A 52 foot semi-trailer load of fresh water, diapers, food, blankets and other disaster relief destined for Moore, Oklahoma has been stuck at the US/Canadian border since Wednesday night because the US border guards won't let it through.

Apparantly, it can't be let in as humanitarian aid because President Obama hasn't declared Moore, Oklahoma to be a disaster zone.

So, US border guards are treating the shipment as a commercial importation, and they want each of the items on board listed in alphabetical order along with the country of origin. (That is, the country in which each item was manufactured.)

Canadian relief for Moore tornado victims denied at border - Windsor - CBC News

I can't see why they can't just put a GPS tracking device on the truck to confirm that it goes to Moore, Oklahoma. Everything there is smashed up, so it's not like the truck is going there to steal anything.

A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds, so 20,000 kilograms of food is about 22 tons of food.

nestork wrote:

A 52 foot semi-trailer load of fresh water, diapers, food, blankets
and other disaster relief destined for Moore, Oklahoma has been
stuck at the US/Canadian border since Wednesday night because the
US border guards won't let it through.

More than a decade after a free-trade agreement between US/Canada and
the US is still pulling this **** at the border.

The US is so ****ed up - they don't deserve help from Canada.

I'm surprised they let in our hydro trucks and crews to help string new
power lines when regular tornadoes trash their ass.

If there's one thing that americans are good at - it's cutting off their
nose to spite their face.

I just hope people come to their senses and let that truck in so that it can deliver that food before it rots.

On Saturday, June 1, 2013 1:07:07 AM UTC-4, nestork wrote:
I just hope people come to their senses and let that truck in so that it

can deliver that food before it rots.









--

nestork

Zombies rule. Bring the mother ****ing war home to destroy the capitalist government.

Beat a lawyer to death with baseball bats.

On Friday, May 31, 2013 11:01:11 PM UTC-4, Home Guy wrote:
nestork wrote:



A 52 foot semi-trailer load of fresh water, diapers, food, blankets

and other disaster relief destined for Moore, Oklahoma has been

stuck at the US/Canadian border since Wednesday night because the

US border guards won't let it through.



More than a decade after a free-trade agreement between US/Canada and

the US is still pulling this **** at the border.



The US is so ****ed up - they don't deserve help from Canada.



I'm surprised they let in our hydro trucks and crews to help string new

power lines when regular tornadoes trash their ass.



If there's one thing that americans are good at - it's cutting off their

nose to spite their face.

Stick Canada up your ass sideways. God is a piece of ****.

SIDEWAYS?
WHY FU*KING SIDEWAYS?
WHO'S IDEA WAS THAT?

On Friday, May 31, 2013 10:01:25 PM UTC-4, nestork wrote:
A 52 foot semi-trailer load of fresh water, diapers, food, blankets and
other disaster relief destined for Moore, Oklahoma has been stuck at the
US/Canadian border since Wednesday night because the US border guards
won't let it through.

If they let it through, they lose their jobs and end up in jail for smuggling. Rules are rules and they do not get to pick and choose when to follow them.

On Mon, 3 Jun 2013 13:01:25 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

If they let it through, they lose their jobs and end up in jail for smuggling. Rules are rules and they do not get to pick and choose when to follow them.

What a crock of ****. Surely, you've never seen prison transports to
Canada. Then employees try to smuggle whiskey and cigarettes.

Who was one member on the bus? A Canadian Consulate dignitary.

Rules are in back and white. There are gray areas in between the
lines.

On Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:26:08 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Mon, 3 Jun 2013 13:01:25 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

If they let it through, they lose their jobs and end up in jail for smuggling. Rules are rules and they do not get to pick and choose when to follow them.

What a crock of ****. Surely, you've never seen prison transports to
Canada. Then employees try to smuggle whiskey and cigarettes.

Who was one member on the bus? A Canadian Consulate dignitary.

Rules are in back and white. There are gray areas in between the
lines.


Sorry, but I have to agree with Dennis on this one. If you were
sneaking a bottle of booze, I may let you go. If caught, "sorry boss,
I missed it". But delivering a full truckload of goods without
proper paperwork would jeopardize my job. Not going to let it happen.
Put yourself in the position of the border guard. Ten+ years on the
job, good pension down the road, good performance reviews. Would you
just wave the truck on?

