TTSOML #229: Canadian Borders Forces Me To Sign False Statement

I decided I needed to get my car back. I was told to go back to the Canadian border to ask questions and find out what to do.

This was when I had only been in Blaine for about a week. I had somehow managed to survive for an entire week, and I decided I needed to find out how to get my car back, if I could.

I had been instructed, by Canadian officials from immigration, to ask the border people about it. They said although I wasn't allowed in Canada for a year, someone else could get it for me if they had a note from me, but I'd have to check with the border people about details.

So, being told to go back to the border, I walked over and went into the U.S. border office. I sat until the line moved forward, and then the guy there looked me up by name and I explained to him what I wanted to do. He knew I was just trying to find out how to get my car back. I noticed a supervisor was listening in, which was a good thing. I was instructed to walk across the lawn under the Peace Arch, to the Canadian border and ask them. The U.S. guy had read everything about me and knew I wasn't to go to Canada for a year, and saw the paper I showed him, but said I could go over there and ask for instructions.

I walked over, and when it was my turn (there were French speaking and then English speaking lines) I walked over to the english speaking line and approached the counter and asked my question. The guy, whose ID number I've posted on my blog previously, began yelling at me. He went to the back and spoke with someone and then came back to me and said I was illegally "in Canada". I said no I wasn't, I was at the border station. I told him I was told to go there. He said I wasn't, and that I was trying to get back into Canada after I was told not to go back for a year. I said NO, that was untrue. He said, "Well, you're HERE" and claimed I was standing on Canadian ground. I told him I thought this was neutral, the border stations. He also yelled at me, from the very first, saying, "What are you doing here?! YOU'RE supposed to be in WENATCHEE!"

I thought this was very odd. How did he know I was "supposed to be in Wenatchee" and why the hell did HE care that I wasn't?

He was clearly very pissed that I wasn't in Wenatchee. I told him I didn't HAVE to go to Wenatchee and that it was my choice, that I had a right to be wherever I wanted to be in the U.S., and told him I was NOT trying to get into Canada, and if I was, I wouldn't go to the Canada border first, to do it. He KNEW I was only trying to find out how to get my car back and he heard me explain it several times and his buddy next to him was clearly disturbed by what was going on. He seemed to question why I was being yelled at and didn't think I was a problem.

So then this guy, the one yelling at me, goes back to his supervisor and they say they have to call immigration about me. I couldn't believe it. I was being framed and set up AGAIN.

He came back with a paper, after talking to Canadian immigration, and said to me, "I could ARREST YOU RIGHT NOW," and then said he was giving me a chance to leave, but I had to sign the paper first. He gave me a pen and had his hand over it and just wanted me to sign on the line. I told him I wanted to read what I was signing first. He was irritated.

Then I read what it said. It said I was "voluntarily withdrawing" my ATTEMPT to ENTER CANADA. I looked up at the guy and said, "I wasn't trying to ENTER CANADA and I'm not going to sign something that says this is what I am trying to do."

He told me if I didn't sign it, he would arrest me on the spot.

He was forcing me to make and sign a false statement. Not only that, it made me sound mentally ill on the Canadian record, because I would have appeared to not understand the orders not to enter Canada for one year, and was trying anyway. HE knew, and I made it clear to him, that I told a FRIEND could go in to get my car, and that I was not making any attempt to enter.

He forced me to sign it. Then he told me I was further prohibited from entering Canada (I don't know if it added time or not) and that if I tried one more time, I would be permanently banned from Canada for the rest of my life.

He handed back some papers and told me to go back to the U.S. side. So I did, and the guy had given me back my birth certificate and one for someone else and he came running after me to get the other one back. Then, just as I was about to go into the U.S. side of the border, to ask them why they told me to go to Canadian border if it wasn't permitted, I was waved at by a car full of young women in their early 20s it appeare, who were all staring at me, and singing loudly:

"Once upon a time, I was falling in love/ now I'm only falling apart/
Nothing I could do, a total eclipse of the heart--Once upon a time there was light in my life/now there's only love in the dark..." Then they'd shout, "Turn around Bright eyes...Every now and then I FALL APART!"

I didn't know who these women were. They filled a regular 4 door sedan that was a used and older car. They were driving towards, and approaching, the Canadian border, and in a line to get in. They were deliberately trying to get my attention, and singing/shouting this song to me, and laughing at me and pointing. It was very obvious and there was no mistaking that it was directed harassment, and not just people passing by. They leaned out of their windows to shout-sing this at me. I had been at the Canadian border for about an hour or more, including the wait time. These women pulled their car over from the lane which was moving fastest, to a slower lane, just so they could be closer to me as I was walking by. There were four of them I think, and at least three. All white, and i think brown hair mainly.

I walked into the U.S. side of border and was angry. I approached and said, "Why did you guys tell me to walk over there if it was illegal, when you KNEW I was banned from there for a year?!!!" I showed them the statement I'd been forced to sign.

The supervisor came over and said the U.S. hadn't been wrong, and that I was not "on Canadian soil" to be at their border office. He said people went back and forth all the time and it was supposed to be friendly and neutral. He also said he KNEW I wasn't trying to go to Canada, and he'd overheard everything. He knew what my questions were about my car, and that I wouldn't have been making any attempt to enter Canada, nor would I have been misunderstood by Canadian border people, because he knew how I worded my question and what my intentions were.

So he gave me his name and number and all the information and said I should clear it up with Canada so it wasn't on my record, when their guy had forced and coerced me to sign a false statement, under penalty and threat of arrest. So I wrote all his information down.

When I was in D.C., I went to the Canadian embassy and tried to clear things up there. A couple of people, one woman who was a Canadian lawyer even, tried to help me and said it should be cleared up by someone at the embassy because it wasn't an "immigration" issue, but different. However, there were other people at that embassy, who seemed to know who I was or acted like they knew me, and they didn't want me to make any headway at all. I was told no one could help me, after I waited at the embassy lobby for hours. They said it was a "border" matter and that I needed to make a complaint to the border. They COULD have cleared things up there, because I told them what happened, and some of the people who worked for Canada DID want to help and they were even in diplomatic positions (they came out from the car marked for diplomats and spoke with me and I took the business card of the Candian woman who was an attorney). But there were some people in Canadian official positions, who had some kind of interest in wanting to keep me down. I had one woman come out who was very rude to me.

I have not yet gone to Canada's border patrol to make a complaint. If I went all the way to their embassy and couldn't get help, after THEIR people forced me to make a false statement under threat of arrest, why would I think jumping through their hurdles and going to the same OFFICE that DID this to me (border) would correct things? If it was the border at fault, someone outside of that office should have looked into it. And there were people with officials positions for Canada, who knew the laws and said it should be done there. After they left though, the other ones tried to push me over to an immigration office with long lines. It wasn't an immigration issue. It was a corruption issue, and I wanted my name cleared.