[R-G] Activist ordered out of country

[Anthony Fenton]

Activist ordered out of country
Adjudicator rules U.S. anti-war protester may not return to Canada  
for two years

MARK HUME

 From Thursday's Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com//servlet/story/RTGAM. 
20071101.wbcactivist01/BNStory/National/home

November 1, 2007 at 4:45 AM EDT

VANCOUVER — An anti-war activist who has cast herself as a political  
victim in a battle with the Canada Border Services Agency was ordered  
to leave the country yesterday after an Immigration Board hearing  
concluded she had misled officials.

Alison Bodine, whose cause has generated street rallies, letter- 
writing campaigns by MPs and MLAs, and a petition containing 3,000  
signatures, held back tears in the hearing room as she signed an  
exclusion order after the ruling by adjudicator Mark Tessler.

Then she went outside to meet her supporters and declared, "Justice  
comes on the street, not in a hearing room."

But what was said in the hearing room raised questions both about the  
actions of border officials and Ms. Bodine's motives.

The case began on Sept. 10, at about 2 a.m., when Ms. Bodine, a U.S.  
citizen and a central organizer with a Vancouver organization called  
Mobilization Against War & Occupation, presented herself at the Peace  
Arch border crossing, just north of Blaine, Wash.

Canadian Border Services officer Kelly Emmott refused Ms. Bodine  
entry after determining that she did not have proof of funds with  
her, that she had no evidence of ties to the U.S. and that her car  
was loaded with backpacks, a bike and what officials described as a  
wooden "hope chest" containing personal items.

Ms. Emmott suspected a move to Canada was in the works, although Ms.  
Bodine said she was coming for a short visit.

Ms. Bodine, 22, a recent University of British Columbia graduate who  
has a boyfriend in Vancouver and who had a possible job waiting for  
her at Simon Fraser University, said she was stopped because of anti- 
war pamphlets in her car.

Several hours after returning to the U.S., she approached the border  
again, with only one backpack in her car. The rest of her bags had  
been transferred to a vehicle being driven by her boyfriend, Andrew  
Barry, who was following her.

Ms. Bodine was quickly waved through. But when border officials  
questioned Mr. Barry, they saw the baggage in his car and identified  
it as being hers. When she subsequently returned to pick up that  
seized material, she was arrested - triggering the admissibility  
hearings and sparking a growing protest movement in Vancouver.

In his ruling, Mr. Tessler said there was little doubt Ms. Bodine  
deliberately misled border officials by off-loading her bags, and by  
failing to alert officials to the fact she'd been turned away earlier.

But he questioned the initial decision by border officials to refuse  
her entry.

"I am rather bewildered by that decision," he said, because there is  
nothing to stop someone from entering Canada for a dual purpose. That  
is, Ms. Bodine could have been coming to Vancouver for a short visit,  
but with several bags and plans of later applying to stay in the  
country.

He said, however, it was not within the hearing's scope to determine  
whether Canada Border Services Agency acted appropriately in  
initially turning Ms. Bodine away. The only issue at hand, he said,  
was the question of whether Ms. Bodine had misrepresented herself.

He found that she had, saying she was "playing fast and loose" with  
border officials. He also said there was no evidence border officials  
acted because of her political views.

But Ms. Bodine remained defiant.

"They shouldn't have arrested me at all," she said outside. "What the  
Immigration adjudicator ruled on upstairs was completely a  
technicality that they've chosen to pursue based on the fact I'm a  
political organizer. ... I will not be allowed back in Canada for two  
years, for political organizing, for raising my voice, speaking out  
against war and occupation."

Asked if her numerous bags, her pending job interview and the  
presence of a boyfriend in Vancouver signalled a desire to move here,  
she replied, "Eventually yes, I do want to live here in Canada."