Breaking into America
In October 2001 my wife and I visited Canada and the United States, crossing from one to the other at one of the entry points adjacent to Niagara. On previous visits when we had attempted to do this, we had been subjected to a certain amount of hassle, boorishness, bad manners, general churlishness and down-right pig-ignorance from the immigration and customs staff, particularly on the American side. This, we were advised, was how visitors were usually greeted in those far off untroubled days.
On this occasion, just about three weeks before our planned
trip, the Arabs crashed a aeroplane into the World
Centre Towers and mayhem
broke loose.
Anne’s boss was among those who were grounded in the States for a week
and other harrowing tales of inconvenience and worse filled the news
bulletins. Some people thought we were mad even to consider crossing
the Atlantic in an aeroplane at that time. Others warned us that we
might have our return delayed [up to a year in one case] and all warned
us to expect heavy delays at ports and borders. But we had paid our
fare and I was not of a mind to jeopardise our money. So off we went,
apprehensive of delay but not filled with foreboding.
At Glasgow Airport we were subjected to much less enquiry than previously.
Maybe they were glad to see us go. We had turned up one hour earlier
than usual, so we had one hour longer to sit idle at the gate mulling
over our future in Sing-sing, Alcatraz or worse.
On arrival at Toronto Airport we met our first inquisition. The immigration
man sat behind a desk with no queue to be seen. He smiled warmly, asked
a few banal questions and waved us through. Somewhere along the road
we recovered our baggage and presented ourselves to a customs officer
leaning nonchalantly against a wall. He too was brief and to the point.
‘Go straight ahead,’ he said. To our left was a barrier of booths each
with a grim looking he or she sitting behind it. Straight ahead was
a door marked ‘Exit’. We pushed it open and there was our smiling host
ready to welcome us into Canada. We climbed aboard his car and sped
off into oblivion.
The following day we presented ourselves at the first real hurdle. We
were about to cross by land from Canada into the US of A and we were
well
prepared, physically and in our minds, for a long, harrowing delay.
We had obtained from the cabin crew of our trans-Atlantic flight, green
application forms for waiver of visas and had filled them in before
setting out that morning, being careful to answer correctly such questions
as ‘Have you ever been a terrorist?’ Ahead of us at the barrier was
a queue of four cars. Before I had had time to get our passports out
we were at the gate. I don’t think the uniformed gent with his bum
perched against the barrier even straightened up before asking our
driver where he lived. ‘Cambridge, Ontario.’ ‘And you?’ ‘Cambridge,
Ontario,’ said his wife. ‘Drive through.’ And we went with the car
straight into the land of the free, down Main Street, America.
But I was concerned about getting back out again. Past memories were of green
tickets which were stamped going out and checked coming back in. I
wanted to have something to show that I had not come in by swimming
the Rio Grande. At the insistence of his three passengers, the driver
drove around the city block and back into the yard, which, we noted,
was completely empty. A woman policeman [I don’t mean a police lady]
showed us a door and in we went and up to the first floor. Here were
a bunch of lads from some foreign part being issued with green forms
by a lady in uniform who instructed them to fill them in and return.
At the next window was a large amiable man who looked perplexed when we presented
our green forms. ‘Which way did you come in?’ he asked. Did he mean
at which gate was the guy with his bum perched against the barrier?
Did he mean, were we travelling from Canada to USA or vice versa? While
I was considering which might be the most politically correct reply,
Anne said, ‘We came up in the lift and through that door’. The large
man said, ‘Take a seat’. He sat down at his desk and passed his hands
over his eyes. Then he stood up. ‘The cashier will be here in a few
moments,’ he said.
The cashier arrived, another large man, and we crossed his palm with twelve
American dollars. Then down the stairs, into the car, and away we went.
If this was America under siege, what did they do when there were no
anticipated dangers? It would have been difficult to make the place
more open to the world, or maybe it was just our honest faces. It occurred
to us later that the large man may have been confused by our arrival
already carrying green cards, instead of being issued with them by
him. Non-conformity is often a problem with authoritarian figures.
Original thought is not encouraged.
On the journey back, a few days later, I don’t think we even stopped the
car. We certainly slowed down enough to have a look at the buxom wench
who peered into the car before waving us on. We did manage to mention
Canada and Scotland but I doubt if she would have blinked an eye if
we had said Taliban and Saddaam Hussein.
Two days later we passed out of Canada at Toronto Airport where increased
security was in force, or so we were told. At Glasgow we sailed through
everything, but the man at immigration did take a piercing look at
our faces as we passed by. He obviously couldn’t believe that people
so old could look so young.
I was glad to get home. The guns in my hand luggage kept hitting against
my legs and the two bombs in the suitcase weighed a ton. But we had
managed to get Mr Bin Liner’s autograph on our passports and that made
all the trouble worth while.
During our visit we were told that Mr Bin Liner’s son was in residence at
Harvard University, that centre of American respectability and rectitude.
As they say in some of the comedy shows in the King’s Theatre in Glasgow,
you couldn’t have made all this up.
Copyright © Alan Sinclair 2001.
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