THE U.S. BORDERS ARE NOW SECURE
"The less we have to do that matters, the more complicated the rules become." --Anne Perry
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Edit: names and places in [ ] have been replaced to protect the victims. All place names have been picked at random from Oklahoma.
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It is hard for me to realize that I am here, sitting in my apartment in [Stillwater, Ontario, Canada], and have been here all through the July 1-4 holiday weekend, rather than attending the Mensa Annual Gathering (AG), a trip we have planned for almost a year. We were turned back at the Canada-US border by US Customs personnel. What at first seemed like chaos and inefficiency I realized later was an elaborately staged plan to intimidate, humiliate, and manipulate the people detained by the U.S. Customs officials. But let me start at the beginning.
We drove to the Ambassador Bridge, which crosses the Detroit River between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. We arrived at the U.S. side of the border a little before 6:00pm. There were few cars in line and I was elated, thinking we would be at the AG hotel within half an hour. We approached one of the booths where the cars stop, and a friendly, cheerful, chatty black woman attended us. She talked while she checked passports, and asked seemingly random questions, like where were we going, what was Mensa, how we met, and a little about [Tulsa]. Having ascertained that we both had lived in the U.S. and that [John] is a Canadian citizen and I was a U.S. citizen, she asked [John] if he had ever had a green card. The so-called green card is necessary in the U.S. for an alien resident to work. [John] answered that he did have a green card and the woman asked if he had it with him. He did. She looked at it and advised him that it was the property of the U.S. government and that he was required to turn it in if he no longer resided in the U.S. He told her that we travel to the U.S. every few years and that we still own property there. He said he had no idea he was supposed to turn it in because it has "lifetime" printed on it. She said that didn't matter. As long as he wasn't living in the U.S. he couldn't legally keep the green card. [John] didn't have a problem with this as he doesn't plan to work ever again.
At that point, we were directed to park in an area where many guard-like-looking men were checking through autos that had been stopped before us. People were getting out of cars and being ushered into a nearby building. We followed along the same route. We were told to leave all electronics, including cell phones, in our car and remove only money. I asked if I should take my credit cards and was told yes. I also grabbed my 7-11 drink cup with my ever-present Diet Coke in it.
At the door the atmosphere changed drastically to a stern-faced barking of orders and herding of people into one area or another in a rather small building. A man stood at a lectern by the only outside door directing people, and he told me I could not have my drink inside the building. He took it from me and said he would return it to the car. He then told one of us to get in line for the counter ([John]) and the other (me) to sit in the waiting area to the side. The room was small and crowded. I moved to stand by a window where the air seemed fresher and cooler.
[John] stood in line from 6:00pm until 6:45pm before he was first called to the counter. I had been observing some of the transactions that were going on and the attitude of the officers behind the counters struck me as very odd. No one smiled or welcomed anyone. No one said anything in a pleasant tone of voice. It was all sharp, angry-sounding orders or rude comments. The people in the waiting area were a mixed group of Canadians including all ages, from toddlers to grandparents, and all nationalities and races. Many Canadians are immigrants from other countries and these seemed to be mainly the targeted people. The transactions at the counter were lengthy and confusing, with most of the people shuffled from one official to another or from the official back to a waiting area back to an official, and this repeated several time over for each person.
We were no exception. The fact that I was a U.S. citizen meant nothing to them. The fact that I had worked for a police department in the U.S. meant nothing to them. The facts that we still own a house in [Oklahoma] and pay taxes in the U.S. meant nothing to them. The first young man who spoke to [John] asked him two questions, which would become routine before the evening was over: 1) Where do you live? 2) Are you willing to voluntarily surrender your green card? [John] always answered the same: 1) [Stillwater]. 2) Yes. (Although we both recognized that what had been told us previous was mandatory was now being spoken of as voluntary.)
As [John] answered these questions, the man behind the counter said, in the most abrupt and rude way, that [John] would have to get back in line, that he (the officer) didn't have time for this now. [John] went to the back of the line. The officer then looked at him and told him to get back in the front of the line, which [John] did. By this time, I was worrying about the hotel as we were supposed to have checked in around 6:00pm, and the fact that we were supposed to meet my brother, [Adam], and his family for dinner. I could see we were going to be very late and didn't have my cell phone to call and notify them. After another 15 minutes or so, [John] was called to another counter, asked the same two questions (see previous paragraph) and was told to go back and wait until he was called again.
