Why is the government making it harder to go to Canada?

Question

I can understand the desire for border security in Mexico, but that's because there is rampant illegal immigration in Mexico. However, I do not understand why the government is trying to keep people out of Canada. There is no illegal immigration problem involving Canadians. Why would Canadians want to illegally immigrate here when their country is pretty good already? The only conceivable reason Canadians would come to America (other than tourism) would be for decent health care, something they don't get in their own country.

Why is the DHS wasting so much time and money trying to make it harder for people to go to Canada? Could it be that they're trying to keep the American people in America, just like the East Germans tried to keep their people in East Germany?

Answer 1

Two words:

Ahmed Ressam

He was a terrorist who planned to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve in 1999. He was caught coming into the U.S. from Canada at Port Angeles, WA. And it is not that hard to get to Canada... like someone else said, they just want to make sure you are a citizen on your way back in. Passports are pretty ironclad, but last time I checked you can still get in (via land) with a birth certificate and photo ID.

Answer 2

There are people sneaking across from Canada too. The US and Canada both have laws that limit the immigration from certain countries. Some times its easier to get into Canada than the US so they do that and sneak across from there.

Closing 1 border and leaving the other open is just a bad idea. Not all immigrants come through Mexico.

Answer 3

Hello,

All countries retaliate in kind when stringent rules come in to play. The irony for Americans iis that they will need a passport and visa to visit their own country, Alaska in future.

Canada also has had her share of illegal Americans from the draft dodgers of the late 60's to those American panhandlers in Toronto who beat a middle aged fellow to death a few weeks back when he did not give them spare change.

As for terrorists they are not going to send some illiterate peasant from the suburbs of Khandahar and fly him overseas to America with a bomb. So far all terrorists have been legal immigrants, citizens or on student visas so tough security would not have made a difference. In Canada herself those caught in the big plot last year were Canadian citizens, in the London subway bombings; second generation British citizens and the Scottish plotters were landed immigrant doctors brought in cause of a health worker shortage in Britain.

I hear all sorts of horror stories about Canadian health care on US channels we get here. I never have had a problem; my wife has had cancer 15 years back and is still here and "insured" forever; she just survived a car accident that would have been a 200k plus bill but did not cost us a red cent and she pulled through 100% so I'm not complaining; why are others who do not live here and go through it?

Anyway if border crossing gets to inconvienient for me and many others I know, we'll just say piss on Florida, California, Hawaii and the south. We'll go to Cuba, South and central America or many parts of Mexico where the drinks, hotels, meals are much cheaper and the muchachitas so much friendlier!

Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 4

The new passport requirements for reentry into the US certainly do make travel harder into Canada. They also will also cause significant harm to small boarder businesses.

The paranoid and militant feel that tightening the boarder on the South will only lead to terrorists coming down from the North. But if we try to close every security gap, we'll likely bankrupt ourselves, turn our country into a totalitarian state and certainly make a lot of rich industrialists richer.

The electric fence proposed for the Northern boarder sounds ludicrous: a bunch of cameras on posts. Seems like a bunch of nine year olds with bb guns could defeat it. And at a cost you can hardly comprehend only to be made obsolete by next year's technology.

I get very angry just thinking about all this. "Idiots" is the term that always comes to mind. All these expenditures just isolate the US from the world and exasperate its troubles for very questionable and temporary gains in security.

.

Answer 5

The changes passed by the American government have no effect on people going TO Canada. The intent is to increase border security to keep out terrorists. Terrorist can fly to Canada just as easy as they can fly to Mexico. The United States does not put limitations on people LEAVING the US. They put limitations on people entering the US.

Answer 6

The government has no say in getting into Canada. The Canadian government does. The US is making it harder to get (back) into the US from Canada for as they say security reasons concerning terrorism.

Answer 7

Canadians do in fact enter the US illegally. Just nowhere near the scale of those from Mexico and all points south.

One reason would be the Socialized Health Care system in Canada, the very same disaster Hillary wants to bestow on all Americans...nice thought, huh?

Answer 8

Because Atta came through Canada and Canada has much looser asylum laws than we do, for initial presence. Also, everyone might come back speaking funny, eh?

However, it is just a matter of getting a card. Once you do it, it should be easy again, for a Canadian CITIZEN.

Answer 9

According to my point of view the Canadian Govt want to become Canada the moderen one so thats why they used some requirements while applying for imigration but it is not very tough criteria .Every educated person can apply for immigration throgh skilled base visa.

Answer 10

You can leave without a passport, but you can't get back in. Its not the going, its the returning. Their trying to crack down on terrorists and the only way to do that is to completely close the borders down requiring a passport upon re-entry.