The thing is, it's been $97 for a while now. People are only bitching because they need a passport to go to Canada and so more people are noticing. It's good for ten years.
brought to you by the I Hate Immigration part of my brain, and the letters F, and U.
This reminds me, I need passports for the kids. We're bad enough about planning ahead that if we do ever get around to doing some traveling, it'll be on short enough notice that passports will be a problem.
It always bothered me that one of the signs that "Americans are stupid" was the number of people without passports. Hello- it takes four whole days to drive across the country! and until recently one could travel to Canada and Mexico without a passport if one arrived by auto.
True fact. I attended the Rotary Int'l convention in Calgary several years ago. It had been announced that passports were not needed. I had one, but didn't bring it due to the announcement. Upon arrival, the Canadian immigration official was not pleased, but aware of the erroneous information that had been promulgated by the powers that be. "We are a different country, ya know" sayeth she.
It's annoying how long it takes to get a passport here. If you get your passport from the Consul abroad, you go and can often pick it up that same day.
Solution: get your new passport while traveling!
UK passports are expensive -- $150 US -- because they want to use the revenue to part-fund their crazy ID scheme.
Yeah, the 'Americans are monolingual' thing, while embarrassing, is also not really our fault. It's a lot easier to pick up other languages when foreign countries are an hour or two's drive away.
Do you still pay them there at the foreign consul in dollars?
With the processing backlog these days, the true cost is much higher: $60 for expedited handling, $30-$40 for overnight express both ways, and so on.
Plus add another $10 or so for regulation passport photos, a few bucks for a notarized copy of your birth certificate.
If you travel internationally with any regularity, renewing a passport is a nightmare, because you don't know when you will get it back once you send it in.
I have the choice of the much cheaper Canadian passport, and might still get that instead, especially since it now uses US size pictures and everything. Lasts 5 years, my most recent one just expired.
Also, the reason most Americans didn't have passports was that most Americans didn't need them until recently. If you wanted to take a nice vacation, you could quite literally go from glacier to beach, with all the kids, without needing anything more than a couple birth certificates at most.
If you were traveling to Europe and taking the kids, the $97 per person fee was the least of your expenses. It's not encouraging American isolationism. It was the big freakin' oceans and open borders (paradoxically) doing that.
I really miss my old Ben Franklin commemorative edition passport with the green cover that foreign customs and immigration officials thought meant I was a diplomat.
I am multilingual, live in NYC, and have friends from all over the world, but I do not have a passport, and this is enough to brand me as an Ignoramus, American Style.
Yes, yes, I'll get a fucking passport. I just don't have money to travel, never have, and it will taunt me.
Solution: get your new passport while traveling!
I have a minor nightmare story involving getting new visa pages added to my passport at the US embassy in Paris. It was taking forever, and when they finally called me over, the Vice Consult told me apologetically that they had accidentally cancelled my passport, i.e. run it through a machine that punches holes in it. In doing so, they ruined two resident visas and a host more multiple entry visas I had. I was supposed to leave the country the next day, and it was closing time on the day before the 4th of July weekend. The story has a (moderately) happy ending, but it took a lot of heartache to get there.
3: But a few years ago, it wasn't erroneous information. You didn't need a passport, just proof of citizenship and picture ID, to enter Canada, even by air. It wasn't required until the beginning of 2007.
3: Canadians and Americans can do an awful lot of travel without leaving their own countries, let alone the continent, but that doesn't mean that it's the same as international travel. And international travel is a good thing, generally speaking (except for the environment).
I never read the comments about low US passport holding (I can't remember what Canadian is, but I think it is higher, but still low) as an implication of stupidity, rather than an implication of xenophobia and/or self involvement. Which isn't completely off base.
It's a lot easier to pick up other languages when foreign countries are an hour or two's drive away.
And when most other countries require their children to learn English, if there's any language to be monolingual in, English is probably the one.
that foreign customs and immigration officials thought meant I was a diplomat.
One of my oldest, bestest stoner buddies is married to a (foreign) diplomat and has the CD passport. I don't ask too many questions, but ya' know...
15 wuz me
8 is why everone should have dual (at least) citizenship --- problem solved.
Yeah, the 'Americans are monolingual' thing, while embarrassing, is also not really our fault. It's a lot easier to pick up other languages when foreign countries are an hour or two's drive away.
Not an excuse in Los Angeles.
15: Look, it's not international, but it should only count as evidence of xenophobia if there are good reasons to think that it isn't the expense driving most of the costs. A friend in Belgium goes for a drive for six hours and visits two countries. I do that and I might be out of Pennsylvania. Until very recently, there wasn't a need to get a passport unless I was going to Europe or Asia. Not cheap flights.
It's a lot easier to pick up other languages when foreign countries are an hour or two's drive away.
...and when you are continuously exposed to media in another language. There is a marked difference in the average English proficiency of large (Western) European countries, where the local media market is lucrative enough to support a large domestic producer segment and dubbing of foreign imports, and small countries, where foreign content and subtitles are the norm. Compare the English skills of the average Norwegian or Dane to those of Germans, Italians, or French.
I just don't have money to travel, never have, and it will taunt me.
Fancy travel, with hotels and restaurants and hookers, is expensive, but if you're willing to be flexible about your destination and don't mind eating mostly from sidewalk crepe stands (or whatever the local equivalent may be), it's not that bad. I did 2 weeks in Europe a year and a half ago for about $1300 all told, and it was only that high because I waited too long to buy my plane ticket and paid a few hundred more than I should have.
