The Foreign Service Journal, October 2007

Changing with the Times Every section of the U.S.- Canada border seems to inspire an anecdote that, to someone’s mind, is reason enough to keep crossing procedures as they always have been. Yet most peo- ple we encountered on both sides of this prairie section of the bor- der acknowledge that a changed world situation requires updated procedures. At every port, officers were now document- ing 100 percent of arrivals. As Brad noted, after a CBP official greeted a driver with “Did you get the price you wanted on that heifer, Andy?,” he or she would then duti- fully ask for Andy’s ID and type the data into the com- puter. It never felt as if this were a show for our benefit. Most officers expressed gratitude that a machine-readable passport obviated the need to tediously enter in all the required information. Finding a high degree of pro- fessionalism among officers at all the ports, we felt assured that appropriate judgments would be made within the discretionary authority of each officer to permit the nec- essary flow of traffic in anomalous situa- tions. At one port, Sunday morning was the busiest time as members of a local church crossed back and forth, holding services some weeks on one side of the border and some weeks on the other. While we were assured that a way would be worked out to deal with these anomalies over time, these situations do demonstrate that some consideration has to be given to local practices in areas where a line across a map is sim- ply an arbitrary designation. For example, the closest hospital for Canadians living across the border from Roseau, Minn., is an hour away. Emergency cases can be taken to the U.S. hospital 10 minutes from the border. Because the port is closed from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., ambu- lance drivers can obtain a key to the gate for night emer- gencies. The driver just opens the gate and proceeds to the hospital, reporting to the Border Patrol after the fact. Working the Angles Nothing could be more arbitrary in its boundaries than a little section of Minnesota that sticks above the 49th parallel at Lake of the Woods. The Northwest Angle, as it is known, is the product of imperfect 18th- century geographic knowledge incorporated into various treaties, and the lack of any resolve to straighten out the line. This folded envelope of land has been held in trust by the Red Lake Indian Reservation since 1945. Accessible only by boat or by land through Canada, it raises challenges for bor- der security, but may not be the significant risk suggest- ed by Anderson Cooper’s investigative journalism piece several years ago on CNN. In any case, CBP officials play down concerns, point- ing to the area’s isolation and the difficult journey from it to the United States mainland. Even if terrorists could get to the Angle, the only potential targets are a few fishing camps, and they would still need to access the mainland. There are also many places in the Boundary Waters region between Lake of the Woods and Lake Superior that would be easier to cross than the long and treacherous stretch from the Angle. And even those easier routes would require a knowledge of wilderness and winter survival potentially too bother- some to acquire for the likely result. After all, many a seasoned local has taken a wrong turn and found him- F O C U S O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 41 Prior to 9/11, most of these Canadian border-crossing posts had just one person per shift, catering almost exclusively to local traffic. The Peace Bridge connects Buffalo, N.Y., and Fort Erie, Canada. Courtesy of Embassy Ottawa