Bridge to Nowhere

(First let me say thanks to my assistant Lauren W. for agreeing to edit and post these blogs to the internet from my blackberry)
So, what an interesting trip so far! We boarded the bus at the U and were bridge bound by 12:15 pm. It's important to note before I tell this story that our very well organized trip coordinator Sandy prepared yesterday by calling U.S. Customs to notify them that 27 of us would be coming by bus for the purpose of spending the week in New Orleans to help build homes as volunteers for habitat. The person on the phone told her not to do anything, just come ahead and it should only take a few minutes to process everyone and then we'd be on our way.
Not quite!
The friendly officer boarded our bus and told us to hold tight and they would come back and call us in a few at a time. In the meantime, we should just sit back, and "have a coke and a smile."
The first 5 of us were called in 15 minutes later and stood in line waiting and watching a large group of immigration officers standing barking orders at the people in the very small and crowded waiting area. As they told the 5 of us to stand in a separate line for "parolees", they appeared to be completely miffed, scratching their heads about what to do with us.
As we waited, we overheard one remark to his colleage: "we should just turn them back!". The next 45 minutes we watched as 3 officers attempted to figure out how to collect the information and enter it into the computers. In the meantime, we witnessed many others waiting and being treated like hardened criminals. An elderly couple was brought in because of having a suspiciously large amount of cash. They appeared to be having difficulty following the instructions that were being barked out and at their age, it seemed that they certainly deserved to be treated with more respect and patience. We watched as the man was brought into a room with several other officers. When the door closed, Mark (my fellow colleague at the U) and I couldn't help but conclude that a cavity search was a very real possibility for this poor confused old man. Another couple in their late 30s tried without success to explain that they had young children in the car and were merely going over for a family day. However, having been charged with a minor offence when he was 17, this was still haunting him (and as a result his family) and so he was being refused entry into the US indefinitely. Finally, a well dressed 40 something man was in a heated battle with the officers about having not told the entire trip about his trip to Caesar's.
So, finally the computers were ready and we were told we should stand and wait to be "paroled". Mark got up the nerve to ask for clarification about exactly what that meant. Basically, because we are coming to the US to do "work", albeit volunteer work, we had to go through this process. Next came the questions: Hair colour? Eye colour? Height? Weight? (Some officers actually made unprofessional comments to some of our students when this info was given). Marital status? Then the finger printing, iris scan and photo.
About this time, another bus rolled in which made the potato chip munching officers laugh and loudly comment; "Ha! Well tell them they're gonna be here for the next 3 hours" and "tell them to go up to the Buffalo crossing!".
After the first hour, the first 5 of us were dismissed without our passports and sent back to the bus. Repeat same process for an additional 2 hours with the remaining 22 volunteers! As we returned to the bus, a 3rd bus pulled in from University of Western - also on their way to volunteer for our friendly US neighbours. They will no doubt be sitting there til midnight!
The question I would like to ask President Obama (and please readers, if you know his address, feel free to forward this to him): Why on earth would your U.S border guards hassle a bunch of canadians trying to come to your country to help with a mess that your country created for the people of New Orleans?! Shouldn't we be welcomed with open arms? Roll out the red carpet? Thank us???
So, finally the officers came back on the bus and handed us all back our passports which all now sport a lovely permanent stamp stating 'paroled'. Sounds like we are criminals! After we all put the passports away, it was explained to us that before returning across the bridge next Sunday, we will have to stop and get a letter here stating that we were officially denied entry. Following that, we were all asked to get our passports out again and hold them up to show them one more time.
So, it's now 4:30 and we are just beginning the long 21 hour drive. Some of us are already hungry and need a bathroom break and we haven't even gotten anywhere. Meanwhile, Casey, our second bus driver awaits our bus for his next shift. Fun, fun. Fun!