Not me, unless someone above me gives the OK.

I agree that whomever put that semitrailer full of supplies together should have done his homework beforehand to find out what was required to get a truck full of food, diapers, water and blankets across the border.

But, it was a church group that done it, and they always jump in head first before checking the water temperature or depth.

Some times you just have to trust that not every gift horse is a Trojan horse. All that's really needed is for someone on your side to check the truck just to be sure that it really does contain relief supplies, and not drugs or anything prohibited in the US, like Cuban cigars. Slap a GPS transmitter on it to make sure it goes to Oklahoma and keep the truck drivers under guard and well fed in a luxurious hotel until you're confident the truck was ONLY carrying humanitarian supplies.

I just don't want to see all that food go to waste, and I hate to see bureaucratic red tape stand in the way of people getting the help they need. Under normal circumstances I can see the need to follow proper procedures, but in a disaster people need to understand that they need to either help or get out of the way.

Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Mon, 03 Jun 2013 13:26:08 -0700, Oren wrote:

On Mon, 3 Jun 2013 13:01:25 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

If they let it through, they lose their jobs and end up in jail for smuggling. Rules are rules and they do not get to pick and choose when to follow them.

What a crock of ****. Surely, you've never seen prison transports to
Canada. Then employees try to smuggle whiskey and cigarettes.

Who was one member on the bus? A Canadian Consulate dignitary.

Rules are in back and white. There are gray areas in between the
lines.


Sorry, but I have to agree with Dennis on this one. If you were
sneaking a bottle of booze, I may let you go. If caught, "sorry boss,
I missed it". But delivering a full truckload of goods without
proper paperwork would jeopardize my job. Not going to let it happen.
Put yourself in the position of the border guard. Ten+ years on the
job, good pension down the road, good performance reviews. Would you
just wave the truck on?

Not me, unless someone above me gives the OK.


That's the problem with the border... each border guard is given the
power to be a judge and jury. Their decision, be it right or wrong is
very hard to get reversed if at all possible.

In my business if the employee can't solve the problem they call a
manager who in turn calls H.O. if he/she is unable to solve the problem.

Surly they could call someone who could use common sense and allow the
needed aid through, but is too high up the food chain to loose a pension?

I think some in our current US admin should
heed this counsell. Something about selling
guns to drug gangs, and letting our ambassador
die in Benghazi, and the list grows from there.
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..
..
wrote in message ...

If they let it through, they lose their jobs and end
up in jail for smuggling. Rules are rules and they
do not get to pick and choose when to follow them.

There's lots of ways to solve this impass...

If there's any concern that this relief shipment is just a scam to smuggle drugs or guns into the USA, can't they just transfer the contents of the trailer to a few US army trucks and have the US army drive that stuff to Oklahoma and have the US army distribute the food, blankets, diapers and water themselves?

A real smuggler wouldn't want to lose control over the contrents of that trailer, but someone who's just trying to help wouldn't care who takes it down to Oklahoma or who gives what to whom, just so long as the trailer contents go to the people that need those supplies. Why can't something as simple as that be hammered out with a few phone calls to get that stuff moving?

Why can't any one of the dozens (at least) of trucking and moving companies in Detroit load that stuff into one of it's own trucks and take it to a Salvation Army or Red Cross facility in Moore or in nearby Oklahoma City? Surely the cost they incur to do that would be considered a donation and allowed as a tax write-off.

In article ,
nestork wrote:



We have a well guarded border now, but for the longest time the
US/Canada border was the longest unprotected border in the world. And,
while there may be international terrorists now that we didn't have
before, neither Canadians nor Americans have changed. We wouldn't have
put together a bunch of emergency supplies for a tornado ravaged US town
if we wanted to do you guys harm. Some times you just have to trust
your instincts, and not every gift horse is a Trojan horse.

This isn't post-9/11. I know from personal experience of at least one
truck of goodies destined for a disaster site that was stopped at the
border because of lack of paperwork in the mid-80s. I have heard of
others. The reasons were more related to food safety then terrorism,
but there has long been a bias against letting unvetted food, etc., into
the country.
--
America is at that awkward stage. It's too late
to work within the system, but too early to shoot
the *******s."-- Claire Wolfe