A Swedish friend described learning English as necessary 'because there aren't enough of us to make it worthwhile for anyone to learn our language.'
Not an excuse in Los Angeles.
Or Chicago. One of the first days I lived here, in the Ukrainian village neighborhood, I had a shopkeeper annoyed with me because I was speaking English, instead of Ukrainian or Russian.
Just recently I've resolved to learn at least some Spanish because I really really like this burrito place near my work and those guys always insist on speaking to me in Spanish even though I keep swearing up and down I'm not Mexican.
And up on Devon Ave., me and a friend went into a divey Pakstani place where we had quite a bit of difficulty communicating. I love this town.
it should only count as evidence of xenophobia if there are good reasons to think that it isn't the expense driving most of the costs. A friend in Belgium goes for a drive for six hours and visits two countries. I do that and I might be out of Pennsylvania.
I used to make this argument with some regularity when I was an expat and defending my country (it was easier with Clinton in the WH, of course); all the same, whatever the cause and effect, we're a pretty damn insular country, and it shows in all kinds of ways.
BTW I used to get the "You're not at all like most Americans" line all the time from people who thought they were complimenting me and couldn't grasp that this was a little offensive.
Am I imagining it, or are Italians much less likely to speak English than French or Germans? I haven't traveled all that much, but my vague sense is that in France, someone in a store may be annoyed about it, but if you need to communicate and don't speak French they're overwhelmingly likely to be able to speak to you in functional English. In Italy, if you don't speak Italian, people are delightfully charmingly friendly and helpful, but the friendly helpfulness will often be in the form of mime, charades, and slow emphatic pronunciation of relevant Italian words.
where we had quite a bit of difficulty communicating. I love this town.
Really? That kind of stuff bugs me. Learn the language of the country you're in, people.
(That last comment comes from the monolingual Ugly American. I so suck at languages. But I'm trying to raise the kids right!)
UK passports are expensive -- $150 US -- because they want to use the revenue to part-fund their crazy ID scheme.
I only wish. I'm renewing mine right now: $265.
If $97 stops you from traveling, you must have some damn cheap airfare overseas.
I second 22. I did 9 days in Berlin summer of 06, where I spent about $350 on food and lodging (hostel, lots of falafel, shawarma, and thai food) and other shit (museums & whatnot). I didn't have to pay for the flight (I was already over there for work), but if I had gone on my own I would have gone some non-summer time and paid maybd $500 for the flight.
are Italians much less likely to speak English than French or Germans?
In my anecdotal experience this is true, but the Italian town I was staying in was much smaller than Paris, the only French city I have any familiarity with, so I'm not sure if it's a valid generalization.
Well, with the collapse of the dollar (just beginning, will get worse) no one will be able to travel anyway.
Am I imagining it, or are Italians much less likely to speak English than French or Germans?
The relevant differences are along class lines within countries, much more so than cross-country differences. A university-educated person in any of the three countries will speak at least survival English.
Inasmuch as there are lot of poor people in the south of Italy, that may be skewing your sample.
28: It's a little frustrating when you're trying to communicate, but I like it because I like that there are restaurants and shit that are staffed and patronized by mostly people who all speak some other language.
I think there should be places for people who aren't that great at speaking the country's native language to work.
If you get your passport from the Consul abroad, you go and can often pick it up that same day.
Solution: get your new passport while traveling!
Those only last a year now. I learned this when stuck in Singapore with an expired passport about a year ago (or was it two?), wondering how I was going to get back in the country. So now it'd have to be worth going to the consulate 10 times and shelling out 10 times as much money in order to get those 1 day turnarounds.
32 is right. Our government should also give thought to providing a less terrifying and arbitrary experience for foreign travelers looking to take advantage of tourism in the US.
I'm thinking of Florence, which has got to be as touristy as any part of Italy. It makes traveling in Italy much more fun; mutual incomprehension is much less embarrassing than having people speak your language when you don't speak theirs. And the mime and so forth is fun.
25: I won't deny that we're insular and xenophobic, but I don't think lack of international travel (where 'international' doesn't include the other nations on this continent) is a good proxy for that, and I don't think it's due to high passport costs. Even the 'cheap' prices being quoted here are more than ten times the cost of the passport.
Re: Italians, yeah, there's not that much widespread English spoken, even in Rome. Of course, I was trying to speak Italian, so that may have skewed my sample.
In the Netherlands, on the other hand? Fucking crazy, everyone speaks perfect English.
My own anecdotal experience, encountering college students from Europe [the halls of residence I lived in in my first two years at university were about 40% EU students] is that, as Knecht says, good English is partly correlated with the relative size of the home country. Also, people from germanic [in the linguistic] sense are significantly better than from countries with romance languages. As you'd probably expect.
34: And it's just tremendous that there is so much palpable differentness, in my case right outside my door. I live just off Devon and the experience is wonderful, and has grown more so in the nearly 20 years I've lived here.
And yeah, outside Paris, people in France don't usually speak English. Again, though, I was trying to speak French, so I may be wrong here too.
That kind of stuff bugs me. Learn the language of the country you're in, people.
I wouldn't say that it bugs me, because the existence of FOB immigrants says positive things about a society, but it does cause me to sympathize with those whose lack of facility in English limits their scope for advancement.
