Since Donald Trump has ascended to the
White house, there's been endless talk about the wall, and border
security, as a follow-up to his months-long promises to quash the untenable
invasion of people from dozens of countries. There are often, when these
issues are discussed, raised eyebrows at the status of our "northern
border." The answer is that while thousands of illegals are not
sneaking in through our northern border, the problem up in Canada is a lesser
invasive element: smugglers, dopers, and unsavory trespassers who must be
caught and turned back. These are different problems, but still requiring
surveillance, monitoring, 24-hour-a-day shifts – tough standards and the latest
high-tech equipment and electronics. I went to see for myself.
I was on an expedition with CIS (Center for Immigration Studies)
on a border run, twelve of us in two commodious vans. My companions were
also members of CIS, fascinating, often brilliant in their fields, and never
dull – all ages and professions. We have government types, a three-star
general, mining execs, top immigration experts, state committee heads, Heritage
people, journos (me and a solid newspaper reporter who'd worked many years
in Texas on a major paper), and others. All are strong Republicans and
conservatives – and a pleasure to be with, as I have found over the years and
several such border tours together.
We jinked into and out of Canada and the U.S. as we
checked on various border crossings. In doing so, we traveled some
1,200 miles; took briefings from the U.S. and Canadian border
patrols; talked with Canadian Mounties; and Q&Aed with Homeland
Security, RESC, deportation and recovery people, and others in order to surveil
and research infiltration and departing illegals.
This is my third such expedition – the two priors being along the
southern border and Mexico, where we sat in court
to observe judges dealing with caught illegals as well as spent
time with border patrol outposts and such. We saw firsthand people
waiting until nightfall to cross the fences and triple-barriers with
ten-foot-wide sand "moats." These are set up to disclose
illegal entry footprints as men drop from fencing or walls onto sand and make
their way to surrounding grassy areas. We stopped at dozens of fencing
and barriers in sporadic spots – not, of course, the continuous solid
fencing or gates or barriers that have been called for repeatedly by
Republicans.
We stayed on an Indian reservation, Mohawk Nation at
Akwesasne, several days, where I was distressed to see they had not a
single computer for patrons. They had eyes only for one-armed bandits and
lackaday cadaverous elderly throwing away their life savings on
the cloud-cuckoo-land dream of windfall-winning at those
sepulchral silver wish-seducing machines and smoke-shrouded craps
tables.
Along the way to our appointed destinations ,two signs
evoked laughter: RED LIVES MATTER. Further down the same rural road,
another placard: EVEN BURNT RED LIVES MATTER!
They have everything dedicated to hauling in cash from the
on-leave sanity of everyday locals on a long-term bender.
The food in the Mohawk casino was plenteous and decidedly down-home
(down-tent?), and drinks were humongous and constant. Entry tab for
the craps table was $25 a chip, a tad steep for most. We drank juice
mixes, did not gamble, and found the whole vista of American Indians recouping
shekels from the local whites grimly scenic and histrionic.
Dispiriting. Much of the attendee population was notably fond of dessert,
as well as all the fixin's of any other food group, judging by
the girth of their expansive belts.
In Vermont, we stopped in at an ancient library cum opera
house, something out of Harry Potter in its crenellations and
19th-century spires. Quite charming – but the town standout is
that it is where The Beatles reputedly congregated when they were trying to
reunite with John Lennon, who, owing to his known use of weed, was denied
entry into the States back in the day. Tough call.
In Vermont, Ben & Jerry HQ was just down the street
in one town. Though we may eat their product, we disagree with them on
most lib-lub everything, including U.S. politics, climate, defense, and
the rest of the political.
Burlington for the Tall Ships coincided with our landing there the
very weekend this regatta dropped anchor, only once every few years.
Bevies of patriotic folk scooting about, boarding this
ship or that, centuries-old ships and combat frigates or whatever. For
purchase: Hudson Bay thick green, yellow, red-on-white field stripes on
everything, everything you can conceive of.
It struck me that the source of these quintessentially
"American" tchotchkes and dust-collectors was originally
American Indian in style, design, execution, and finish.
The Canadian crossing checkpoints and passport outposts were
unfriendly and cool, asking us endless questions, likely because we were
six or seven people per van, filled with non-related people from all points in
the U.S., without a reasonable rationale for why we were together. (We
had a reason, but the passport control guys did not understand why anyone would
care about infiltration or illegal aliens.)
We were denied entry to Canada, our closest ally, at one outpost
coming from the state of Vermont. One of us had apparently committed some
sort of youthful indiscretion; the Canadian border
patrol grilled this person for a long
time, twice, and discovered whatever it was in the shady past
that was deemed a no-no, and boom, we were all denied entry. Had to
turn both vans around and go back. Only one point in six or seven
entry points featured a guy who was welcoming and friendly and just scanned our
passports and smilingly wished us well. All the others were brisk
and seriously professional – skeptical of everything we said. Polite, but
no funny business.
In Ottawa, we popped in to eat at a surefire Hillary fave, a
restaurant called...Pinocchio, which evoked a laugh when I mentioned the
evident analogy to colleagues. One immediately stated, quoting a
major politico in his past, "When you hear a good line, steal it."
I amended it to Four Pinocchios for Hillary. She gets
that award often, according to the still fawning media.
Cameras are everywhere, even remote farms and outposts,
unused roads, where we were viewing illegal crossover sites (night only – we
were in daytime). Soon, we pulled up to some overgrown, weed-choked
back road with STOP in huge letters on a scruffy pole, along with ARRET on
the reverse side. Very soon, two or three guys in border patrol or
Mountie insignia would haul up alongside and ask what we were doing
and why we were there. This is in marked contrast to the astringent lack
of border patrol presence on the southern border, a direct consequence of
former president Obama's peculiar directives to ignore or
overlook insurgent illegals at border points and all along the unmonitored
areas of the border states.
We spent considerable time with retired
and welcoming border patrol vets, often accompanying us, all of whom
were delighted to spend time taking us around to well known alien
hotspots they regularly surveiled. We went to a patrol HQ, where this
super-ripped honcho in an olive drab T-shirt and cargo pants, the
head guy at the HQ, a pistol slung at his hip, showed us around the patrol
realm, their ATVs, the handcuffs, the computers, holding stalls for men,
separate quarters for women, and explained the procedures of how long
they could hold 'em before they had to fold 'em,
feed any detainees every six hours. All regulated. By-the-book
proper. The border guys all delighted to see our committed group,
traveling with their veteran retired buddies.
Border police and all their crews have gotten precious
little public acclaim or support, so our troupe of a dozen anti-illegal
invasion investigators was a standout wherever we stopped in these precincts,
among these dedicated and hardworking men and women. Under the present
administration, it is great to report, morale is miles better than under its
predecessor. President Trump has issued outright support and fulsome praise
for these hardworking men – professionals often endangered by their jobs, as
well as by the shadowy underworld they have to deal with night and day.
