Possible illegal immigrants leave car, try to enter U.S. on foot
Published Monday October 19th, 2009
ST. STEPHEN - The RCMP bomb squad stood by in St. Stephen Sunday night as American authorities questioned five people who attempted to enter the United States.
The Canada Border Services Agency closed the Ferry Point Bridge from St. Stephen to Calais, Maine, shortly after 6 p.m. and asked the RCMP to divert traffic. Police at the Calais end of the bridge did the same.
Not only did the police not allow traffic across the bridge but, at the St. Stephen end, they did not allow motorists to drive up Milltown Boulevard past the end of it. Traffic coming one way detoured up Watson Street, the other way up Main Street, to Union Street.
The five people who attempted to cross into the United States are not Canadians and are possibly illegal immigrants - possibly from Afghanistan, RCMP J Division media relations officer Sgt. Claude Tremblay said late Sunday night from Fredericton.
"The reason we closed the bridge is because they left their vehicle and went on foot," Tremblay said.
The RCMP spokesman declined to say precisely where the five people parked the vehicle, but admitted that a person could draw a logical conclusion from the location of the police roadblocks at either end of the bridge.
The authorities decided to close the bridge until they could determine what, if anything, had been left in the vehicle, Tremblay said.
He did not know Sunday night if the American authorities would return the five people to Canada or deal with them in the United States. For that reason he could not say whether to expect court appearances in St. Stephen today.
Police officers still stood guard in the rain at the roadblock late Sunday night.
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Comments (7)
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Enough is enough
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/newsandevents/news/6940.aspx
"The five people who attempted to cross into the United States are not Canadians and are possibly illegal immigrants - possibly from Afghanistan, RCMP J Division media relations officer Sgt. Claude Tremblay said late Sunday night from Fredericton."
They could be innocent tourists who decided to take a stroll into
USA, leaving their car parked on the Canadian side. I have done this myself, as have many others, since it is a short bridge, and an easy walk, with urban area of St Stephen on Canadian side and downtown Calais on the American side. If they were up to something illegal, I am sure that USA border guard interrogation methods will soon determine this, but no word yet on what the outcome is. Far too soon
for people to be jumping the gun to terrorist conclusions.
The authorities were being cautious and rightly so, but as Wallace stated, people leave their vehicle on the Canadian side and walk to Calais (and vice versa) all of the time. Been doing it for over 50 yrs that I am sure of. As a matter of fact it is standard practice when the traffic is heavy. Lots of people feel its quicker to walk over and get that gallon of milk than sit in a line up in both directions.
Times have certainly changed and we tend to be overly cautious, but some of you have these people convicted w/o knowing many if any of the facts.
See Robert C's response above. I think you are mixing and matching on news items here, one from east coast and one from west coast
West coast episode involved a boat, east coast was merely 5 guys walking across an official border crossing.