mules

My youngest is getting ready to apply to colleges. I checked out the website for St Lawrence Univ in New York state. I was surprised to see this warning for campus visitors:
http://www.stlawu.edu/admissions/bor...el-information
"Canton, NY is located 20 miles from the US-Canadian border and is within the 100 mile zone in which US Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, can set up road blocks and question people on buses or trains or at any transportation system. We strongly recommend that non-US citizens who do not have permanent resident status and who plan to travel to or visit St. Lawrence have with them at all times their passport, visa, and other immigration paperwork."

I wonder how US students are advised to respond if approached. I did a quick search through the college newspaper articles and couldn't find any mention of students taking issue with it.

Has anyone seen similar warnings by colleges, resorts, or vacation destinations? I don't recall seeing any such messages when vacationing in the Voyageurs National park area.

GUWonder

US college/university students in the main are probably not being educated about what to do at these internal border checks.

mules

I agree, particularly those in the northern states. My daughter in L.A. and niece in AZ knew more about them but weren't confident enough about their rights. I don't know anyone here in Lake Wobegon talking about the issue in any context.

GUWonder

My hunch -- and it is only a hunch -- is that on the northern US border the probability that a US school or university student has experience going to Canada by surface transport is lower than it used to be. I say that having been a northern border state person. With the growing concern about return problems, even northern border state schools have had to become more cautious about trips; and that's even as far fewer northern border state school students would have an immigration/citizenship status problem then southern border state schools.

rubesl

I was born in Detroit and have been back here since 1973. Downtown is one mile from Canada (across the Detroit river). I have NEVER seen (or heard of) a CBP roadblock, and the only place you see CBP agents or vehicles is in the immediate downtown area, and only because they have offices at the tunnel, bridge and in the federal building. From what I've read, almost all of the "100 Mile" CBP roadblocks are on the southern border. There are some US/Canada land crossings where there is no human, just a phone booth where you are supposed to pick up the phone and report that you've crossed.

Hawk87

Ah, the first taste of Amerika for foreign students. Lucky them...

Badenoch

Not in my experience. Students in the U.S.A. have what they might consider a compelling reason to cross the border every weekend. The legal drinking age in Quebec is 18. In Ontario it is 19.

Nonetheless the advice to carry documents is sound. I always carry my passport when in foreign countries being doubly sure to have it with me in totalitarian regimes where armed agents of the state will stop and demand identity papers on a whim. America seems to be falling into that category more often.

If you cross often enough you will eventually run into CBP exit roadblocks at the border. I've encountered them in Buffalo a few times when leaving the US. They ask questions about where you've been and for how long, demand ID, look in your car and will search if they find something they consider suspicious.

GUWonder

The legal drinking age differences have been there for something approaching or exceeding half a century, but Canada has become a more expensive destination relative to the US and the US has become more of a pain with regard to re-admitting US persons since the WHTI was put in place within the past decade. Rising youth unemployment, youth disposable income stagnation for low-skilled jobs and higher fuel prices have probably had an impact too to depress frequency of students traveling across the border.

Badenoch

Half a century? Less than 30 years actually. NYS raised its age from 18 to 19 in 1982 then to 21 in 1985 after the passage of the Minimum Drinking Age Act in 1984. It was only after 1985 that Ontario and Quebec had lower drinking ages.

Canada is a more expensive destination due to the improvement of the Canadian currency and higher taxes on alcohol here but even with the American-imposed WHTI there is no shortage of young Americans frequenting the bars along the border.

mules

I wonder if someone visiting the campus, or even a staff member, had an encounter with a road block. This information was provided in the admissions pages for all prospective students to see.

mules

I found the back story. Border Patrol used to hassle people getting off the bus in Canton. A chinese student at SUNY Potsdam (near Canton) was handcuffed and ultimately detained for weeks because of visa issues.

from NPR http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=129888751
SOMMERSTEIN: Bethany Parker-Goeke directs the International Education office at the State University of New York at Potsdam, just down the road from Canton. She says the 20-year-old, who she cant name for privacy reasons, was applying for a change in visa status, so he didnt have his documents on him.

Ms. PARKER-GOEKE: I had all his original valid documents on my desk.

SOMMERSTEIN: The student was held for four hours, then returned to campus. A few days later, federal agents were back to detain him again because his status was still up in the air. He spent almost a month in two county jails and one immigration detention center near Buffalo. Finally, says Parker-Goeke, he was released.

mules

This is a link to a man in Canton who has be stopped multiple times:http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/travel.freely.htm


I live in Canton, New York, a small village twenty miles from the
Canadian border. My family has lived in this county for seven
generations. Simply because of where I live, federal agents do not
recognize my right to travel freely.

I have been questioned dozens of times by increasingly hostile and
belligerent Border Patrol officers acting in the name of Homeland
Security. The most egregious examples happened on Wednesday, April 4,
2007. When I tried to board an Amtrak train in Syracuse, with two
pieces of valid government-issued identification, I was refused a
ticket and the Border Patrol was summoned. I had no choice but to take
a Trailways bus back home, and upon my arrival in Canton, I was
interrogated by another Border Patrol officer, claiming he was doing a
“serious safety inspection” for the Department of Homeland Security...

FlyingUnderTheRadar

Do a search on "refusing internal border inspection"

http://www.texasobserver.org/border-...l-checkpoints/

You can legally refuse to answer any questions. And the BP can not detain you unless they have probably cause.

The above only applies to inspections internal to the USA and NOT at border crossings. A border crossings you can refuse to answer (as a citizen) but the BP can still search you and your possessions.

Spiff

Papiere, Bitte!

N830MH

You said that, Spiff.