I had no idea we had such a massive problem of illegal Canadian immigration. But evidently the chilly suckers have been leaking across the border for a while now. It’s a porous border, and a long one. There’s really no keeping them out if they want in; it would be like making a border wall out of maple bars.
Myself, I don’t feel any sense of threat from Canadians. They’re basically Americans without the stain. But maybe the only Canadians who want to come here are the crappy ones. The ones who don’t feel at home in a nice country. The ones who want to be somewhere it’s okay to shit on people, and entire parties are devoted to stirring up hatred and distrust. Even so, at the rate of 65 such defectors a day, they would have a much-diluted effect in the general population here, especially if they funneled mostly into Idaho.
And if the only Canadians who cross the border illegally are perfectly lovely people who smell like donuts and simply can’t ever get warm, why, bring them on!
Evidently, though, it’s a huge problem, as bellowed by Donald Trump in posts with a disturbingly large number of capitalized nouns, as if he had already gone straight to Nazi Germany in his hard-pebble heart. And the concern isn’t with disgruntled Canadian citizens so much as terrorists and drug smugglers and rapists et al who fly into Canada—including Mexicans—and then pop across our border because it’s easier than sneaking in another way. I don’t know. Seems like they could just fly here. Seems like if you have 7000 miles of border with two countries, which we do, it wouldn’t be that hard for a determined person to find a place to stroll across. I certainly didn’t realize we had such a problem with Mexican scamps coming over from Canada.
Anyway we know what to do about it. We gon’ slap Canada upside the country with tariffs. Mexico too. Probably every place but Norway, because all the other countries have that shithole element. We certainly don’t want more criminals coming into the country taking our own criminals’ jobs.
It’s a whole thing. If you’ve got people smuggling foreign items in their body cavities, the easiest way to do it would be to recruit Samoans. You can probably pack a lot of fentanyl in a Samoan. Unfortunately, as U.S. nationals if not citizens, they are entitled to some rights and protections under U.S. law. But this is a mere legal blip to be overcome in the new old administration. After all, a huge swath of certified legacy American citizens has been neatly stripped of important rights and protections, and we done re-elected the perpetrators to shit on us again.
They’ve got to be concerned with backlash. All these tariffs—and all the deportations—are going to make prices higher for Americans across the board. As a liberal with a union-negotiated pension, I’m less fazed by this, believing that certain items—fossil fuel, for instance, and quite a lot of our groceries—-aren’t priced nearly high enough to account for the environmental and social damage they do.
But if my annual box of maple sugar candy goes up, I’m going to get my pitchfork.
My dog ran across the US/Canadian border and back again one sunny morning in 1978. There was nothing to indicate it was an international border. Just hundreds of miles of wheat running into hundreds of more miles of wheat. Of course you could see anything that moved for miles and miles because the terrain was flat as a plate of glass and there weren’t any trees to speak of.
Nevertheless, that dog should have been roundly reprimanded.
Roundly or squarely? Asking for a friend
Less than 10 years ago, I was camping near the northern border of my state at that time, at a small lake. Dirt road in, camping was ad hoc, byo everything, but no fees. One other camper was there, fishing, like me. I saw him drive off one day in the opposite direction of where I came in on a dirt road. He returned later that day and was unloading stuff he’d apparently gotten.
I asked him where he’d gotten the supplies, he named a town on the Canadian side of the border.
The dirt road led to a highway in less than 5 miles, and it wasn’t far to the town I won’t mention.
That being said, I think it’s more likely it’ll be the Canadians who will close off access, I would if I were them.
In ’71, my wife and I applied for landed immigrant status in Canada, and were accepted after a process. All we had to do was go to the border and declare. We thought we should have jobs there before we moved..we never had a firm promise, so we didn’t go. I still wonder ‘what if’.
I don’t know what “landed immigrant status” is but I can’t think of the word “landed” without thinking “fish,” and now I’m all confused.
It’s just what Canadians called people that immigrated. Don’t know why.
Considering the politics and meanness in this country currently, my husband wants us to move to Ireland, where I also have citizenship. I don’t, yet want to. Starting over is not my strongpoint I have learned as a result of various moves in the US. But if it gets bad enough, maybe.
I’m not sure what people who want to expatriate themselves hope to get. It’s not like America goes away. It’s still here. Maybe if I lived in a red state I’d feel more like leaving.
Floridians are watching America as we knew it go away at a horrifying pace.
I understand wanting to leave.
As one of those people from the north who smell like donuts (love that…and they are from Tim Horton’s!), I can assure my fellow Americans (I’m a dual citizen) that there are virtually no Canadians who want to move to the USA (well, maybe some who want to become famous actors). Maybe some of us sneak across the border to buy cheaper stuff, but not to stay on purpose. The people crossing illegally are from other countries. Why they don’t just stay once they get into Canada is a mystery (maybe the cold? or family in the US? bigger market for illegal drugs?).
