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Derby, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec, have historically been tight knit communities despite the international boundary between them. But heightened border security measures have frustrated residents, driving the two towns farther apart.
Both towns touch Canusa Avenue, so named because it straddles Canada and the USA. The novelty isn’t lost on residents: Pat Boisvert, who’s lived there his entire life, says his home street used to be a go-to conversation topic. “It’s so unique. It’s the only thing in the whole country like this.”
Now, a new barrier restricting the local access lane at the nearest border crossing forces residents to report to customs in order to access their homes. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the changes were necessary after two sets of motorists successfully crossed the border illegally this spring.
Boisvert says the new measures have inconvenienced the whole neighborhood. “Now, God, I wouldn’t want anyone to know you live here, because it’s such a pain in the neck.”
Federal authorities have tightened border security since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. This year, the Department of Homeland Security increased the number of agents monitoring the northern border, and trade tensions have flared between U.S. and Canadian leaders.
Border Patrol representatives have said they’re open to meeting with Canusa residents to talk about their concerns. But solutions residents have proposed so far have met with resistance from both federal and state leaders.
On this week’s podcast, Boisvert and his neighbors talk about living on the boundary line. Plus, VTDigger’s Alexandre Silberman discusses reporting from the border.
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Derby, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec, have historically been tight knit communities despite the international line between them. But heightened border security over the past few months has been frustrating residents and driving the two towns further apart.
Janice Beadle: So yeah, you were just telling me, Louise, you told me before how you feel recently.
Louise Boisvert: I kind of access the feelings that I’m ashamed, you know, like, I feel like a second class citizen. But now I’m realizing that my feeling is shame when I go under the canopy.
Pat Boisvert: You get violated every time.
Louise Boisvert: I feel like it’s like I’ve been violated. I waited yesterday, Pat. And you kind of sit there and figure out like, what is this feeling? And every time we leave the street we are suspect.
Alexandre Silberman: Once you’re in the town of Derby and you’re kind of heading north towards the border, there’s this one side road, Beebe Plain Road, which brings you into this little village. And as you’re driving into this quaint little village, it’s not too many homes, very quickly see that you’re in a border area.
When I was out there just for my reporting, I was driving down and all of a sudden had to pull over and stop. Because the Border Station, you come up this hill and the Border Station is right in front of you.
You can’t miss it.
Alexandre Silberman: You can’t miss it.
Alexandre Silberman has been reporting from Derby.
Alexandre Silberman: The street’s pretty interesting because it’s not very evident that it’s an international street. It looks pretty much just like any other neighborhood street you’d see in a Vermont town. There’s houses on both sides of the street and there’s a sidewalk on the Canadian side of the street. There’s steady back and forth traffic. And really the only indication that the street is in two countries is the odd American flag on the American side in Derby, and the Canadian flags on the Canadian side.
There’s also these little banners attached to the light posts with maple leaves and and with a little American design and: “Canusa Avenue.” Canada, USA Avenue.
How many houses are we talking about?
Alexandre Silberman: On the American side there’s about 14 houses.
And the border is like right down the middle of the road?
Alexandre Silberman: It starts a little bit more in the Canadian side up against the sidewalk and gradually cuts into the US side so for the last of the 14 American homes. Most of the street is in Canada at that point, and they can only advance so far into the road off their houses before they’re in Canada.
Pat Boisvert: Well God, when I was a kid it was like no border existed. My best friend growing up lived in that house across the street. So we were back and forth across that street a hundred times a day. You know, he was over here, I was over there, we used to ride bicycles all around the Canadian side, down all over the place. I mean, it was free range. Because nobody gave a rats’ back then, which is what it still should be as far as I’m concerned.
Alexandre Silberman: From talking to residents, over time it’s been gradually more and more changes and more and more security along the border. And this latest change has residents really riled up, particularly on Canusa Avenue, where it’s impacting their back and forth movement and their way of life.
So residents on Canusa Avenue, since they’re on this unique international street, actually have to go by a US Customs and Border Protection port of entry on their way to accessing their homes. This port of entry is located on the side of a street. And before, historically, there was space right next to the station. The street was wide open, and they could just drive around the the Border Protection station on their way into their homes. And then on the way back, they could just drive around just wave at the customs officer. The officers always knew the residents, on Canusa and they’d just go back to their homes.
But now, Border Protection is telling me that they have had issues with people running the border illegally, trying to enter the US, just barreling through in vehicles. And so in response to that, they’ve added a new hydraulic barricade next to the building. Residents are telling you this is kind of the tipping point for them.
