The U.S. Border Patrol and federal prosecutors are sending a strong message with the arrest and jailing of a Canadian duck hunter. And those who worried that government authorities were losing their capacity for misplaced priorities, overreaction and pigheadedness are greatly relieved.

Michel Jalbert of Pohenegamook, Quebec, was arrested in Estcourt Station, Maine, on Oct 11. According to American officials, the man they nabbed was a convicted criminal – armed, no less – who had entered this country illegally for who-knows-what nefarious purpose. He has been locked up in various Maine jails for nearly a month and, if found guilty of these crimes against homeland security, could remain in stir for several more.

According to reality, Mr. Jalbert, 32, is a hard-working family man who did what he and others in his town have always done and have done for the last 12 years with the written blessing of the U.S. Customs Service – drive 150 feet into U.S. territory to buy gas without first checking in at the U.S. border station, another mile down the road. He did this while on his way to go duck hunting, hence the shotgun. He did this 13 years after being fined $200 for breaking some windows, hence the criminal record.

This follows the arrest in August of another Quebecois for the same offense of gassing up. Danny Ouellette – no gun, no criminal record – spent 11 days in a Maine jail before being deported with a five-year ban on entering the United States. In these security-conscious times, U.S. officials may have good reason to rescind the permission granted in 1990 by the district director of the U.S. Customs service in Maine for Canadians to buy gas in Estcourt Station without checking in. If so, there certainly are more neighborly ways to inform Canadians of this change in policy than by arresting them.

If Mr. Jalbert had gone to the border station first, with gun and rap sheet, he merely would have been turned away and sent back to Canada. Because he followed common and authorized practice, he languishes in jail, separated from his family.

The setting adds to the absurdity. Pohenegamook and Estcourt Station essentially are one community with a yellow line (literally) painted down the middle – some homes actually straddle that line, many families and a lot of friends do as well. The Americans buy their electricity from the Canadians, vice versa for gasoline. The only paved road out of this northernmost tip of Maine is through Quebec and New Brunswick. An armed evildoer could hardly pick a less convenient location from which to launch an attack on this country. Unless U.S. officials promptly free Michel Jalbert and send him home (scolding optional), it will turn out to be a great place from which to launch an attack on common sense.