Jogger accidentally crosses U.S. border from B.C., gets detained for 2 weeks
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
The ridiculous treatment of the individual in the situation is something we should come down hard on that section of the government. (They should be facing an inquiry about that)
Can you back up that assertion?
The border between the US and Mexico exists because the US and Mexico have different laws (including taxation and benefits). The border is where the US and Mexico have negotiated that one's rules stop holding and the other's rules start holding.
Why do you say so? There's nothing inherently "good" or "just" about nation states. The only nominal support I can find for such an idea is rooted in applying something like Dunbar's Number[1]. But arguably appealing to that is committing a variation of the naturalistic fallacy[2].
The ridiculous treatment of the individual in the situation is something we should come down hard on that section of the government. (They should be facing an inquiry about that)
But who's going to conduct such an inquiry? The government? Oh, wait. It's the old "who watches the watchers?" problem. Me, I don't trust the government to provide oversight of itself. For the same reason I don't trust police to police themselves when it comes to excessive force cases, etc.
Without borders or nations, you're suggesting there will be a universal law. Who's law do you want? Do you want to be forced to wear head coverings, do you want internet censorship? Do you want to have kickbacks from the cartel? Having different nations allows you to understand where there are tradeoffs.
For taxes and things, sure. For oppression of peoples? Probably. To keep undesirable countries citizens out? Sure. To have an excuse not to care about what goes on in other countries? Most definitely.
Travel and freedom of movement and work and choice in where you wind up living? Not really.
But it's not an imaginary line, it's a line that two democratic countries agreed to create to separate them. She inadvertently crossed one of the most important lines that exists, a line that demarcates two sovereign countries that hold wildly different world views. Until such a stateless utopia manifests itself we still need these lines.
I agree on the two week detention being absurd. It should have taken less than a few hours to sort things out.
Sorry, but I can't help but read that as "it's not an imaginary line, it's an imaginary line".
She inadvertently crossed one of the most important lines that exists, a line that demarcates two sovereign countries
A case can be made that "sovereign countries" are imaginary constructs that should be abolished, along with their imaginary lines of demarcation.
I mean, I understand where you're coming from, but what I'm saying is that elevating that line to some concrete status is rooted in a worldview which has no objective reality. We can abolish borders, we just need to come together and muster up the will to do it. Which means, in part, finding solutions to all the problems the statists will use as arguments for preserving their lines.
An exceedingly weak case can be made. It makes for a fun thought experiment but it falls apart really quickly.
Say someone did manage to abolish all the states, why would that not just be the conqueror establishing a new global state? How would you enforce the rule no states allowed? Who would enforce it? If there was no global state to enforce the rule, what stops someone like me from organizing a state and easily conquering the stateless?
>...elevating that line to some concrete status is rooted in a worldview which has no objective reality
I'm curious what worldview you think is rooted in objective reality? To me a world where everyone just gets along and lives in cooperative communes is lacking a foundation in reality.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the state. I do however view it as a necessary evil. Remember, ultimately the state is still just people. Any gripe you have with the state is just a gripe against people with power. Saying that nobody should hold power is a cop out.
The hard part of organizing the human race is trying to determine who should organize us. To that end it seems like a democratic state is more desirable than a hopelessly disorganized commune.
We can abolish borders, but that doesn't seem like a future rooted in reality. Who governs who? Sounds like you want everyone to live under one "nation"...like are you really advocating for world peace?
What laws are you subject to? What protections do you have? These are all dependent on which side of the border you land, therefore you have to set where one side ends and where another begins.
It's a beach. Presumably the part she jogged along is underwater part of the time due to tides and that is why there is no marker.
You seem to be stuck on the label "imaginary" in ways that are unrelated to the article at hand.
edit: if there's some way that we can pick both please feel free to tell everyone.
I have a feeling if she was a Canadian citizen, this would have been a slap on the wrist, and she would've been let back into Canada within hours, if not immediately.
Oh?
One possibility is that the jogger not only wasn't a Canadian citizen, but may not have been a fluent english-speaker either.
This still seems screwed up though.
Ok. Free legal advice: If you a citizen of country A visiting relatives in country B, don't go anywhere near country C without your passport. US authorities acted very reasonably here. Two weeks is not a long time considering she needed confirmation from multiple countries.
And because this person is currently in custody, they cannot be released until they know there aren't any outstanding warrants in any of the three countries involved.
But this does not avoid the fact she violated the law. In legal terms, she deliberately crossed the boarder. She didn't knowingly violate the law, but this isn't someone forced across the boarder against their will. "I didn't see the marker" isn't actually an excuse. Someone in the US has to actively decide not to prosecute. That decision too take time, and won't start until such a person's identity and status has already been assured.
There’s no autonomous machinery that will prosecute someone unless it’s turned off. If nobody in the US did anything, then she would have jogged back into Canada and never have been aware that she stepped outside of its boundaries in the first place.
So, no. Action would have been required to prosecute. No action would have meant no prosecution.
Sure, an improper entry adds some complication. But if her story checks out – passport available for review, low signage at the crossing, in jogging wear, video shows no suspicious packages, well-established addresses/education/career – then perhaps 24-48 hours would be reasonable.
I'm not uniquely blaming US border authorities here – if Canada wouldn't take her back within 24 hours, as someone with proper documents who had just previously been there legally, they share the blame in creating an unreasonable system.
They let her contact her mother, who brought her passport. All that was left was for Canada to say she was in Canada legally.
So, Canada does deserve part of the blame. The article says her mother rushed to the detention center with her passport and was told to submit it to Immigration Canada. I have no idea why it took two weeks for officials on both sides to determine she could go back to Canada; but, it sounds like there was some sort of delay on the Canadian side. Of course, neither side will comment on the case.
The Google Map attached to the story, with photos and annotated positions of the beach and nearest border sign, are highly suggestive her explanation was credible, and should have been self-evidently so to agents on the ground.
As w citizen of a country with visa-free travel to the US, the only question of Canada that seems reasonable would be something like: "Let us know if this person is a fugitive; if we don't hear from you in 12 hours, we'll set them free in the U.S." Then she could walk back to Canada at an official crossing with her passport, and Canada could object to that re-entry if necessary.
No one stopped me. Thanks be to the Schengen Agreement.
Friends of mine, in the glory days of the 1990s, went canoeing in the Boundary Waters. They went to the Canada side and 'claimed' some island for the US in jest.
They didn't get stopped, much less detained for two weeks.
In the same glory days, people on the Maine/Canada border would frequently pass back and forth without a problem. Eg, to get gas in the US, where it was cheaper.
That's why there are still things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskell_Free_Library_and_Opera... . Which, you'll notice, allows people from Canada to enter the door on the US side without going through customs.
So it is not unreasonable that there can be flexibility on what it means to cross the border.
It makes me angry to see a guest of our country (yes Canada) treated this way by our neighbor. You people have to get your shit together and stop treating your friends like criminals.