Foreign neighbors

The United States and Canada in the 1980s and ’90s hold extended negotiations to lower the borders on trade. Diplomats on both sides spend thousands of hours ironing out differences to ease delivery of lumber, agricultural products, beer and a dozen other items. Tourism departments in states and provinces launch aggressive campaigns to lure cross-border vacationers. Maine and other states agree to participate in an electronic monitoring pilot program to expand the hours of rural border crossings.

All of this is done to encourage freer trade, social and cultural exchanges between the two countries. So why is the U.S. House once again trying to make it difficult for Canadians to come here?

Section 110 of the immigration law requires Canadians to fill out entry and exit forms to visit the United States, just as visitors from other nations do. Though approved last year, protests from members of Congress and from Ottawa have delayed it. To someone living in Kansas or Missouri, the requirement probably makes perfect sense. To someone living in North Dakota or Vermont or Maine, it makes no sense at all. For northern states, Canada isn’t a foreign country, it’s the neighborhood down the street.

And just because people here sometimes don’t much appreciate some of the behavior (think lumber and potato subsidies) in that neighborhood doesn’t mean they get out the 8-foot-tall privacy fence.

But that, in effect, is what Congress is contemplating by slowing traffic at the border and adding paperwork for Canadians. The reason for this has mostly to with the Mexican border, which may well have needed tightening. But the rule neglected to exempt Canadians, who always have crossed without filling out forms. A easy repair to the legislation — accomplished by specifically excluding Canadians from its requirements — has been stopped by the thinking of GOP Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, who concluded that Canada, his office told the Boston Globe, was a “gateway for terrorists.”

Well, sure, Canada has sent some fairly burly fellows in tiny bathing suits to Old Orchard Beach, but it is hardly fair to refer to these visitors as terrorists. If the representative is referring to a Palestinian who gained refugee status in Canada then last year was caught allegedly trying to blow up New York subways, it is hardly likely that entrance-form rule would have stopped him.

The relatively low level of surveillance along the world’s longest undefended border has worked exceedingly well for a very long time. Members of Congress from the north, including Maine Rep. John Baldacci, have sponsored legislation that would specifically exempt Canadians from the paperwork of the immigration law. Congress should pass it and stop offending the neighbors.