I was jogging in Vermont. Then she asked: ‘Canada?’
“Canada … Canada?” she implored.
The middle-aged mother clasped her hands together, begging for an answer to her humanitarian request: Which way to Canada?
In her eyes, a look of desperation. On her back, all her worldly possessions. Behind her, a sweat-drenched husband dragging a large suitcase. Beside them, panicky teenage children.
Ahead of us, the Canadian border. Between us, a language barrier. She could say only two words: “Colombia.” And, over and over, “Canada?”
No, I wasn’t a journalist looking for a story, as I have my whole career. I had just stumbled upon a painfully human tale while vacationing in Vermont at the cottage we rent every August with American friends from our days as foreign correspondents.
I’d been jogging on a trail that started out as the old Burlington railway line, never imagining it as an underground railroad for refugee claimants. Today, the route to Canada is blocked by heavy overgrowth at the border, bisected by warning signs.
The family had reached the end of the road and looked to me — a passing jogger — for guidance.
I had walked into a situation I’d only ever read about, or written about, since returning from a decade abroad covering war zones.
Back then, refugees were always asking for help to reach Canada.
Now, this family wasn’t a world away, but a stone’s throw away from the promised land. What to do? What would Doug Ford do? Our premier describes them as “illegal crossers,” baiting voters and blaming the federal government for supposedly summoning throngs from America. What would you do? Point them to the nearest official crossing 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) away, knowing they’d automatically be turned back by Canada Border Services thanks to a bilateral agreement that predates Donald Trump?
Or would you point them straight ahead to the Canadian side for an “irregular crossing” into the waiting arms of the RCMP, so they could plead their case in a hearing by our refugee determination system?
Would you dash their dreams, deeming them “illegal crossers?” Or direct them to due process, dealing with them as refugee claimants?
I’m a journalist, not judge and jury. I pointed them straight ahead to Canada, just as my own refugee parents would have expected of me after they snuck across international borders in far more dangerous circumstances.
The woman clasped her hands together again, her face collapsing in emotion as she thanked me profusely for doing nothing more than showing her the way. I hadn’t counted on her reaction — on assignment overseas I was always braced for human hardship, but now I was just a jogger caught up in one family’s drama of a lifetime.
I pointed to the dead end of the old railway route, now overgrown, and motioned that Canada lay just beyond. We couldn’t understand each other, but it was clear she already understood.
Even if I’d wanted to know more, there was no time for questions — not with the U.S. Border Patrol everywhere. I watched in silent amazement as they scrambled across a roadway and clambered up the incline of a homestead straddling the border (alongside the overgrown pathway), dragging their luggage awkwardly for a final mad dash to freedom.
It all happened so fast — but not fast enough to avoid the official-looking SUV that rushed across my horizon and screeched to a stop in front of them.
Holding my breath, I walked up an embankment to see if they had been intercepted by one of the ubiquitous U.S. Border Patrol vehicles that crawl along the area.
Had I inadvertently sent them into a trap laid by waiting officials?
As I inched closer, mindful of the border, I made out the Royal Canadian Mounted Police insignia and overheard the officers speaking French to one another while slowly dictating instructions in English to the Colombian family: Empty your pockets; for your own safety, prepare to be handcuffed as we drive you to the official border crossing where your refugee claim will be processed from the Canadian side.
I wondered if they would be terrified by the sight of police handcuffs and blame me for betraying them. But they knew better — first the children, then the parents turned in my direction and broke into smiles I hadn’t imagined possible, jubilant about reaching my homeland.
I watched from a safe distance. Or so I thought.
Caught up in the drama, I had crossed a line. One of the Mounties walked over and politely suggested I return quickly to the American side before getting in trouble.
Return to America? But I was merely standing on someone’s lawn!
Heeding his advice, I quickly retraced my steps — only to encounter a U.S. Border Patrol car approaching from the American side.
The officer rushed out and asked what I was doing there, where I was coming from, and who I was.
Now I was the suspected illegal crosser.
Recounting my story — their story — I offered the innocent explanation that joggers don’t carry their passports, that I hadn’t counted on finding myself near no man’s land. Thinking quickly, I pointed out that I had locked my bicycle beside the bike path deeper in American territory and quickly produced the key to my Kryptonite lock as proof.
The border officer had seen my bicycle, and accepted my explanation. After all, by the time he’d seen me, I was “safely” on American soil, the very territory the Colombians had tried to flee in search of sanctuary. I explained my encounter with the family. “The Colombians?” he asked. Wait — how did he know they were Colombian? Did the Americans rely on surveillance technology along that bicycle trail (where I’d noticed a solar panel beside a closed circuit camera)?
Turns out he was one step ahead of me. The border officer had already intercepted — and interviewed — the family even before I’d jogged by them. Unlike me, he spoke Spanish, having served on the Mexican border.
And like his colleagues on patrol, his instructions were not to stand in their way if they wanted to leave America for Canadian territory. So why would any Canadian want to keep refugee claimants out of our country?
Good question. More on that, and what I learned from officials on both sides of the border, in my next column.