[PRCo] Re: crossing the border

[Fred Schneider]

Off subject warning!

Bob Rathke wrote:

> I made dozens of trips to Canada over the decades, and I always carried a
> birth certificate or a passport with me, but I was never asked to show them
> until 1993.  Since then, the Canadian immigration officers have always asked
> to see my papers, and one time they even threatened to deny access to me
> because they couldn't detect the raised seal on the papers, but they finally
> used their fingers to find it.
>
> Bob 3/6/05
>

Sorry Bob, but you lit my match.....

I cannot help but wonder if the fine Canadians are doing that simply because
they know the U. S. immigration people are going to be bears to returning U. S.
citizens.   They may not want you to remain in Canada as a burden to their
welfare system if our people will not let us come home.  What do you think?

My own observation over the last 50 years is that the Canadian immigration
people were invariably more pleasant and understanding  than U. S. immigration.

I've watched U. S. immigration people curse foreigners for minor reasons, often
for not understanding English.    I've asked one of our people at Philadelphia
International Airport, after I had gotten off a Frankfurt/Main - Philadelphia
plane with one stop in Montreal, where were our people who spoke French and
German.  The answer was that the one person who spoke German was on vacation and
no one speaks French.  But anyone getting off the same craft the next morning in
Frankfurt would have found that any inspector on any line would speak German,
French and English.   What does this tell us about our desire to have Europeans
come here and spend their money on vacation?   My travel agent advised me not to
write any complaint letters to our authorities because from then on I would be
stopped and harassed.


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