city with shops and restaurants on both sides of the river.
CTV reports that new, stricter border security has been implemented at the Sarnia-Port Huron border. Now, non-Canadian citizens will be fingerprinted and photographed. People refusing to be photographed and fingerprinted will be turned back at the border.
Now, I expect that the vast majority of Sarnians won't be affected by this. People who live in Sarnia are almost all Canadian citizens. Mostly of Irish decent. Sarnia is pretty homogeneous. But I think that things will be different, now. I don't think that the border will be as much of an afterthought that it was for Sarnians like me.
And I'm not saying that the US has no right. I am saying, though, that in recent months, for the first time in my life, crossing the border is something that I think about. And perhaps even avoid.
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Still, it felt more apprehensive than it used to
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I'm surprised that Canada isn't doing the same to US citizens, given how many of us seem to want to immigrate.
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One long, cold winter, I hitch-hiked across to Sault, Ont. every night for play rehearsals. Canadian customs was always a piece of cake, but depending on who was working that night (I got to know them all) US customs could be a real pain in the ass.
It was the late '60s, amd word on the street was that the US Border Patrol could stop anyone, for any reason, and hold them for up to 90 hours without letting them contact anyone, and with no due process whatsoever. I have no idea if that was true, but there were lots of rumors of draft-dodgers trying to sneak back in to visit their families and being held incommunicado.
I suspect that in the long term the new rules will be used much as the old ones were (and as some airport screening measures are now): As a tool US Customs can use if they want to, but mostly won't because it's too much bother.
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My grandfather worked in the States for years, and it was second nature for my gransparents to go "over the river" for dinner or shopping.
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Yeesh. This is becoming more and more of a pain.
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Sarnia Now
Mostly of Irish?
Not in the north end of town, not unless Scotland, Poland, Greece and Italy are now part of Ireland.
Border crossing difficulty depends on whether you get an old hand, a new kid or a Mexican border transferee.
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Being a Canadian citizen doesn't mean "no border hassles". A friend of mine is Syrian by birth, but a Canadian citizen (lived here since early childhood). Not only that, but she is a government of Canada employee and has a special passport, (somewhere between a diplomatic passport and a regular passport - it means you are a representative of our government travelling on official business) as well as having been through Canadian security clearances for her job.
Going to Europe she has no problems, but going to the States she has consistently been delayed and pulled aside for hours because she was born in Syria. After the first occasion she thought that now that she had been thoroughly questioned and let in she would be in the system and the next time they would see that they had already done the questioning, but the 2nd time she was delayed even longer. She asked after that about trying to arrange pre-clearance of some sort the next time she has an american conference, but apparently there is no such option, and going to the US will just mean lengthy repetitive border delays.
She chooses to let her co-workers go to the American conferences now, and I don't blame her. There should be a system in place for being able to pre-arrange travel clearances/approvals, and the "going to the US as a direct representative of Canada" should mean alot more then the "being a toddler in Syria". It does when she goes to Europe; she gets a warm welcome there.