The role of Canada as conduit and sometimes temporary sanctuary for the undocumented has been widely known for years. But, like the country itself, the story of Canada and its place in the immigration jigsaw has been less highlighted than the larger-than-life tale spawned by its more populous neighbor to the south.
Canada’s role in years gone by as a relatively safe passage for the undocumented out of and back into the United States was never more evident than at Christmas. But the sense of relative ease has been diminishing since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Indications are that it has all but vanished as the days tick down to the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
Both federal and state scrutiny of the border is being heightened in the waning days of 2004. The level of fingerprinting of overland arrivals from Canada is to be stepped up as part of US-VISIT, an identity-check system that visitors to the U.S. must already undergo at airports. And both aerial and electronic surveillance of the 5,500-mile frontier, much of it uninhabited wilderness, is also being increased.
The Department of Homeland Security has placed notice in the Federal Register that 50 of the “most trafficked land ports of entry” will be included in the US-VISIT program no later than Dec. 31 of this year.
The bulk of the entry points are along the U.S. border with Mexico. But 17 of them straddle the border with Canada. Five of that total are on the border between New York State and Canada, while the rest are dotted along the frontier in Vermont, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and Washington.
The stepped-up scrutiny will initially apply to people entering the U.S. But the department has indicated that the gathering of so-called biometric data, such as fingerprints and eye scans, will, down the road, be applied additionally to travelers departing the U.S.
America’s “carefree approach” to its border with Canada was “no longer applicable,” Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson said recently at a meeting with officials from Canada and six U.S. states with either land or water borders with Canada: New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
The “carefree” approach referred to by Hutchinson has been a lifeline to many undocumented Irish over the years. Immigrant advocates and those who work at Irish immigration advice centers around the country often encounter undocumented individuals who have, in person, revealed travels outside the country even against the backdrop of potential bars from the U.S. of either three or 10 years.
Not infrequently, said one immigrant advocate, the returned individual’s nod and wink was directed at the Canadian border.
More recently, the stories from the frontier have been more mixed in terms of their outcome.
One immigration attorney said he had heard of a couple of undocumented Irishmen living in New York who had attempted to leave the U.S. through a crossing point on the New York stretch of the border. They were stopped by suspicious Canadian immigration officials and sent back to the U.S. side. The men, according to the attorney, decided to come clean and own up to their lack of immigration status.
Surprisingly, the U.S. immigration agents did not immediately detain the men. Instead, their personal details were taken and both were told to return to New York, clear up their affairs, and quit the U.S. within 10 days.
Other travelers are not so fortunate. An undocumented Irish couple who recently attempted to reenter the U.S. at Niagara Falls decided to travel in separate cars, each driven by a Canadian. He managed to get across the border. She did not.
Such stories, and reports of a tightening of checks at crossing points, have resulted in immigration attorneys and advice centers taking the position that the risk of detection is now so high now that the undocumented should avoid Canada altogether.
“My advice to anyone thinking of trying to exit the U.S. and reenter through Canada is don’t try it,” said attorney Eamonn Dornan. “By the time you reach the Canadian checkpoint, you have left the U.S. and they [the Canadians] are turning people back. You then have to reenter the U.S. and that means all sorts of possibilities, not least being arrested, detained and barred.”
Dornan added that he was unsure just what level of immediate communication there was between the Canadian immigration officials and their U.S. counterparts.
“Are they talking to each other? The answer is, I don’t know,” he said.
Attorney Jim O’Malley agrees with his colleague that the undocumented should think twice about heading for Canada.
“We’re hearing that the Canadians are wising up,” O’Malley said.
In the past, said O’Malley, people had used Canada as a kind of steppingstone, but now the Canadians were asking travelers about their status in the U.S. and whether they were U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
In common with immigration attorneys, those who counsel the undocumented at Irish immigration centers are also wary in the extreme of anyone looking to Canada as a way around U.S. immigration screening.
“With regard to Canada, this is not a great year for taking chances,” said Tom Keown, a spokesman at the Irish Immigration Center in Boston.
Siobhan Dennehy, executive director of the Emerald Immigration Center in New York, said that anyone out of status was taking a big chance with Canada.
While there was no problem with Irish passport holders entering Canada from the U.S. for the purpose of visiting the country as tourists, those who were living as undocumented in the U.S. had more serious issues to consider.
“It’s reentry to the U.S. that will be a serious problem,” Dennehy said.
She said that some visitors to Emerald Isle would inquire about Canada in a roundabout way, but if it became evident that the individual was undocumented and thinking of crossing the border, the advice was always the same.
“That’s not something we would endorse in any way, shape or form,” Dennehy said.
The undocumented Irish in the U.S. have long been familiar with the ways of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and more lately its twin successors housed at the Department of Homeland Security: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration, Services or CIS.
But the undocumented tend to have less knowledge, or firsthand experience, of Canadian immigration barriers enforced along the border by officers attached to the Canadian Border Service Agency, or CBSA.
During the recent visit to Canada by President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin sounded positively Churchillian when he endorsed the president’s call for greater U.S./Canadian border security.
“We must defend this continent, secure its borders, guard its ports, and Canada is absolutely committed to doing whatever needs to be done,” Martin said.
The CBSA must deal with the more mundane daily details, so it is not surprising that replies to questions about how it will apply greater scrutiny along the border sound somewhat less like a call to arms.
A spokesman for the CBSA said that security in the sense that Prime Minister Martin was alluding to had always been tight along the border.
It was, the spokesman said, a “tough call” trying to balance the needs of security with the free flow of people, trade and traffic each day.
As it stands now, individuals driving to Canada could except to be stopped and questioned. While a passport is the most desirable form of identification, a driver’s license is also acceptable.
According to the CBSA spokesman, anyone who raises the “slightest suspicion” in a security or immigration context is open to “secondary examination” by CBSA officials.
Cars are also being checked. Cameras take photos of license plates and details of ownership are matched with drivers. There is “physical verification” of all passenger identification.
The CBSA spokesman said that it is not so much the case that Canadian officials are working to become more strict as much as they are not taking chances at any time.
“The security of North America is a primary concern and we’re always looking at new technology,” the spokesman, who preferred not to be identified, said.
The problem for the undocumented is that the technology now being brought to bear to stop terrorists is also being applied to them, not just on the trans-Atlantic air corridor, but morning, noon and night on the highways out of Ontario, Quebec and beyond.