I was in Detroit on business, so I thought I'd go over to Windsor and
take advantage of the exchange rates, and walk along the waterfront.
(Best view of Detroit is supposed to be from Canada.)
Oh, yes, and protest the stupid US boycott of Cuban products that has
kept Castro in power all these years, I bought a nice fat Cuban cigar
and blew the communistic smoke over the river. 'Course, I would have
preferred to be able to blow the smoke over to south Florida where the
Cuban-American right-wingers are dictating our foriegn policy. But
that's another topic.
Well, I met my first rude Canadian 'migra man on this trip. No doubt
many of you are laughing, having ample experience with rude Canadian
border functionaries, but I cross over to Canada periodically, and
until
now, every Canadian official I've dealt with has been exceptionally
polite, in contrast to the US inspectors, whose salaries I actually
help
pay with my taxes. (Courtesy on the part of US inspectors is, for me,
about a 50-50 proposition, the odds increasing if my family is along.)
Anyway, I did this on the spur of the moment and my documentation
consisted of my U.S. Government ID Card (I'm a career civil servant),
my
driver's license and voter's card (not Michigan, however.)
This was not adequate for the Candian 'migra man, however. He started
giving me guff about how non-US citizens can serve in the US Armed
forces (true, that's how my grandpa got his US citizensip), but he was
uninformed about Executive Order 11935 requiring US citizenship for
appointment to a job in the competitive civil service. He asked me
"what about landed immigrants, they can work for the government?"
Well,
maybe they can in Canada, but
(1) we don'thave "landed immigrants" in the US, we have "permanent
residents" (yeah, I'm being geeky about that, but a Canadian
customs/'migra man guarding the US border should know the correct
terminology, just like his US counterpart should know what a "landed
immigrant" is),
and (2) , as I've mentioned, non-citizens can't get the vast majority
of
US government jobs. (One exception: residents American Samoa or
Swain's island, wherever that is, who are US nationals, not citizens,
are eligible for civil service jobs. But it's pretty obvious I'm not
from American Samoa.)
And, he would only accept a voter's card from Michigan. I guess to be
a
US citizen you have to be able to vote in Michigan.
OK, it's true, my government ID doesn't specify that my position is
competitive civil service. So I didn't have absolute proof, and,
true,
non-citizens can get some US government jobs (I think the clerical
help
at the US embassy in Ottawa might be mostly Canadian). But, here I
am,
speaking with an ovious American accent, driving a car with American
tags, and having US photo ID (my driver's license) that I'm sure he
could pull up on his computer and find out if I'm wanted by law
enforcement, sure it's not 100% proof, but it's 99.9 percent, this
'migra man was just out to be rude and pull a power trip.
He made his point by asking me a sort of trick question: "Do you have
a
passport?" So I answer yes, but it's expired, which would be good
enough, apparently. So then he asks, "When did you last use your
passport?" So I say, when I went to England. The he asks, why did I
take it to England and not going to Canada? So I fall for the bait
and
say becuase I was going abroad. "Gotcha! " he says, "You're going
'abroad' when you come to Canada, too." Of course, I should have said
I
took it because I was going _overseas_.
He obviously had a chip on his shoulder about arrogant Yankees who
think
that Canada is part of the USA. But in the end, he just took my
driver's license and entered the number into a computer so I'm
apparently on some kind of watch list of arrogant clueless Yankee
tourists who think they own the world, and the next time I come to
Canada, I had better have my passport with me, even if it's expired.
I
think that if I do, I'll use the one issued to me in 1971 to see if
the
'migra man can recognize my face behind the shoulder-length hair in
the
photo.
After all that, he let me loose into Windsor, which is good, because I
had visions of being sent back and then refused admittance to the US
because I didn't have proof of citizenship, and I'd still be driving
back and forth under the Detroit River to this day. Hovever, I was so
pissed off, I didn't feel like blowing a lot of money on a big dinner
and thereby help pay the guy's salary with the GST, so I went to a
schwarma place on the main drag and got a halal schwarma and Coke for
less than $5 Canadian, an incredible bargain; the same lunch in
Washington would cost you at least $8 US. And it was good schwarma,
better than the middle eastern food they sell in Detroit, almost as
good
as the schwarma at Max's in Wheaton, Maryland, which is my North
American reference point for schwarma.
Oh, and I don't think racism was an issue, although, being Jewish, I
do
look a little like an Arab, I suppose; though an Arab with blue eyes
and
reddish highlights in my hair.
Oh, and I had no problem getting back into the US, my government ID
worked fine, except that the 'migra man there wanted to know all sorts
of things about my business trip to Detroit. His courtesy level was
middling, though once he told me to proceed, he was friendlier,
reminding me to take care in the Detroit traffic.
I hate these damn border functionaries. I wonder if the US and Canada
could work out a deal like the countries in the EU have, where people
cross border with a minimum or no formalities. Then they could
reassign all those 'migra men to doing something more useful, like
checking shipping containers coming into ports.
--multiplaza.nl.nu-- |