Contra ogged and the Minutemen, I don't believe there is a signficant population of immigrants that refuses to learn English out of spite or lack of interest.
Among American expat communities abroad, by contrast, this attitude is quite widespread.
36 would be a good reason for me not go. At least, it's occurred to me that I don't want to travel to the US enough to put up with the potential inconvenience.
The only European country I have any experience with is Spain, and my impression was a lot like what LB describes for Italy. Hardly anyone (outside of the UK-oriented resort towns on the Mediterranean coast) spoke English, even in Madrid.
This thread is making me really antsy for another trip abroad. Damn you people to hell! I've got the travel bug so bad.
Learn the language of the country you're in, people.
Or as Radio Raheem said in Do the Right Thing, speak fucking English.
Our government should also give thought to providing a less terrifying and arbitrary experience for foreign travelers looking to take advantage of tourism in the US
Case in point: Logan Airport recently installed big screen TVs in the immigration waiting area with LOUD, BLARING speakers that are permanently tuned to CNN. If you come in with the evening peak of international arrivals, your welcome greeting is either Glenn Beck or Lou Dobbs raving about foreigners. It's appalling.
And that, of course, is the least of a foreigner's worries in the immigration hall.
I don't think the existence of non-English enclave is a bad thing for the FOB immigrants, because I think it's wildly optimistic to think that an average adult immigrant is going to pick up fluency. Their kids should learn English (better for mobility and advancement), but Oma not learning English doesn't really harm anything.
Or as Radio Raheem said in Do the Right Thing, speak fucking English.
Well, I didn't put it that way because I don't want to let traveling/expat Americans off the hook.
To add on to 22 and 30, I hate to say this stuff because I don't want to be the person who is like "you say you can't afford travel, but you really can!" 'cause that's bullshit and not true.
But I've found that if, instead of thinking you can't afford it, which you can't really, at any particular time, you make it a priority and plan ahead, it can happen.
I don't make very much money at all right now, but every time I get paid I put a couple hundred dollars into a savings account that it's a pain for me to get money out of (such that I won't do it unless it's some kind of emergency). I only started a couple months ago, and in a few months I'll have enough money such that I'll be able to go to Paris in March, which is what I really really really want to do.
48: It'll be interesting to see if the bureaucratic barriers to tourism will be strong enough to overcome the cheapness of US travel for Europeans given the relationship between the dollar and the Euro.
Don't they cost a fortune now because they've installed all kinds of transistorized whatnot, which craps out the first time you get stuck in the rain (never happens when traveling, of course) and keeps you from getting back into the U.S. without a bout of waterboarding to prove you are not now nor have ever been a terraist?
All airport televisions in public areas are the tool of Satan.
When I went to Italy, I only knew a few words in Italian. I offered to speak French or German in addition to English, but nobody knew either of them.
I had to have my passport replaced in 2000, because my dog chewed up large portions of it. There's a line on my passport about its being a replacement for a mutilated passport.
I lost my passport when it was in a bag that got stolen from a conference at GW. It was then found in a drug bust. Luckily, they didn't think that I was connected to the dealers. The Maryland police googled my name, contacted my college which then contacted me asking me to get in touch with the police. By that point it had been forwarded to Homeland Security. Homeland Security had found my yahoo e-mail account. When I called Homeland Security, they had my address already and asked me whether I wanted my passport back. I did, so they sent it by overnight mail. I guess that I got my money's worth.
Oh, and the other part of my expected Paris fund is my tax return, which, because I'm a huge fucking dork, I've already calculated exactly how much it will be (this requires figuring out your total income and total withholding, and basically actually filling out the tax forms. I have no life.).
54. Just get the sunglasses from Roddy Piper.
25/38: sure, I don't think it's causal, just correllated. I just meant it's a more sensible argument that implying `americans are stupid'. There are lots of people in america who can't afford interanational travel. There are also lots of people who can, but don't because they would rather not go anywhere where people might not speak english and they might not be able to find an mcdonalds easily.
All airport televisions in public areas are the tool of Satan Time Warner.
They offer the TV's for free, or even pay a small bribe to the airport, on the stipulation that they always be tuned to CNN airport network.
They are even starting to do the same thing in non-public settings as a means to drive up the ratings of CNN. Our office lounge has a nice flat screen acquired under just such a program. It is typically tuned to soap operas.
48- Yeah, but it doesn't matter since the immigrants can't understand Beck if they don't speak English.
I was in Philly last weekend and I was going to go to Geno's, but they have some seriously xenophobic shit on the wall (beyond just the "speak English" signs) so I went to Pat's instead.
I found Italian to be much more useful in Albania than in Italy.
58 There are also lots of people who can, but don't because they would rather not go anywhere where people might not speak english
See, I think that is an unfair assumption. There is alot to see in this country, and one does not have to travel abroad to do it!
Also- alot of EU travel is from cold to warm, not checking in at the Louvre.
There are also lots of people who can, but don't because they would rather not go anywhere where people might not speak english and they might not be able to find an mcdonalds easily.
Another big factor: we don't get any vacation. If all you have is six or seven precious days off, you might not want to waste half of it on a long haul flight with jet lag. It's no accident that the most traveled people on earth are the Germans, with their 6 weeks of union-guaranteed leave and their union gauranteed "vacation money" (essentially, a 13th month's salary paid in the summer).
