border visit 30 october 2022

A pleasant autumn afternoon. Seasonably warm.

The first taxi arrived at about 3.40 pm bring four men. Two were related - an adult son and his father, from Columbia. A third was a young Venezuelan man and a fourth was a man of African origin, English speaking.  They crossed quite quickly into Canada.

The second taxi brought a family from Nigeria - mother, father, a 10 month old baby on the mother's back, a girl about 6 years old and a boy about 11 years old. They had likely come directly from Nigeria and had a lot of luggage. The father was very anxious to manage all of it. We helped the girl and boy to organize carrying backpacks and some smaller luggage. The officer was very insistent that they must bring all the luggage over in one go and could not go back over the border to get more. This is of course very stressful for a family with heavy bags.  It has always seemed nonsensical to impose this on refugees. They bring what they can in order to be able to start a new life with at least some of their belongings.  According to the taxi driver he has  seen  an RCMP officer who actually goes across into the US to help people bring their luggage over, more than once! This was a heartening piece of news.  In the end the family crossed into Canada without incident, the woman saying God bless you to us as she crossed.

In a short while the final taxi came from the bus station bringing a Haitian woman. She had very little baggage and was very nervous. We were able to reassure her and she marched bravely to the edge. The RCMP officer said very little and the woman crossed into Canada.

In all we saw only 10 people today - 7 adults and three children.