For years, both the US and Canada bragged about having the world’s longest undefended border. It was a point of pride that demonstrated the deep friendship between the two nations. Now all of a sudden it’s a problem. Oh, and it’s Canada’s fault! WTF? And it seems like a big surprise that illegal immigrants who can’t get across the US’s southern border because of a wall are doing an end around and coming in the border that has no wall. Duh. If I built a fence around half my yard to keep out the deer, even the deer are smart enough to walk over to the part without the fence.
I’m tempted to go on and on about how stupid the tariffs with Canada and Mexico are but I think the followers of this blog already know that. So, I think I’ll just go get a coffee and a maple donut and try to warm up.
I would also take a maple donut thank you.
I think modern Americans have little concept of how blessed they are to be bordered only by friendly states and oceans away from everyone else. Europeans have much more experience with war. Americans probably believe their experience is different because God. Jesus! As it were.
I’d mail you a maple donut but our postal workers are on strike 😥
Last time I entered Canada, I wanted to visit Point Roberts, WA, the American anomaly just south of Vancouver, BC, for a couple hours. I would have had to go past the checkpoint twice, which could have taken longer than my visit. It may have been faster to have chartered a boat from Blaine, WA, to get there, but more expensive. Given that a Google Maps search of the place reveals nothing all that spectacular, I figure that Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco, Vatican City and Andorra could just be walked into and one can find more interesting things to see and do. (I visited them all!)
So let’s solve America’s illegal immigration problems by making it the biggest pain in the ass to deal with!
SUCH a long ferry ride to Vatican City from Washington, though.
If you like gas stations, Point Roberts is the place to visit!
Canadian maple sugar candy?! Plenty made south of the border w the same delicious taste and meltyness!
You may prove it by bringing me a box.
I do live in a red state and while I fantasize about leaving or just moving one state to the west, if I do, that just leaves one fewer person to march, picket and vote against the evil. Can’t do that to my friends.
Yeah, you stay the heck put.
Blue state here (Harris: 63%, Trump 34%, ten electoral votes. And we elected Angela Alsobrooks to the Senate with 55% — she beat former gov and supposed anti-Trump Republican* Larry Hogan). My family member keeps saying he’s moving to Florida because he never again wants to put on a coat just to walk outside in the morning, look around, have his coffee, and hear some birds. I say, what are you going to have to deal with if you do that? Florida has sinkholes, year-round mosquitoes, hurricanes, astounding property insurance problems, and the hot, humid, sweaty summers and countless idiotic, drunk college kids and tourists.
*Note: Hogan claimed he didn’t support Trump, but he did accept Trump’s endorsement for Senate and bragged about it in a donor call.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/30/politics/larry-hogan-tout-trump-endorsement/index.html
I harbor interest in the Everglades and the bird population and suchlike but Hot and Buggy are very low on my preference list. And Red.
Warn your family member that Florida also has an ever increasing population of hateful MAGATs who believed RonDeSatan when he invited them to move here to a red nirvana.
Mosquitos and dengue are way better than our new residents.
Just wondering, has anyone mentioned the plans for this tariff income? Just keeping it maybe?
I keep wondering, but haven’t had the strength to deep dive into the news…
Mar a Lago needs constant repairs, that’s one, Ivanka needs more cosmetics, two, and Musk want’s a new yacht. That’s where it’s going.
I’m on that diet, myself.
Here’s my take on the Canadian border issue: As a rebellious teenager, I remember making fun of Canadians because they were too boring. But after a recent trip to Canada as an adult, I realized that Canadians are not so much boring as simply polite and decent people. Perhaps the President-elect wants to seal the Canadian border because he is afraid of an incursion of too many polite and decent people?
I would love to be a young journalist now, just long enough to get and publish interviews with Trudeau and Sheinbaum about their recent meetings with The Incoming on tariffs. I’ve never read The Art of the Deal, but I doubt the recommended first salvo involves subtlety. I believe The Incoming’s style is to threaten mass annihilation first, so the negotiating counterpart will be thrilled to settle for having all ten fingernails pulled by Steve Bannon on “Fox and Friends.” Of course, if I were that young journalist, I’d be expecting a bullet to the back of the head for the rest of my life. Out here in the Wild, Wild West, you don’t want to mess with The Heritage Gang.
ON THE WOODWARD AVENUE LINE IN 1958
She was sixteen.
She was lovely.
She knew her way
around Detroit.
She sat in the bus,
empty except for her
and the driver.
A man got on.
Though all the other seats
were vacant,
he sat down next to her.
She picked up
nothing sexual
at all,
nothing predatory
at all
“So,” she said to him,
“are you from Canada?”
“How did you know?” he asked.
She called out to the driver
who had been worrying about her
“It’s okay!”
We have a cabin in the southern Adirondacks and one time we were taking a long drive to go over to Lake Placid, which involved being on the Northway (Rt. 87) for a fairly long stretch. On the way back, there was a roadblock with cops and such, and it turned out that it was Border Patrol, because they were allowed to stop people up to 100 miles south of the Canadian border. Had to show our licenses and they asked if we had been to Canada. Luckily that was it, we were free to go. But it’s kind of concerning that they were checking like that. I did not expect it. And this was before Trump.