Hot Potato Time At The Canadian/US Border
By Ann Huggett (03/03/03)
We’ve all gone to movies where the plot had so many holes in it that you could drive a truck through. You’d groan, you’d laugh, you’d get greasy butter substitute on your fingers from the popcorn, but you’d always go back for one more easy-cheesy, enjoyable flick. In this regard, the Canadian/US border used to be like that grade B movie plot so beloved of us all. It was big, it was expansive, it had its unguarded moments and you could drive a truck right through it. Or walk, hike, ski, or skate on through without so much as a “by your leave”.
Notice I’m using the past tense. All that easy trust changed thanks to heightened security fears and national sovereignty issues brought on by the War on Terrorism and illegal immigration between Canada and the US. The honour system, which is basically what our two countries inherited from our mutual British traditions and founding culture, has been abused to the point of breakdown. The no hassle border crossings are a thing of the past. Since September 11, 2001 the US increasingly tightened entry procedures while Canada enhanced its “hotel to the world” immigration atmosphere.
Canadian political correctness forced a further divergence of, if not outright destroying, the formally civil border crossings between the two countries. Canada’s utterly lax immigration and asylum policies, its grudgingly late acknowledgement of known terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, and demands that visitors from terrorist sponsoring nations, but holding Canadian identity, be treated just like average Canadians when going south, has not sat well with the US.
Now an even bigger problem is surfacing at our mutual border thanks to the faux moral posturing of Canadian Immigration minister Denis Coderre’s October 2002 new regulations aimed primarily to circumvent Death Penalty offense judgements in the US. It is now possible for anyone in the US, who is charged with or convicted of an offense punishable by death, to make a dash for the Canadian border and claim political asylum. Plow an oil tanker truck into New York’s Holland Tunnel during rush hour and blow it up just to prove what a good terrorist you are? No problem! He who murders and runs away can live to murder another day! Canada, open your doors!
This latest Canadian policy is not one of a good neighbor but of an aider and abettor. Even this latest policy is already being abused by male Islamic immigrants, illegals and visitors alike, in the US, who refuse to comply with US INS regulations requiring them to register their whereabouts by March 31 for Pakistanis and April 25 for Bangladeshis, Egyptians and Indonesians. Even those in the US legally are fleeing to Canada claiming asylum.
When an alien enters the US and claims asylum, he is detained until investigated and cleared. When an alien enters Canada and claims asylum, he is given a work permit and freedom to roam at will. Illegals entering both countries go to where the benefits are juiciest. That most of these new asylum seekers have been in the US for some time gives the lie that they are actually fleeing political persecution and are mainly economic immigrants. It is not persecution to require that a visitor in a host country make public their whereabouts especially in times of a national security crisis. Many of the people showing up at the northern border have wives and children in tow too.
Ottawa claims that this is proof the illegal immigration problem comes from the US but these people did not spring up whole cloth from the earth itself. They had to come from somewhere to get into the US to begin with. Washington and Ottawa did sign a “safe third country” agreement designed to make people claiming asylum ask for it in the first safe country they get to but that does not go into effect for four more months.
These people already have a country that will take them in. It's called Pakistan. If they don't like what's going on in the US they can pack up and go back. Fleeing to Canada shows that they really have no business being in America. If they wanted to be Americans, they'd stay and work things out.
But no! They're opportunists willing to abuse both our countries for economic gain and to establish Muslim enclaves in North America. Canada is under no true obligation to take them in either. When aliens come in illegally they have already proven that they are not of the calibre needed to make a nation strong or add to its well being. They are lawbreakers from the get go and if they break one law, they won’t stop at breaking others. That they are already abusing asylum loopholes shows how manipulative they are.
Screw them and the camel they rode in on.
Canada and the US need to carefully coordinate and harmonize border policy along common sense lines and drop the political correctness and posturing. Right now the US is looking to force its citizens to get passports in order to reenter from a visit to Canada and to close border crossings that are so open to the small towns they serve that serious disruption will occur within the communities. Small stores in towns like Blaine Washington, which depend on Canadian customers, have already seen their business fall off. Families with members on either side of the border will be denied easy access to each other in case of emergencies. In the Canadian/US border towns even the community ambulance service will have to drive life-threatening miles out of the way to find an open border crossing when they can now just go right on through within the town itself.
A two-tier common sense system needs to be developed by Canada and the US, one which acknowledges the close community and family ties of both nations without sacrificing the safety and security of either nation. Border patrol guards on both sides, who are watching over small town crossings, should learn who belongs in the area and treat them with courtesy and respect. A special border pass could be developed for interconnected communities. Illegals caught on either side of the border should be deported immediately without political posturing on anyone’s part.
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