The next time he was called, it was to a third, different officer who asked him the same two questions and who said he couldn't help him, but that another officer would take care of him. This latest officer-of-the-moment told [John] he had two choices: 1) He could keep his green card and go before an immigration judge and plead his case, but we would get to continue to Dearborn. This option might result in him being barred from the U.S. for five years, and the paperwork would take several hours and they didn't know when the judge would be able to see him. 2) He could relinquish his green card voluntarily and return to Canada and have his case reviewed and possibly be able to cross the border after six months. This process would take about an hour. There were some aspects of these options that changed slightly from time to time, so I am uncertain about where and when the immigration judge would be hearing [John]'s case, but both options seemed to involve seeing an immigration judge. This was supposedly necessary because [John] had a prior police record in [Oklahoma], from the hippie era, which they were able to obtain by computer from the FBI. Because we wanted to attend the AG, [John] selected option number one.
So we sat and talked to other people who were there. And we looked and listened. The rudeness and harassment tactics of the officers cannot be over-emphasized. Everything was an order, mostly rudely stated. Every explanation was slightly different from the last one. No amenities were available--no food, no drinks, no leaving the building for any reason, no phone calls, no nothing! Just sit and wait and try to figure out what was happening. Everyone was treated pretty much the same. The restroom was secure and any time one needed to use the facilities, one had to ask an officer who would shout to someone at the counter that this person needs to use the restroom, and then they would push a buzzer to open the door. The closest I had ever been in, or seen, a situation like this one was when I worked at the [Logan] County jail: it reminded me of the booking area, although much nastier and much smaller.
When I realize we were to be detained into the night, I told the officers at the counter, who were talking to [John] again, that I needed to call my brother and the hotel where our reservations had been made. Before I even finished, one of the guards brusquely told me I could not make any calls. I turned away in the direction of the outside door and he apparently thought I was going to try to get out. He yelled at me, "Don't go through that door, ma'am! Don't go through that door!" About that time another guard told me that I would be allowed to make phone calls in a few minutes. I was somewhat pacified, although confused, but went to sit in the waiting area again. I was never allowed to make the calls while we were detained. My brother, his wife, and children, had come from [Tulsa] to visit her relatives in Michigan, and were waiting for us to call and let them know we were on our way for dinner. I was looking forward to seeing their new baby girl, [Eve], and to see how much their young son, [Seth], had grown since I had seen him three years before. Needless to say, we were all bitterly disappointed.
We were held incommunicado for 3-1/2 hours and were only released because [John] finally signed a form (I-407) giving up his rights to his green card. He only did that after being told if he signed the paper we could proceed to the AG in Dearborn. We were then hustled out of the building, put in our car and told to leave the U.S. [John] repeatedly said to various officers that he had been told we could proceed on to our convention in Dearborn. One man looked at the papers and said no, that this was a deportation document he had signed. It actually said it was a document giving up the right of permanent residency in the U.S. By the time we had gotten to the nearest Tim Horton's (for coffee) in Windsor, Ontario (about three blocks from the bridge), I broke down in tears. It was the most horrendous experience either of us had ever had with authorities. We were both in shock and traumatized.
The next day at home, [John] checked the internet and found a Canadian attorney's web site where it was plainly stated that Canadians would be pressured very strongly to sign away their green card rights, but NOT TO DO IT. It was apparently this action that got us deported from the U.S. And without that card, [John] cannot go back into the U.S. unless he pays $548 in charges and convinces someone (American embassy? Immigration judge?) that he is no longer a criminal threat to the United States. Otherwise he will not be able to see to his property in [Oklahoma], visit or remove his sailboat from [Oklahoma], or go with me to visit our friends and relatives in the U.S. I could well be that he will never set foot in the U.S. again, by his own choice. And just at this time, I am not feeling inclined to go without him, which means I won't cross the border willingly again either. I'm afraid that anyone who wants to see us again will just have to come to Canada and see for yourself how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its minions are dealing with the terrorist threat. The U.S. borders are now secure.
