Embassy deputy backs U.S. border regulations

WASHINGTON – It is a sovereign right of the United States if it chooses to tighten its regulations regarding those who cross its borders, according to a Canadian Embassy official.

Addressing the controversial Oct. 11 arrest of Canadian Michel Jalbert of Pohenegamook, Quebec, after he drove over the U.S.-Canadian border to fuel up at Ouellette’s Gaz Bar in Maine, the official said that Canada should not presume to protest any legitimate laws the United States may choose to adopt and enforce.

“The fact that the U.S. has decided to limit access or adopt more rules and regulations is a U.S. prerogative,” Bertin Cote, deputy to the Canadian ambassador, said Monday during a wide-ranging news conference.

“People who have the habit of crossing the border will have to observe them, and no one is to argue with them as long as they don’t discriminate.”

Jalbert was arrested and spent 35 days in Maine jails after stopping at the gas station. Border agents visiting the gas station spied a shotgun in Jalbert’s truck and arrested him for being an armed illegal alien.

The 32-year-old logger recently had been duck hunting in the Quebec forests and had a 20-gauge, single-shot shotgun and 10 shells with him in his truck.

A federal magistrate released Jalbert on Nov. 14 on $5,000 cash bail. He is scheduled to return to Maine in January to stand trial in the U.S. District Court in Bangor. Jalbert faces charges of illegal entry into the United States, gas smuggling, and weapons possession for having a hunting rifle.

If convicted, Jalbert could be sentenced to prison for up to 10 years; however, that sentence could be reduced to six months if the weapons charge is dropped under a “hunting exemption.”

U.S. border officials have said they warned Jalbert twice about first checking with the border patrol before crossing into the United States. The local border station, located a half-mile beyond the gas station in the remote border area, closed an hour before Jalbert stopped at Ouellette’s.

Of the several dozen Canadian customers who stopped at the station on the day of his arrest, Jalbert was the only one to be detained.

Jalbert’s arrest ignited an international media storm and his story made front-page news in the Ottawa Citizen, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the Montreal Gazette.

The Gazette called the arrest of Jalbert “simply cruel” and branded his jailing as “post-Sept. 11 caution run amok.”

While in Ottawa this month for a meeting with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell portrayed Jalbert’s case as an “unfortunate incident,” and assured Canada that his case would receive swift action.

He also noted that Canadians who regularly cross the border for everyday needs should not be concerned of similar treatment. “I don’t expect it to be a problem in the future, nor a pattern,” he said.