America, the not so friendly country

This should be familiar to everybody who has traveled to the US (or returned here):

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/opinion/the-unwelcome-mat.html?_r=1&ref=op...

The article might've also mentioned the additional $140 fee for tourist visa applications from individuals not in the visa-waiver program.

While I appreciate security at the busy Detroit-Windsor crossing into Canada, I recall only a handful of times when the border guards showed any hint of humanity. Still, a story this week in a national Canadian newspaper of alleged molestation of women at the hands of female guards exceeds anything I have experienced or heard. Small businesses on US side surely don't want to see Canadian shoppers discouraged from their visits! http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadian-women-say-they-were-sexual...

On the Great Lakes and connecting waters, both countries used to count one as "landed" only if you anchored or touched shore/bottom. Now Canadian and US interpretation of the rules are as blurry as the aqueous border itself, and fishing boats (with appropriate licenses) have been fined for crossing that watery border. Small businesses, such as marinas and tour boat operators in connecting waters, are concerned that crossborder, recreational activities will be dampened.

I am not saying that border guards when you enter Europe (through an airport) are pinnacles of humanity, but there are no fees or forms or harassment (at least not for Americans). Why we cannot do the same thing when people enter the US, I don't understand. Moreover, borders within much of Europe are completely open. You notice you entered France from Germany when people start speaking a different language and the cheese selection exceeds the sausage selection, not when you have been interrogated like criminal. What is the big deal between Canada and the US? That border should be as open as the German-French border.

#4:

". . . borders within much of Europe are completely open. You notice you entered France from Germany when people start speaking a different language and the cheese selection exceeds the sausage selection, not when you have been interrogated like criminal. What is the big deal between Canada and the US? That border should be as open as the German-French border."

That might not be true for much longer. Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to take France out of the Schengen Agreement, which permits visa-free travel within most of Europe. Sarkozy has much the same issue with some Schengen members as the US has with Canada: lax border controls.

With the current set-up in the Schengen Area, if you want to enter France illegally, you don't have to enter France first. All you need to do is to enter some country that has relatively lax border controls, like Greece, or some country that has a relatively difficult time keeping people out due to geography, like Italy or Spain, and then you can freely cross into France, no questions asked. The French are rather upset about that.

The same could be said regarding the US-Canada situation. US border controls are far more strict and more strictly enforced than Canada's are. I know the US had been trying to convince Canada to allow US customs agents to work in Canada's ports of entry, but I don't think the Canadians ever agreed to that.

Failing the development of a unified customs service between the US and Canada, I doubt the border controls coming into the US will be relaxed any time soon.

>5 I know the US had been trying to convince Canada to allow US customs agents to work in Canada's ports of entry, but I don't think the Canadians ever agreed to that.

US agents do work at the Toronto Airport, but screening people leaving for the US not those entering Canada (AFAIK). While there is cooperation, I know it took an executive agreement for the US Coast Guard to participate in joint enforcement exercises (commercial fishermen ignoring border in Great Lakes)--the problem was that the US Coast Guard, unlike Canada's, is military and thus raised questions of sovereignty. Sovereignty issues will only get stickier in future years, I'm afraid, as ice opens up in the Arctic. Too bad: makes sense to direct most efforts at a continental perimeter, which looks a lot more defensible than the US-Canadian border!

Too bad: makes sense to direct most efforts at a continental perimeter, which looks a lot more defensible than the US-Canadian border!

While I agree with that sentiment, I think you will find as much opposition to it in Canada as there exists in the US, but for different reasons. The typical American opponent of such a move is concerned about anything that smacks of a "North American Union."

While there is concern about being too closely tied to the US (and to Mexico for that matter) among Canadians, I think the real concern north of the border is that Canada will have to implement US-style border controls. Canadians would be loath to do that.

Due to their desire to attract more immigrants, Canada has a more open border than the US does. The US, on the other hand, is getting closer by the year to the time when it puts up the "No Vacancy" sign. Canada is very far from that day. (And even given Canada's laxer immigration standards, it still attracts fewer total immigrants than the US, by quite a bit.)

>5

Although the Schenghen Agreement has had plenty of bumps along the way, Sarkozy's recent threat is just election posturing. The first round is soon. He's courting Front National voters. If he does manage to survive and get re-elected--if--I very much doubt that he'll fiddle with Schenghen. He'll have other more urgent issues.

Despite the EU's many recent problems, I'm among those who have directly benefited from open borders. The effortless crossing between France and Belgium, or France and Spain, has been a big plus. (I do it almost weekly.) Sometimes I've even forgotten to take my I.D. It's as complicated as traveling from Iowa to Minnesota.

It's nice when things get easier.

#8: I would have to agree with that. Sarkozy doesn't want to upset his new buddy, Angela Merkel. Trying to get out of Schengen would be very unpopular with the French at large and the rest of Europe. It won't happen.

Moreover, the economic advantages of free movement of people and goods within the Schengen area is enormous. By contrast, the biggest trading partner of the US is Canada (and vice versa of course), and the extreme border security chokes off trade and is bad for the economy.

Here in Michigan, they waste quite a bit of tax money on border patrol cars driving randomly around looking to catch somebody swimming the lakes. When I first came here, more than ten years ago, I hardly ever saw border controls driving around. Now, hardly a day goes by when I don't see one. I doubt this aimless driving-around is very effective, except for making paranoid voters feel that we keep "them for'ners" out.

