A fact that escapes many who don't live in border states.
Especially, it appears, Texans.
Delays at the border are detrimental to the economies of both countries.
Canada has been notoriously lax in screening fraudulent refugee claimants and in allowing rejected claimants to escape execution of deportation orders, but so has the US.
people who participated in the September 11 attack had been resicent in the US, were on US issued visas, travelled around the US in rented cars, took flying lessont in the US, rented time on airliner flight simulators without having any apparent connection with an airline (even as a job applicant), and routinely flew back and forth between the US and Germany, without ever touching Canadian soil. One of the most recent scams is for people resident in the US on student visas to "lose" their documents, show up at a US-Canada border crossing, and claim refugee status.
While the claim is wending its weary way through the appeals process (a process that may take years), the claimant is ostensibly living in Canada as a welfare recipient but actually living and studying in the US. His monthly welfare allowance is deposited directly to his Canadian bank account but drawn by him through a US ATM machine.
I wonder how many people who were born in Canada or the US are on both countries' books as refugees?
There's just a lot of holes
I've never been stopped for a check crossing the U.S. border. When I was a kid with my folks, we were stopped once because we had some oranges.
Coming back to Canada, I've been checked plenty of times. That's why I always carry a passport, so I can get back into my own country. They usually stop you checking for goods, but I take my passport, just in case.
As far as I'm concerned, with Americans training Terrorist pilots, and allowing them to travel about within their own country, etc. We should probably be a little more stringent at our American crossings, but as long as they can recite the American National anthem, I'd let them in.
Uh? Just put your head in the sand then? Canada is not liable, nor willing (leftist PC combat boots are a fashion there), nor capable of protecting us, and that's the main issue, period.
Conversely, it is OUR responsibility to defend our borders - neither Canada nor Mexico are charged by their citizens or laws to protect a neighboring country. Treaties might promise mutual defense but when the attacker is a car load of un-profilible 'minorities' you can bet that PC and economics will win out over defense.
While I think it would be very eighborly of either Canada or Mexico to assist in this new type of defense, it is clear that neither wishes to yield the economic benefits of letting us go it alone -
So be it.
From today forward I will add the northern border to my short list of placed that need to be fortified. If some find it more difficult to get to walmart, and others have to pay a bit more for gas or cigarettes, if the occasional transient has to buy drugs, have liposuction, or have a baby on the 'wrong' side of a border, so be it.
Now shut up and get me a Lablatt's before we decide to make you the 51st state.