Tight controls squeezing Campobello Canadians

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, New Brunswick – Diane Woodworth, a teacher at the Campobello Consolidated School, has many reasons to cross the border at Lubec.

“We have to get gas,” she said, noting that the last gas station on Campobello closed about 15 years ago. Islanders have been heading into Lubec to fill up their cars ever since.

“We like to go out to eat. We go to Wal-Mart [in Calais]. We have to get groceries. We can do our banking and voting on the island, but we can’t do much more. Even to get a photo [identification], we have to go to St. Stephen to get that.”

Some days, crossing the border is “like nothing. You’re done in 30 seconds.”

But those days are likely over.

The 1,250 Canadians who live on Campobello are used to stopping to answer questions from the U.S. agents. Now they are sensing additional headaches since last weekend, when more rigid enforcement was imposed.

No photo identification means no crossing – and no exceptions for people age 14 and older. Every license plate is punched into the computer. Every car trunk is searched.

“I went through and the agent called me by my first name, then asked how my wife was doing,” said Peter Mabey, 50, a custodian at the Campobello Consolidated School. “Then he asked me for my photo ID.

“I’m not faulting the officers, because they’re just following a directive from Boston [the regional office for U.S. Border Patrol]. But why can’t they have an express lane for locals, where they wave you through if you have a sticker showing your residency in Campobello? They know us, anyway.”

Del Dinsmore, 61, is an American who has worked as a gardener at the Roosevelt Campobello International Park for 27 years. Daily he stops at the border in both directions.

On Monday, he was asked to come into the office for both an ID and a criminal check – just like the other drivers of every 100th car.

“I had to fill out a questionnaire,” said Dinsmore, who lives in Lubec. “And that’s after I’ve been driving through for 27 years, right? Everybody knows everybody here, but they have a job to do, too.”

Canadians crossing into Lubec ordinarily are delayed by five, 10 or 15 minutes if a line builds up. Americans may get through more quickly, but they still have to endure the wait with everyone else.

Mike Bridges, who has worked as a plumber at the international park for nine years, tries to make it to Whiting by 4:15 each afternoon to pick up his son from after-school care at the Whiting School. If he’s late by 10 or 15 minutes, the teachers realize the delay is probably at the border.

Every time he rides his motorcycle through, he knows the agents will zip open the pack in the back where he stores his rain gear.

“They open it up every day and see the same thing,” Bridges said. “But that’s just part of it. You get used to it.”

Dinsmore figures that he will likely give up going home for lunch in Lubec this summer once the tourists arrive. The park is 1.9 miles from the Lubec side of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Bridge.

“Going through just for lunch would mean too much time in the car,” he said. “I’ll have to start bringing it.”