A counterexample is the French, who also have generous leave, but tend to restrict their travel to La Francophonie.
TLL, I'm talking about the opinions of actual people I've met, so it's unfair to assume that's *all* that is going on, but it isn't like it doesn't exist.
Sure, there is a lot too see in north america. That doesn't mean there isn't a lot too see elsewhere, that you can't see here. And that the process of stretching yourself a bit more isn't worthwhile. Many americans would benefit a lot from a trip really outside their usual day to day, in ways that are not possible travelling in north america. There are lots of good reasons not to travel internationally, too ...
I was just pointing out that the US is a bit xenophobic and self involved, and that while people connecting that to the lack of passports isn't correct, but it's not as risible as `look how stupid americans are, they don't have passports'.
63 is part of my problem- we could afford to travel more, but I have no vacation days left this year. Also the kids don't sleep well when we travel, our ltrip to the Caribbean this spring was less than restful. We try to go places with extended family = free babysitters.
I don't want to let traveling/expat Americans off the hook
Of course I agree with this, but all my experience tells me, fat fucking chance.
It's not the price that keeps me away from international travel, it's the idea of being cooped up on a plane for, what, ten hours at a time? Domestic air travel has become a more and more hellish experience over the last seven years for me. I can only assume that holds for international travel as well. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm turning down a trip to Italy because of this.)
After being stuck on the runway at La Guardia for over three hours last summer, I decided I just couldn't bear the prospect of a trans-atlantic flight.
You know what was cool about my parents, that I hope I can emulate some day? With 3 youngish kids, they left us all with Grandma (my dad's mom, a total fucking saint, who had raised 8 kids total, so 3 was nothin') and went off to Europe for a month. My mom a schoolteacher, so she had the summer off, and my dad self-employed so he could do whatever he wanted.
67: I think most of the hell is in the airports, so a longer flight shouldn't really be any worse, if you see what I mean.
You didn't need a passport, just proof of citizenship and picture ID, to enter Canada, even by air. It wasn't required until the beginning of 2007.
And that really pisses me off. As a kid, living on the Canadian-American border, we used to drive into Canada to buy groceries! Nothing says 'Paper Curtain' like needing a passport to enter Canada.
In my experience it's the connections, not the flight, that makes me want to murder people.
67: Go to London. At 7 hours from NYC or other eastern locations, it's not much longer than flying from NYC-LA. Plus, they feed you, and there's free alcohol, and movies. These things make it less hellish than domestic flights.
70: I thought you only needed a passport to fly into/out of Canada. You can still get by with ID/Birth Certificate when crossing by car, right?
67: If you're on a 10-hour or longer flight, a number of airlines have started setting up self-service beverage/snack stations, so you can get up and walk around a bit. It makes a long flight much more pleasant.
(OTOH, I'm planning a trip to Italy next summer, and trying to decide if it's worth shelling out for a business class ticket. It's goddamn expensive, but just in that sweet spot where I wonder if the expense can be justified...)
Growing up with a flight-attendant mother was great -- we traveled a lot (short trips -- we'd come along with her and hang out whereever she was flying to for the layover). I've only been overseas a few times as an adult, partially because paying for airfare seems wrong.
67: US domestic flights are the worst this way of any I've experienced. Not that international is exactly a laugh riot, but I definitely wouldn't extrapolate from US domestic experience. I've fared far better tofrom europe, for example; multiple trips, different carriers. All of my worst flying experiences are us domestic (canadian domestic is a little better, ime)
OT: A question for our UK readers. I'm streaming Radio 3 on my computer, and I just heard that the Queen's speech outlined proposals to extend beyond 28 days the length of time that terrorism suspects may be held. Why is the Government doing this?
The U.S. is so bad in this area that I have no leg to stand on in criticizing the British Government, but ti still pains me to see Gordon Brown move in this direction.
73: For now, yes. In 2008, you'll need a passport (or one of those border pass thingies) to cross. Because otherwise the terrorist illegals will win.
Airports prioritize international or transcontinental flights over shorter one--you're actually a lot less likely to sit on the tarmac for several hours. I would advise direct flights, though.
Christing fucking hell I had forgotten how angry I was at US immigration the week before last. Two BLOODY HOURS!!!! standing around. They were so bloody slow. It seriously does make one try to avoid doing it.
btw, Yanks, don't be offended at the passport thing. The presumed causation is the other way; we don't think that you refuse to get passports because you're such morons - it's more that you don't bother to get passports, for entirely sensible reasons given above, but that the lack of foreign travel then makes you stupider than you need to be. This has been a diplomatic mission on behalf of me.
Why is the Government doing this?
nobody fucking knows. To look tough. Basically, because we don't have a written constitution.
Actually, I forgot to mention that Canadian immigration are in my experience both a) much, much arsier than US and b) much more inclined to single out anyone even a little bit darker than themselves for a special going-over.
68 - My parents used to dump me at my grandparents' house to travel, too. That's one of the things that I worry is going to be a bad side-effect of not getting married and having kids youngish, like they did. By the time I get around to having some kids, I don't know if they'll be in the shape to watch them.
53 -
I don't think they've rolled out the new books with the ICs yet in the US. That should definitely add expense, and the books themselves are not cheap either, nor are the holographic overlays. Material costs for the new ones should be at least $20/book.
