Canadians rescued from river become snarled in federal illegal entry case

By Dan Herbeck BUFFALO NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 08/26/08 6:56 AM

… A. J. Price, a U. S. Border Patrol spokesman, said Jason Haist, 29, and his 21-year-old cousin, both of the Toronto area, were released without bail late Monday afternoon.

“They face noncriminal administrative charges and will be required to attend a removal hearing in Immigration Court,” Price said. “They were charged because we have evidence that, before the accident, they made landfall in the U. S. without reporting in.”

…Efforts by The Buffalo News to reach Kerr and the Haists were unsuccessful.

…The Border Patrol officer added that Price said the two other people rescued after the accident were not charged because authorities found no evidence they had entered the country illegally.

[NOTE: shortened to avoid superfluous use of copyrighted material; please follow link to read entire story]

What is the source of the claim that they landed in the US before the accident?

The reason this story got any publicity at all, is because the two Canadians had their families back home, notify the newspapers and the Canadian consulate about this absurdity.

Perhaps the the bozos responsible for arresting the two Canadian jet-skiers could learn a lesson in maritime history of a little-known event during WWII when Newfoundlanders portrayed true valor on the sub-freezing winter night of Feb. 18, 1942 by rescuing 186 American sailors from the U.S.S. Truxtun and U.S.S. Pollux that had run aground. (Another 293 U.S. sailors died that night)

Your history lesson can be found HERE

As to how discretion was exercised in the face of the clear violation, they were released very shortly thereafter. While it could have been handled without arrest (there is discretion not to charge and not to take someone into custody even if here illegally), they would not be the first non-US residents to be overcharged. And, some discretion was exercised by the relatively quick release and by not filing criminal charges. So ultimately people can disagree with how much exercise discretion was or was not exercised, but there isn’t much to be outraged about.

I would be concerned with a crime of opportunity.

I don’t think that you would have terrorist worries, but survivors could try and take advantage of the crash, or even worse, they could become victoms of people in this country.

Although an obviously vanishingly small risk, I would hope that our Government could expedite clearing everyone(Yeah, right!)

Oceanic coastlines are different from riverine borders. Generally speaking, borders in rivers run down the middle of the river. One exception is the Potomac, where Virginia owns the river where it borders DC. Unless you fish from the DC shoreline, for instance, you need a Virginia fishing license.