The problems Canadians have encountered while crossing the border, have prompted Maclean’s, a Canadian publication, to write an article on what Canadians can expect when crossing the border to the United States. Border control officers have always had a lot of leeway when questioning or searching people who want to enter the country, the difference being that until now they have generally used restraint. That has changed with the election of Trump as president. As the article explains:
“There’s no restrictions on what an officer can ask you because there’s no telling what will guide an officer to follow a particular line of questioning to determine if that traveller is admissible for not,” says Dave Long, a public affairs officer with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Buffalo, N.Y. And while that’s unchanged from long before Trump took office, tales from the border since his inauguration clearly show some officers are taking their unrestricted-question mandate down some odd paths.
The article goes on to give some examples of people who have been turned away at the border, some cases which have been documented by others on this blog in recent months.
As a Caucasian who was born in Canada, I wouldn’t be all that worried about traveling to the U.S. for this reason, although I’m sure officials at the border could make it a bit of a hassle. I can understand completely, though, why someone who was a dual citizen of another country, or who was a Canadian Muslim, or simply did not look white enough, would be very reluctant to travel south of the border.