Crossing the Border

Though I have been avoiding reading political news, I did stumble upon something in the New York Times of particular interest to me. The article shed light on the migrant crossings over our northern border. From my Maine camp on East Grand Lake I can see across the water into the Canadian wilderness. There are three legal ports of entry from Canada within a short driving distance from my home there, and several years ago, I wrote a column about northern migration from the United States into Canada. But the majority of illegal crossings continue to be in the other direction. Migrants are now finding easier routes across the 5000-plus miles of the northern border between the two countries than through Mexico into our southern states. The legal points of entry into the northern U.S. are strict. I experienced it firsthand when I returned from a salmon fishing trip to the Restigouche River in Quebec. I was grilled by the border guard, and my Bronco checked thoroughly for stowaways. Interestingly, on my way into Canada, the border guards had been pretty nonchalant, barely glancing at my ID.

In my immediate geographical area, it is pretty difficult to find ways to cross the border except by boat or by backpacking through dense wilderness. After 9/11, East Grand Lake was patrolled by Homeland Security with drones and agents in boats and helicopters. Allegedly one of the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. across East Grand Lake in a rowboat. Until recently the lake was closed to boat traffic in the evenings. Though some of the surveillance has slowed down over the years, with a new focus on the northern border, I suspect it will be ramped up again, and the Canadians will likely toughen their crossing procedures.

My interest in the immigration issue stems from my father’s extraordinary experience in coming to this country. In 1918, at the age of 12, to escape the pogroms and mandatory conscription in the Tsar’s army, he left his family and crossed eastern Europe by foot and by train, experiencing all manner of difficulties until he reached Hamburg, where he was directed to board a steamship to Argentina. After five years in Buenos Aires, with a visa in hand, he bought passage on a ship destined for New York. Back then, there were no northern/southern border issues; however, after 1917, because of World War I, the U.S. government began requiring immigration visas issued by U.S. officials abroad. It took my father five years to obtain the money and paperwork he needed to travel. By then, in 1923, U.S. federal immigration quotas were being put in place, but my father was evidently one of the lucky ones, as he was permitted entry before the quota from eastern Europe was filled that year. He presented his paperwork, passed the health inspection and was allowed to go on his way to meet his brother in Rochester.

My research reveals that the political drive to limit immigration in the 1920s was both economic and due to the isolationist mood in the U.S. following the war. Immigrants coming from northern Europe were given preference. Others, like my father, waited it out in other countries like Argentina, which welcomed foreigners willing to work and help to grow the economy. Many immigrants to the United States today are motivated to find freedom from abusive conditions just as my father did in 1918.