Canada, U.S. border gates separate, unite towns
DERBY LINE, Vt. | For decades, the towns of Derby Line, Vt., and Stanstead, Quebec, have functioned as one community.
Located on each side of the border, they share a sewer system, emergency services, snowplowing duties and the border-straddling Haskell Free Library and Opera House, where a narrow black line across the hardwood floor of the reading room marks the international border running through the property.
Work began Thursday, though, to erect of a pair of 5-foot-tall steel gates across two previously unguarded residential streets – a project that is dividing the towns physically but uniting them in displeasure.
Border authorities call the gates a necessary evil to stem smuggling and illegal-alien crossings. Locals say there’s enough security – surveillance cameras and patrols by U.S. Customs and Border Protection – as it is.
“I’ve always considered Derby and Stanstead like brother and sister,” said Mary O’Donnell, 57, of Stanstead, walking into the library to use a computer Friday. “We’ve always been on friendly terms. Now, suddenly, 9/11 hits and everybody in the U.S. freaks out. So we’re now going to get some really ugly things at the end of the streets that I don’t think is going to serve much of a purpose.”
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philanthropist Says:
So much for this new Administration’s “international spirit of cooperation” and all those other fine words, they mean nothing.
Posted on October 4th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
nomdeblog Says:
I know that area, it has beautiful lakes and hills. But the border issue has been the source of jokes for decades and it got revved up after 9/11. Sometimes the border goes through the middle of a bedroom in a house.
But we are 2 sovereign nations, are we not? If we are, then we have borders. Canada and the US work because we are not the EU, which has 27 countries and 500 million people now and if it adds Turkey it will open the back door for the Middle East to pour in. I just don’t understand the lack of borders in Europe. I prefer our system with the US even as we tighten up. The trick is to have free trade, that doesn’t mean we give up our border or our sovereignty the way Europe has. They are way over centralized by unelected bureaucrats, too big to succeed.
The world should quit playing with silly post national ideas that sound good in a song “imagine there’s no countries” ( did John Lennon write that for Obama?) but make no sense in the real world where you’d be “blowing in the wind”.
Good fences make for good neighbours.
Posted on October 4th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Mac Says:
The border has been in place for a long time. Unless the house was built over 100 years ago, the concept of having a border running through is pretty ridiculous.
Free trade works because it’s mutually beneficial but, like any great idea, it can be overdone.
The EU started off as an adventure in free trade. Now the EU is interfering in all aspects of life and shows no signs of letting up. Will Europe become one massive nation? Hard to say…
Posted on October 4th, 2009 at 7:23 pm