The real expensive ones are the European ones (Dutch, Finish and Czech so far) that have a PVC holder-page with an embedded chip. They're laser-engraved rather than printed, so the personalization equipment costs millions as well. I can't see how a Dutch citizen is going to be able to get a new passport outside the Netherlands - I doubt an embassy is going to have a $1/2 million passport production system.
(I used to write control software for passport personalization machines.)
Actually, I forgot to mention that Canadian immigration are in my experience both a) much, much arsier than US and b) much more inclined to single out anyone even a little bit darker than themselves for a special going-over.
True, in my experience.
re: 77
The short answer is because they are authoritarian bastards. They originally asked for a much longer period. When the legislation was first introduced, the 28 day period was a compromise. They want to work around that compromise now.
My passport is about to expire, and I don't care to get a new one. I'm more and more convinced that traveling abroad is overrated. At least there's no reason for me to think it's my duty. I used to do some, and it was okay, but that was when I was looking for a job, or had all kinds of time to fuck around.
Meantime I can see tribal guys with penis gourds on basic cable. I don't think running around a foreign capital for a week with a checklist of sights or "experiences" is going to broaden my outlook on things.
67: Long flights are hell. A friend gave me an Ambien to knock me out during my last flight to Europe. Didn't work at all.
86: I used to agree, until I saw The Virgin of the Rocks for myself.
re: 86
I sort of sympathise with that in the sense that the times I've really enjoyed being somewhere and done more than just check off the sights, I've been there for a couple of weeks or more.
The short answer is because they are authoritarian bastards.
This has been an installment of short answers to unnecessarily complicated questions.
And dsquared, I'm quite confident that UK immigration is just as much a pain in the rear to non-EUians as US immigration is to you. In fact it's worse. Unless things have changed recently, or my memory plays me false, there's one line for citizens and permanent residents at US immigration; at UK immigration, permanent residents go in with the day-trippers and other tourist trash.
Canadian immigration are in my experience both a) much, much arsier than US
I'm a little surprised to read this, not because I've had particularly friendly experiences with Canadian immigration officials but rather because my experiences with their American counterparts have been almost universally really unpleasant.
When I went to the PRC from Hong Kong there were three lines, Chinese, Foreigers and overseas Chinese. You could have been sixth generation San Francisco, but if you looked Chinese, third line for you.
Canadian immigration are in my experience both a) much, much arsier than US
By my experience, it is true, and by report of Canadian acquaintances, Canadian officials are obstreperous even to their own citizens.
86: It's also a little Euro-centric, in that an American who travels to any of the various small North American islands or Mexico or central America isn't properly cultured, but a college kid on a one week spring break trip is, and a Frenchman doesn't have to travel to Beijing to prove he's worldly. (How many EU citizens travel outside the EU?)
re: 90
When my wife and I were first married, she wasn't an EU citizen. Immigration wasn't that bad [we travelled a few times together before we actually got married]. She queued longer than me, but it was more like 20-30 minutes for her versus 2 minutes for me, rather than excessive waits.
Possibly it's much worse at busy times.
Canadian officials have always been very nice to me, even when I've blithely asserted that yes, I'm here to visit my fiance and move him to the U.S. It is true that I'm pale enough to increase Canada's whiteness quotient, though, so it wouldn't surprise me if that wasn't universal.
Whereas the American officials always seem annoyed that I'm returning. Dude, you have to let me in, drop the tough guy act.
Immigration wasn't that bad.... She queued longer than me
My God, nattarGcM, with that tolerance for queueing you're practically English.
81/84: Out of dozens and dozens of interactions with both, I really have to say this isn't my experience at all.
I have found that in the US service, the US/mexico border seems to have more assholes than the US/canada service. But that might be sample bias, i've been on the northern border far more often than the southern.
Overall, the instance of assholeness in canadian vs. us is about even, with the most extreme examples both from us (very authoritarian, very, very assholeish).
My experience on being singled out is slightly worse on the US side, but this is not a color of skin thing. My experience traveling with people who are visible minorities (or look close enough) has been about even, with both cases meaning an elevated chance of being singled out.
and by report of Canadian acquaintances, Canadian officials are obstreperous even to their own citizens.
Not my experience at all. But I'm certainly prepared to believe dsquared's claim that Canadian customs officials are too inclined to "single out anyone even a little bit darker than themselves for a special going-over."
I'm pale as milk, but I have been singled out by gate security on at least three occasions in the last five years for "routine random inspections."
Canadian officials are obstreperous even to their own citizens.
Modulo the use of obstreperous I'm not familiar with, if I understand what you are saying I would definitely say is more characteristic of US service than Canadian.
99: This is my experience with both sets of customs officials ... they'll more likely target you if you are dark skinned.
Overall though, I'd definitely say the canadians are more pleasant to deal with, though they both have their assholes.
I'm just relaying the anecdotes I have heard, but there was a sense that Canadian officials always acted unduly suspicious of Canadians who'd been visiting America.
This may have had something to do with cross-border shopping (also known, by uncharitable persons, as "smuggling"), the incidence of which might have shifted in recent years.
100: That used to happen to me every time I flew in the couple years after 9/11. I figured I must have looked like the sort of person they could point to when accused of profiling to claim that they weren't.
100: Really? I think I've inherited my father's air of distracted harmlessness, because U.S. Customs has never been all that unpleasant. One agent and I had a pretty friendly conversation looking up what foodstuffs I was allowed to bring home from Scandinavia (pretty much nothing except chocolate).
