Letters to the Editor
-
Canada also has entry restrictions
Anyone with a simple drug possession or drunk driving conviction, no matter how minor, can and will be turned back at the Canadian border.
"DUI charges or drug convictions (anytime in recent or ancient history) could mean you will be denied entry into Canada. Your records in the US can be accessed by our Customs & Immigration officers through co-operative agreements between the US and Canada."
http://www.baldface.net/customs-and-canadian-border
-
Er, Einstein, Canada had open immigration policy with the 3rd world for 35 years.
Today in cities from Windsor to Toronto to Montreal to Van Couver, there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of first generation Muslim immigrants.
So are you saying that we should just have open borders with that?
God I hope not.
-
PS = I'm pretty sure there are stripjoints in Detroit
So stay there. Let the Canadians find something productive to do with themselves. We can indulge in crass behavior here.
-
It's the idiocy of "heck-of-a-job" Chertoff
The Canadian border crossing is just a very very small part of the nonsensical way we treat visitors.
Example:
A week ago, the Costa Rican Attorney General with full diplomatic passport and a scheduled meeting with the US Attorney General, was detained for hours at Miami International Airport without the right to a phone call because his name "appeared similar to a person of interest" He was escorted to a ticket agency and forced to buy a return flight back to Costa Rica the next day.
It's barbaric, it's absurd.
We need the inflow of foreign money and tourism. With the dollar at record lows, we should be having record number of tourists flocking to see our beautiful country and spending hard cash, but our system of entry is crazy and without reason and our tourism is suffering for it. A number of friends refuse to even fly through the US because you have to go through this crazy maze of fingerprinting, photo shoots, "secret black-lists", even if you're just going to get onto another plane and leave the country right away. I personally will fly around the US when I travel from one country to another, rather than subjecting myself to this procedure. My frequent flier allegiance is now with a foreign airline just so I don't have to fly through the US to get to another country.
It's high time that we get off the "fear" wagon and start to learn how to live in the modern world.
-
Mister Bush ...
tear down this wall!
-
silly Canadian laws
My neighbor up here in Maine was taking his daughter to McGill University last year and the Canadian border guards found a DUI conviction he had gotten back in 1984. The conviction involved getting drunk and stealing the local constable's truck and taking it for a joyride up the mountain, but anyway, he was 18 and he paid his debt to society. The guards at the Jackman crossing let his wife and daughter in, but he was left on the curb with a skateboard. He hitch-hiked another four hours back home. What's up with those laws? That was almost 25 years ago!
-
Yeah it's a pain
So leave BOTH countries. Go to Uruguay. America won't be a better place to live than the wealthier countries in South America, in a generation.
-
The passport card
The day of or day after the Department of State began accepting applications for "passport cards" back in February, I sent my completed application, photos, current passport, and a check to the US Passport Agency. I had my passport returned and my check cashed, but no passport card.
I've called a couple of times since then to inquire about when they intended to ship them. The original date was sometime in March, I believe. It slipped to April, and now it's late spring or early summer.
This is the magic card with RFID in it. I'd really rather have it in my wallet than my passport if I decide to take the 130-mile trip to the San Diego-Tijuana border. However, they haven't sent me the finished product. I wonder what's going on with the manufacturing process? Are they overwhelmed with applications? The first time I called to inquire - about a month after sending in my application - the agent at the US Passport Agency said that my call was the first one she'd received on the passport card.
I suspect something fishy is going on with the manufacturing process, or the RFID algorithm has been cracked somehow so that the card can be "chipped". They did it for iPhones, so it can't be that great a technological leap to do it with a plastic card.
-
Re: What's Up with Canadian Laws?
My guess is that they're trying to curb the incidents of people who are too young to drink legally in the US coming over the border to get wasted. You seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that the US is a partner to that operation.
In any event, it's at least a more worthy reaction that this xenophobic reaction to immigrants that I see some of you displaying.
-
I won't go anymore either
Montreal is closer geographically to the New York metro area than Pittsburgh and Buffalo are, and with its truly international feel and vibrant cultural scene was always a great city to visit.
I use the past tense because I agree with the guy who says, "If I have to carry a passport I just won't go."
But carrying a passport is only the half of it. If you could just flash it and be let right back into the U.S. it'd be one thing. It's having to subject yourself to their arrogance and rudeness, their vehicle search, and probing questions like, "What have you been doing in Canada?" and "Who do you know there?" that makes it such an ordeal. And, go ahead, get rude back at them and see what happens.
There has to be a better way. From all the reports about flaws in these new scannable drivers licenses, they sure as hell are not the answer either.
This is the age of the border patrol and the security guard. Michael Chertoff - pissy, arrogant, prosecutorial - is the perfect face for Homeland Security.
-
Meanwhile, back on that other border
I live in Texas and have a hard time shedding too many tears for the travails of those accustomed to an open Northern border—even as I agree that the post-911 border security hysteria is absolutely ridiculous, loaded with ineffective precautions, even as I shed tears for the general post-911, Iraq war, America-first state of the Union.
Perhaps a better way to put it is that we on that other border can commiserate, even if you don’t think we have much in common. Texas has been dealing with tight border security for far longer than you have up North—predating 911, even. The attempt to build a Texas-Mexico border wall is just the latest in a long line of xenophobic travails here.
The author cites Canadians and Americans observing that, "The language is the same. It's the same people. I don't know why there's a border. It's just a nuisance." Guess what? There are a lot of border cities in Texas that are share many cultural similarities with border cities in Mexico—the Mexican cities are less prosperous and that’s the starkest difference. There are plenty of Texas-Mexico binational families just like the examples the author provides.
While I am sympathetic, the author’s reliance on pat stereotypes bothered me. Texas is in fact part of the same nation as the northern states. Pew surveys aside, you’ll find that the political points of view are plenty diverse here: We voters down here are not uniformly “red” any more than the northern state voters are a pure, deep cobalt blue.