henric
03-15-2012, 12:54 PM
15/03/2012 8:20:00 AM
by Nevil Hunt
A string of accusations has come to light along the U.S. border with Canada. In little more than a year, four Canadian women say female U.S. border officers went too far with their searches.
A trip to the United States turned into a tale of terror for at least four Canadian women.
It's not terror in the sense of terrorists, but terror on a very personal level.
The Windsor-Detroit crossings are very busy places, and border guards working for both countries have their hands full. It turns out a female guard, or guards, have had their hands full of the wrong kind of things.
The four women – two travelling together and two alone – report they were heading into the United Sates and were sent for secondary inspection. All say they were then mistreated by female American border staff.
The stories they tell are enough to keep some Canadian women staying right here at home.
"These were not pat-downs or limited personal searches, these were clearly in the nature of sexual molestation," said a lawyer representing Loretta Van Beek of Stratford, Ont.
Many people get pulled aside at border entry points around the world every day. Some are searched carefully and a few will be searched meticulously for hidden contraband.
Of those who are searched intimately, some will turn out to be no threat at all. And we can expect those innocent people to be very upset by the personal search they endured.
Those cases are regrettable, but they are also a necessary part of the security system.
Border security is a two-pronged process. Agents will pull aside anyone who appears to act in a way that the border officers have been trained to consider suspicious.
They must also randomly check people who don't appear suspicious.
It's this second, random check that makes it impossible for smugglers to be sure that someone used as a mule is never completely untouchable by border agents. If little old ladies flying home from Nashville or young families with children were never, ever searched, then our border agents would be leaving the door open for drug smugglers, gun-runners and all other criminals to use that route into Canada.
The random check also means that someone with nothing to hide ends up being taken to a back room for careful inspection. And you can be sure they won't be happy after they've put their clothes back on.
Those grumpy people – and they can be excuses for feeling grumpy – will raise hell after the experience. They will call their MP or Canada Border Services to complain.
But the four women complaining about the Detroit experience are telling a different story.
Leslie Ingratta of Windsor, Ont., told a reporter that the American female agent spent time fondling her breast.
Van Beek said a female guard "was squeezing my nipples ... for a very long time."
"It was sexual – using her fingertips, not the back of hand like you would expect."
She also says an officer put her hand in her genital area.
Three days before Van Beek was searched, two Canadian women – one of them pregnant – say they each had fingers inserted into their vagina and anus. They also say they both had their breasts fondled.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection won't comment on the complaints, but they should know they have a problem in their midst.
The searches described by the four Canadian women will cost the Unites States in many ways. There is the financial payout if a sexual assault lawsuit is successful, but the attention these stories will draw in Canada may cost the U.S. much more if some people refuse to travel and shop south of the border.
Should the U.S. border department apologize for the incidents in Detroit? Do these accusations make you think twice about visiting the Unites States?
by Nevil Hunt
A string of accusations has come to light along the U.S. border with Canada. In little more than a year, four Canadian women say female U.S. border officers went too far with their searches.
A trip to the United States turned into a tale of terror for at least four Canadian women.
It's not terror in the sense of terrorists, but terror on a very personal level.
The Windsor-Detroit crossings are very busy places, and border guards working for both countries have their hands full. It turns out a female guard, or guards, have had their hands full of the wrong kind of things.
The four women – two travelling together and two alone – report they were heading into the United Sates and were sent for secondary inspection. All say they were then mistreated by female American border staff.
The stories they tell are enough to keep some Canadian women staying right here at home.
"These were not pat-downs or limited personal searches, these were clearly in the nature of sexual molestation," said a lawyer representing Loretta Van Beek of Stratford, Ont.
Many people get pulled aside at border entry points around the world every day. Some are searched carefully and a few will be searched meticulously for hidden contraband.
Of those who are searched intimately, some will turn out to be no threat at all. And we can expect those innocent people to be very upset by the personal search they endured.
Those cases are regrettable, but they are also a necessary part of the security system.
Border security is a two-pronged process. Agents will pull aside anyone who appears to act in a way that the border officers have been trained to consider suspicious.
They must also randomly check people who don't appear suspicious.
It's this second, random check that makes it impossible for smugglers to be sure that someone used as a mule is never completely untouchable by border agents. If little old ladies flying home from Nashville or young families with children were never, ever searched, then our border agents would be leaving the door open for drug smugglers, gun-runners and all other criminals to use that route into Canada.
The random check also means that someone with nothing to hide ends up being taken to a back room for careful inspection. And you can be sure they won't be happy after they've put their clothes back on.
Those grumpy people – and they can be excuses for feeling grumpy – will raise hell after the experience. They will call their MP or Canada Border Services to complain.
But the four women complaining about the Detroit experience are telling a different story.
Leslie Ingratta of Windsor, Ont., told a reporter that the American female agent spent time fondling her breast.
Van Beek said a female guard "was squeezing my nipples ... for a very long time."
"It was sexual – using her fingertips, not the back of hand like you would expect."
She also says an officer put her hand in her genital area.
Three days before Van Beek was searched, two Canadian women – one of them pregnant – say they each had fingers inserted into their vagina and anus. They also say they both had their breasts fondled.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection won't comment on the complaints, but they should know they have a problem in their midst.
The searches described by the four Canadian women will cost the Unites States in many ways. There is the financial payout if a sexual assault lawsuit is successful, but the attention these stories will draw in Canada may cost the U.S. much more if some people refuse to travel and shop south of the border.
Should the U.S. border department apologize for the incidents in Detroit? Do these accusations make you think twice about visiting the Unites States?