103: Okay, yeah. I do think the US guards are more lax about going over the spending limits and etc.
My sister-in-law's father is banned from Canada for life, somehow. He got caught trying to leave with a very small amount of weed that he'd picked up during his marimba band tour in BC.
I will say one thing in defense of U.S. immigration: they use FCFS queues, unlike certain other countries I could name, where you have to ask yourself "Do I get in line behind with the guy with the turban, or behind the family that looks like they might be applying for asylum?"
One of the great failures of the Al Gore vice presidency was letting management consultant types loose on the INS as part of the "Reinventing Government" initiative. They decided that it would make a lot of sense to "push responsibility down the chain" and "flatten hierarchies", the result of which is that every GS-7 border inspector has the essentially unreviewable authority to put a stamp in your passport barring you from entry into the country (if you are a foreigner) ever again. So no matter how much they suck, be *scrupulously* polite to them.
106: The drug laws are an absolutely mess over that sort of thing, with the problem being that the line between 'personal use, illegal but not a big nightmare' and 'trafficking' is not at all intuitive. There are stories of people who got fined $25 for being caught with weed discovering years later (usually upon trying to immigrate) that as far as INS is concerned, they're drug dealers and have a lifetime ban.
106: How did canadian customs catch him leaving? Wouldn't that be US customs (in which case, much *much* worse for him these days. Dunno when he was caught)
103/107: I suspect this is true, but charging you tax by law hardly rates as unpleasantness compared to, say, waving a pistol in your face.
Given that New Hampshire is on the Canadian border, you would think one of the more desperate presidential candidates would get some good will by saying "If elected I'll roll back the stupid passport to Canada rule."
Unfortunately, that would open said candidate up to looking soft on Canadian terrorists.
100, 104: My father has the impression he gets searched in-depth more than chance would suggest, and assumes that it's for Cala's reasons -- they profile darkskinned people, and then grab the platonic ideal of 'honkey' to look balanced about it. As the platonic ideal of honkey, Dad gets searched a lot.
108: This is a very good point. The ratio of competence & training to power of US customs officers is really astonishing.
The TN visa thing is amusing too, unless you get caught on the wrong side of a bad decision.
Canadians are more pleasant to deal with, though they both have their assholes
I will make the general observation that, IME, the Canadian border inspectors in Quebec tend to be more brusque than in the English speaking provinces. Some of them warm up a little when you speak French.
110: I think he was leaving, but I may have misunderstood the story. It was sort of a hippie caravan he was traveling in, so the officials probably knew they would find something on them.
the platonic ideal of honkey
This has always been my assumption -- it happens when I'm traveling alone, and looking like it won't take much time to search me, and in all likelihood won't entail finding anything.
I should add, though, that even so I'd be surprised if I am searched more often than persons of greater swarth.
108: It's not quite that simple, but it's pretty close. They have to have a reason to give you a lifetime ban but 'material misrepresentation' is usually something easy to stick to someone. It's gotten worse because post 9/11, the border control guys and the rest of immigration are under two different hierarchies with two sets of powers.
Pre 9/11, if shivbunny had come across on his fiance visa, they would have been able to give him a work permit and start all sorts of processing. These days, the ability to do work permits isn't permitted, and they know it, and are a little pissed about it.
I should add, though, that even so I'd be surprised if I am searched more often than persons of greater swarth.
Right, you're probably getting searched more than imperfect realizations of the Form of Honkitude, but not as much as people actually being directly profiled.
115: Ah, I see.
Since `zero tolerence' laws were put into effect (are they still being prosecuted? I don't know) the canada -> us direction is much more problematic than the other way around, but that came into effect in the 90's I think.
Plenty of things will bar you entry in either direction, including most (all?) felonies.
imperfect realizations of the Form of Honkitude
I suppose I can take some Platonic consolation in the implication, here.
As the platonic ideal of honkey, Dad gets searched a lot
I'll be watching for this, as I'm in slol's class for whiteness. I've never had any troubles anywhere that I remember except waiting. And everybody had to do that. I'm very patient and slow to take offense, though, and maybe my wife remembers it differently.
It's gotten worse because post 9/11, the border control guys and the rest of immigration are under two different hierarchies with two sets of powers.
Ironically, Bush proposed separating the INS into an immigration service division and an enforcement division during the 2000 campaign, and this was seen as a sensible, humane gesture directed at burnishing his image with the Latinos.
What emerged from the homeland security bill looks superficially like that policy, but is in fact much worse for border-crossers than the status quo ante, because the new CBP has been retooled as a terrorist-fighting agency, and the burden of that presumption falls on travelers.
Fwiw, I've been pulled out not only in the security line, but actually in the boarding line.
Storytime! Plenty of things 'should' bar you in either direction. All 'crimes of moral turpitude', which is felonies + bonus drug crimes, mostly. One of the weird things with Canada is that Canadians don't need visas to travel to the U.S., so that check until recently didn't happen. I know of a guy in his 50s who traveled back and forth to the U.S. for years with no hassle who has run into a giant roadblock with his fiance visa (American girlfriend) because thirty years ago, he was charged with stealing a car he had borrowed from a friend who blah blah falling out....
