Easy-crossing days at border long gone Customs tougher since terrorist attacks

CALAIS – “Going over town.”

Used to be that was all you needed to say to a customs officer at the busy border crossings between Calais and St. Stephen, New Brunswick.

“You were waved through,” Assistant City Manager Jim Porter recalled Friday.

Not anymore.

Now you have to show a valid driver’s license or passport even when the customs officer is your next-door neighbor.

“It used to be easy and quick,” Allyson Parks said Friday, describing crossings before Sept. 11.

Parks, who is from Calais, is like countless other border people: married to a Canadian and living in a foreign country. Except people around here don’t think of Canada as a foreign country.

Her mother, sisters and brother live in Calais; she and her husband, in St. Stephen.

Now crossing can be a waiting game.

“This morning I waited 15 minutes to get to work,” she said Friday. “I cut in, too, [on Milltown Boulevard in St. Stephen]. I cut in from a different direction, and it cuts a good 20 to 25 minutes off the wait,” she said.

Parks, like most local people, knows that if you turn right onto the Ferry Point Bridge, you leap in front of tourist traffic waiting in line to make a left-hand turn.

Summer traffic created bottlenecks for both communities again this year.

Traffic was backed up for miles as tourists and trucks waited to re-enter the U.S. at both bridges. “I stayed home more often than I would have normally,” Parks said.

Porter’s wife, Theresa, used to be waved through, too.

“I have family who works at U.S. customs and friends who work at Canadian customs,” she said. Now, even family and friends stop and ask to see identification.

Immediately after the 2001 attacks, crossing the border became a nightmare.

Men and women in combat gear stood ready with rifles. They were on hand to assist U.S. customs officers.

Today, the Maine National Guard is gone, but U.S. Customs officials remain vigilant.

“We really don’t have any special operations planned” for today’s anniversary, said Ted Woo, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“I think that culturally life has changed post-9-11,” Woo said. “The challenge we face on a daily basis is to facilitate the legitimate traveler yet still maintain our vigilance in stopping terrorists crossing the border or weapons of mass effect.”

Two bridges connect Calais with St. Stephen: the downtown Ferry Point Bridge and the Milltown Bridge, near the city’s Industrial Park. Soon the city expects to be home to a third bridge, also located near the city’s Industrial Park.

Now, customs officers in unpainted shacks stand ready to question anybody entering the country.

“Things have loosened up somewhat since then,” Porter, the assistant city manager, said of Sept. 11. “But there are times they have clamped down, and it has affected how freely we cross back and forth because you never know. It could be 9 p.m. on a Sunday night and you’ll have an hour wait. It’s all up to the discretion of customs and [when they decide] to have a clampdown,” he added

Some have suggested that one solution to the pain of crossing would be some kind of E-ZPass, an electronic pass-through system popular at tollbooths in the country. People would apply to the U.S. government for such a device for their cars and then be waved through a special electronic entry gate.

“That would be good,” Porter said. “I’m not sure it’ll be as easy as an E-ZPass. It’ll probably be some kind of retina screening or thumb print, but there’s got to be a way to get local traffic through.”