>9
"they waste quite a bit of tax money on border patrol cars driving randomly around looking to catch somebody swimming the lakes. When I first came here, more than ten years ago, I hardly ever saw border controls driving around. Now, hardly a day goes by when I don't see one. I doubt this aimless driving-around is very effective, except for making paranoid voters feel that we keep "them for'ners" out."

Pretty sure this makes some individuals feel much better about where their tax dollars are being spent than if they were to find out it may be used to educate Mexican children who were brought here illegally.
Not only are we "beefing up our security and defense" but we are supporting the oil and gas companies by using fuel aimlessly, a win win situation !

Welcome to America, Detroit-style:

..."Two of the four plaintiffs, Ali Suleiman Ali of Canton Township and Wissam Charafeddine of Dearborn, said they have been detained for hours on the U.S. side of the Detroit-Canada tunnel or at an international bridge in Port Huron, Mich. Agents, they said, wanted to know about their religious practices and where they worship."

"Attorney Shereef Akeel said it's hard to imagine a Jew crossing the border and being asked about the Sabbath or a Roman Catholic quizzed about praying the rosary."

""It's really persecution. They're targeting a group," he said."

"According to the lawsuit, Kheireddine Bouzid, 24, of Ypsilanti has been stopped at the border at least five times since 2008 by agents with their guns drawn."

"Charafeddine, 35, described the interrogations as "psychological torture." He said he hasn't crossed the border since 2010 to spare his family and, as a result, has missed weddings and funerals."

"The lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn to bar the government from questioning Muslims about their faith."

"Ali, a 64-year-old native of Ghana, is an imam, or Islamic spiritual leader, in suburban Detroit. He said he was last detained in December while returning to the U.S. from Toronto."

""I was shocked. Why do they handcuff me? I am not a criminal," Ali said. "

http://www.annarbor.com/news/lawsuit-us-agents-harassing-muslims-at-border/

~11

Well, ah, yes and no.

First of all, to the extent that these Plaintiffs are legally in the U.S. or are U.S. citizens and are just returning from a visit elsewhere there should be no extraordinary scrutiny. Border officers aren't CIA or FBI, and if they think that they are then need to be sat down and given a lecture on the law. This alleged sort of behavior reminds one of the Flying Imams case of a few years ago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Imams_controversy , which was one of the most ridiculous examples of antiMuslim hysteria ever to be imagined.

However, it should be acknowledged that Catholics or Jews aren't generally engaged in terrorist attacks in the U.S., at least outside the domain of abortion clinics. (Personally, I don't count people giving themselves burns on their feet or asses as terrorist attacks or the set ups that various agencies have engineered to boost their budget requests as terrorist attacks, but there have been other examples of Salafi Muslims going nuts and killing people en mass since 9/11.) So if someone comes through customs dressed as a Saudi Prince in a flowing white robe, it might legitimately raise some issues..........

Yeah I'd like to SEE them stop a Saudi Prince. Talk about terrorists!

~13

I said "dressed as a Saudi Prince," e.g., typical Salafi robes and headdress.

Any real Saudi Prince would, of course, not have to be bothered by border inspections. They'd just fly into the country in the same private jets that they flew out of the country immediately after 9/11. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2115127/Why-Saudi-royals-links-9-11-allo...

NY border guards certainly have challenging task curtailing smugglers, but the strategies they employ are amazingly invasive of privacy of law-abiding citizens (and non-citizens), e.g. border guards interviewing people re citizenship on trains running east-west and now cameras recording license plate numbers of everybody on several highways running south. This in a country that once worried about misuse of social security numbers!

'Mystery' cameras along North Country highways part of Border Task Force initiative to catch smugglers, aliens
Friday, June 1, 2012 - 5:21 pm
http://northcountrynow.com/news/cameras-along-north-country-highways-part-frankl...

The best part of that story is buried:

"Recent estimates have placed the yearly smuggling of narcotics through the New York Northern Border at approximately one billion dollars per year, yet due to the seven unmanned roads crossing the border in Franklin County, exact calculations and verification have been exceedingly difficult,” {Franklin County District Attorney} Champagne said in a statement released today."

There are still unguarded border crossings?!? Why then am I held up in lines waiting to cross? Why did I have to pay extra for my "enhanced" ID that lets me cross?

My understanding is that on the St Lawrence R, marijuana and some illegal immigrants go south and cigarettes and cocaine head north. There's a long tradition of "free trade" in that part of the world, e.g., rum-running during Prohibition.

The Akwesasne (Mohawk) reserve lays in Ontario and NY both, and until recently US Akwesasne issued its own passports. Canadian Akwesasne ran Cdn border station off reserve because officials carried guns, so for a while there the Cdn reserve was "unguarded". The NY-Quebec border divides at least one town. Heck, I understand it runs through a building!

I think there are also such roads on the prairie, and as someone who learned to drive in Manitoba I can attest that in that part of the world it doesn't much matter whether one is on the road or off (except in winter)! ;) I think the US border patrol now uses surveillance drones there, though?

Ontario commercial fishemen have a bit of a rep for straying into Ohio waters of L Erie, and the two countries, OH, and ON periodically cooperate to enforce the law on that front.

Cdn PM Harper and President Obama apparently have agreement to move to policing perimeter, but it sure doesn't seem like it on the Laurentian Great Lakes!