Anyhow, when it went through the Canadians courts, the courts believed him, so his conviction and sentencing amounted to a 'you're technically guilty but god this is silly', pay a fine sort of punishment. On his record, however, it's listed as grand theft auto, and the U.S. uses the maximum penalty possible to calculate whether you're banned from the country.
So after years of traveling back and forth, he's banned. The truly bizarre thing is that to get his fiancee visa, he has to file a waiver, which will take a year to process, but to travel to visit the U.S., he just had to get a good character letter from the Canadians. He is a better man than I; he's waiting out the waiver in Canada.
It's not quite that simple, but it's pretty close. They have to have a reason to give you a lifetime ban but 'material misrepresentation' is usually something easy to stick to someone.
Bingo! It's the fact that the authority is all but unreviewable that makes it so pernicious. If the inspector makes a determination that you have made a material misrepresentation, you have virtually no chance of having that decision overturned, and you will probably be denied access to the courts unless you have a very expensive lawyer.
The sad part is that it prefigures a lot of the later M.O. of the Bush administration: leave your rights on the books unchanged, but strip them of all meaning by depriving you of any legal remedy when they are violated.
leave your rights on the books unchanged, but strip them of all meaning by depriving you of any legal remedy when they are violated.
why change your playbook if you're winning.
125: And there's really no rhyme or reason. Most of the time, they're worried about immigrant intent, and the 'nice' thing for them to do is to allow you to voluntarily revoke your request for admittance. Then nothing goes in the file, and you get sent on the next plane back home.
But say you said "I'm here to visit friends", but you looked nervous, and then they questioned you, and found you were here to see your girlfriend. If they're in a bad mood, they're denying you entry, and recording that you lied.
Which is why the first question when someone says 'hi my boyfriend wasn't allowed to enter the U.S. when he last tried to visit, will we have a problem?' has to be what did they write down???
He is a better man than I; he's waiting out the waiver in Canada
That would be hard for me, because family tradition for as long as I have records have treated the border with disdain. I've told you my grandfather worked here for years.
Early in The Maine Woods T. encounters "a province man," a New Brunswicker, who paid little attention to the border. That's what my family was for 200 hundred years, which is why some of them were at Little Round Top; just couldn't stay away from a big show.
Driving back from Canada with a tattooed and shady-looking friend also 25y.o. it was obvious that we were singled out for some half-assed searching for drugs. We had to open the trunk, which I didn't see happening to any of the cars in front of us in line, and he rummaged around in the suitcases and backpacks before eventually finding an Altoids tin, which he carefully opened and said "Aha, Altoids. Just like it should be." and put it back.
Fortunately he didn't bring out the Peace Bridge Citrus Beagle to find the contraband fresh fruit which I mentioned bringing into the US in an earlier thread.
I've never had anything worse than moderate annoyance crossing between Washington and BC. The worst was on the Canadian side--the guy was convinced I must have guns in the beat-up old pickup I was driving, searched the hell out of me, then charged me tax on maybe $10 worth of stovepipe bits when he finally gave up on the search--but overall the Canadians have tended to be more pleasant.
When I was young and stupid, I accidentally smuggled a 4 foot bong in and out of Canada. I'd forgotten that it was behind the seat. My memory was not so good in those days....
here's a line on my passport about its being a replacement for a mutilated passport.
I've got this too because my old passport was coming apart. UK immigration in 2005 read the line and accused me of mutilating the old one myself. The guy didn't seem to believe me when I told him the old one got worn out from being carried around for months in my pockets.
Oh, and the funny thing about the questioning I got was that the guy wanted me to name museums in order to prove my touristic intentions. I ended up mentioning some artist, maybe Turner or some other relatively well-known 19th century painter, and he had no idea who he was.
eb, that's really weird that the guy asked you to name museums. There are a lot of other things a tourist might want to see. Alternatively, your knowledge of museums might signify that you were an art dealer bent on organizing a heist.
In context, it made more sense because he wanted to know what I was going to do and I mentioned sightseeing. I was still surprised by the question.
I save my heists for Norway.
I've been denied entry to Canada, and given a pretty serious runaround entering the US. The most harrowing, though, was a successful crossing north-to-south. The official thought the little vial of eye drops significant, perhaps indicative of some bad habit. Waved it about, theatrically. I was utterly unconcerned about his opinion what the drops might signify, knowing that I had nothing on my person (and I was afoot) that would implicate me in the way he thought. The terror that he'd use the eye drops, though, was nearly mortal: that wasn't visine.
IDP, it's possible that one of my ancestors was a deserter from the Revolutionary War who fled to Canada. His son as born just across the border in Sutton, Quebec. Emersons still lives there.
I am so pitiably unknowledgable. I'm guessing that the obvious thing to have been in the eyedrops was acid, but is there something else even more obvious?
What I was going to say is that two Finnish folk musicians were treated quite badly by immigration here in Minnesota a few days ago. Help for 5 hours and spoken to abusively. No apparent reason except that they were hippyish and enplaned in Amsterdam. It sounds as though the migra people were utterly stupid gooons.
I'm quite confident that UK immigration is just as much a pain in the rear to non-EUians as US immigration is to you
my perception is utterly warped here, because the majority of flights I take are intra-EU, economy class ones, and so I stand in the queue of EU citizens, boiling with rage as the one or two Americans who happened to be on the flight saunter across to their "non-EU desk". Whereas if I'm flying transatlantic it's usually business class with work, so I'm at the front of the UK/EU queue and never see how things develop.
In the hall I was in in JFK, I'm not sure that the FCFS queue was actually helping things; the advantage of monoqueue discipline (which I am usually in favour of, to the point of having reserved some webspace for founding the European Monoqueue Institute) tends to boil away when the time taken between the front of the monoqueue and the service station is a material proportion of the total processing time.
I've found immigration at EU airports to be pretty mellow. (I am a US citizen.) Flying into JFK sucks ass.
137: Emerson, not to pry into your family background, but do you mind if I try to find these folks in the nineteenth-century Canadian census returns? I don't mean an in-depth search, but just a cursory glance. Yes, I'm a geek about the census.
When I was in Helsinki, ashamed at not knowing word one of Finnish, I thought I could try speaking German initially and switch to English if necessary, thus tricking people into thinking I was an ugly German tourist instead of an ugly American.
As it happened the people in my room in the hostel the last night I was there were speaking German; one of them was Russian and the other Bavarian.
Sure. I've also found out that Sutton Junction used to be called "Emerson."
Samuel Emerson, married to Mary Philbrick, b. 1750, Rev. War vet., died 1775-1780 approx.
John Emerson, born 1773.
John L. Emerson, born Sutton N.H. OR Sutton Quebec 1799.
Charles C., went to Iowa.
In 1873 one John J. Emerson was born in Sutton Junction, Quebec.
I'm flying 18 hours direct each way to new york alone with my 6 and 3-year-old and staying for only 9 days. because I am crazy. no, it's not actually so bad; they are great travelers and singap/ore airlines truly is awesome. I wish I could afford business class. I don't need many more trips to get the miles for the upgrade, I think. still, it's daunting to leave your house and think, "I won't get someplace and be able to lie down for almost 24 solid hours." definitely need to maintain focus not to drink on the plane. upside is I won't have a wicked bad hangover 10 hours into the flight!
My non EU wife applied for a tourist visa to enter France. The French consulate refused the visa because the application had been typed in block capitals rather than hand-written in block capitals.....
I called the consulate and asked the visa official for the name of his superior. He replied - and this is absolutely true - "Ze President of Fronce"
With no time left we flew to London, took a ferry to Belgium and just drove over the border into France, saving ourselves a sizeable visa fee.....
Revenge sometimes can be so sweet.
144: I found some Emersons in Sutton, Quebec in the 1851 census. The older folks born in the US, with the younger ones born in Lower Canada. They were Wesleyan Methodists.
This is from Sutton in the 1881. Interesting that the kids had different religions, but I suppose that's just telling us what they were baptized.
Name Marital Status Gender Ethnic Origin Age Birthplace Occupation Religion
N.P. EMERSON M Male English 41 Q Farmer E Adventist
Millie EMERSON M Female English 32 Q Congregationalist
Charlie EMERSON Male English 12 Q Congregationalist
Minnie EMERSON Female English 10 Q Congregationalist
John EMERSON Male English 7 Q E Adventist
William EMERSON Male English 3 Q E Adventist
Samuel EMERSON W Male English 80 USA Universalist
Eva LANE M Female 21 Q
The same family was still in Sutton in 1901 -- the father's name is given as Nelson, and John's birthdate as 30 Oct 1875, and his religion as CofE. Nelson was still in Sutton in the 1911 as well.
Adventist is a revival religion which converted mainline people. Congregational is expected. Universalist is a Congregational spinoff, I think. No problem.
This is a more detailed version of what I figured out. Fitting in John Emerson and his son John L (b. 1799, possibly in Sutton Que.) is the hard part. John L's son moved to Iowa from NH or MA.
149: Looking at ages, would John L. be a brother of Samuel's?
Might could be.
I have no more info. If there's an Emerson genealogist in the area the connection might be found.
149: I'll email you the 1851 info (digitized image of relevant census page).
From 1851 census: this John Emerson born in New Hampshire circa 1792. St Armand very close to Sutton, in the same county:
Name: John Emerson
Gender: Male
Age: 60
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1792
BIRTHPLACE: New Hampshire
Province: Canada East (Quebec)
District: Missisquoi County
District Number: 16
Sub-District: St Armand
Sub-District Number: 221
Page: 51
Line: 34
Roll: C_1127
Schedule: A
He lives with wife Hannah, born in the US circa 1793.
I was going through the publicly available New Brunswick censusesiusi, and found someone named "Skipton McGaw". Then in another record it seemed that his real name was "Skiffington McGaw", which is still awesome but not as catchy.
The one census I found mentioning my gre-gre-grandfather say that he was not of the nationality or the religion we thought he was. Very similar, but different. Also, he had a very similar, but different last name.
When are you going to be in NY, alameida?
154: Between the enumerator and the enumerated, there was always ample room for error and misunderstanding. Many people were illiterate, of course, and wouldn't have a "correct" spelling for their own surnames, and anyway, surname spellings were not yet standardized. Often, the census taker would be spelling out a name phonetically.
Skiffington McGaw is a great name.
because I am crazy. no, it's not actually so bad
...being crazy.
The lot I live on was platted in about 1860. The first four transactions on the deed list the owner (a French-American Union veteran probably named de Rossier) under four different spellings.
My great-great-grandfather appears in the 1880 census with both his first and last names spelled in a heavily anglicized way indicating that they were both pronounced completely differently from how we pronounce them now (and, presumably, how they were pronounced before he emigrated to the US).