Over time, as border security has gone up and up, it’s been making it more and more difficult for them to just go back and forth between their homes, to go into Derby to work or to buy a gallon of milk at the store. And now this is just the the latest thing for them. It’s really the tipping point where they’ve had enough. They want something to be done. They’re ready to walk away from their homes if there isn’t a solution for this.
Tell me about some of the people you talked to up there.
Alexandre Silberman: One woman I spoke with, her name is Janice Beadle. She works in Newport as a cashier at a grocery store, and she’s lived on and off on Canusa for about 10 years.
Janice Beadle: Hello, you’re in my backyard on Canusa Avenue. Right across the street is Canada. It’s a very unique situation that we have here.
Alexandre Silberman: She was just frustrated with the freedom of movement aspect of this, how it’s disrupting her way of life.
Janice Beadle: I just feel our civil rights as far as freedom of movement don’t pertain to us in here, and a couple of Vermont laws do not pertain to us. It’s a beautiful street, and I love living here, but I don’t feel — and a lot of people on the street don’t feel — that we have been treated fairly. We’ve never really been warned about any change they’re going to be doing, so we’ve really never had a chance to voice our opinions before they make a change.
Alexandre Silberman: Sometimes she’s late for work, she was telling me, because there’s a line up at the border blocking her from going through. The residents kept on telling me that long lines on Canadian holidays make it really difficult for them to cross the border and sometimes even block them from coming out of their driveways. That’s one thing Janice was mentioning to me, because the cars waiting at the station are so backed up.
They’re all the way down Canusa.
Alexandre Silberman: They’re so backed up, they’re all the way down Canusa Ave, cutting off these these driveways.
Louise Boisvert: A school bus that drops kids off at her daycare late in the afternoon could not come up the hill because of the line of traffic. Yeah, it’s just definitely weird stuff.
Alexandre Silberman: So the school bus couldn’t always come in?
Louise Boisvert: It could not that day that day and that was because of the backups. There’s no provision for us to be able to bypass.
Janice Beadle: But for someone like that who has a daycare business, you have parents coming to pick up their kids who probably have to be somewhere else in a half an hour. If they have more kids…
Alexandre Silberman: And I also chatted with Brian Smith. He’s the state representative for that area in Derby.
Brian Smith: Growing up, I came back from one of the local establishments on the other side of the border, and I had to wake the guy up at customs on Main Street Derby Line. The guy was all alone sleeping. You won’t see one person alone in a border station anymore and I had to wake the guy up and he knew me. He said, okay, Brian, go ahead. Yeah, that was it.
Alexandre Silberman: And he’s been working with the residents to kind of hear out their concerns and help facilitate communication with Border Patrol, and with the residents, and try and find a solution.
I also chatted with a fellow named Pat Boisvert. He’s about 76, and he’s been living on Canusa his entire life. He lives in the house where he grew up.
Pat’s a really interesting fellow. He’s very reflective of the historic past and the historic ties of those two communities, where his father was actually Canadian, married an American, and moved over onto the American side of Canusa in this white clapboard house right on the road, with an American flag out in front. And he told me as a kid, his best friend lived directly across the street from the house where he still lives today, and it was as if the border wasn’t there. He just crossed back and forth about ten times a day.
Pat Boisvert: Growing up, it was essentially non-existent, the border. All this shit happened since 9/11 and of course they went nuts. And it’s been nuts ever since. It only seems to get worse. We’re practically prisoners on this friggin’ street. If there’s lines of traffic going one way or the other, you can’t get out of the place.
Alexandre Silberman: Do you feel you’re even part of the US, really? The fact that you have to go through customs just to leave your home—
Pat Boisvert: We’re kind of like aliens, I guess, in a way. Because, yeah, you gotta go down and report if you’re just coming from home, you know.
Alexandre Silberman: I also spoke with Louise, who’s the wife of Pat. She also had an interesting perspective on this. She was telling me how she cuts through the backyards of some of her fellow neighbors as a workaround to kind of get into the village, if she wants to go to the post office without having to report at the US port of entry.
Louise Boisvert: It is a unique deal. I don’t go under the canopy. I cut across the yards and I heard they wanted to talk to me. It’s like, nope, not talking to ya. Because I’m minding my business, I go out my back door.
Alexandre Silberman: They don’t allow you to cut through backyards?
Louise Boisvert: Sweetie, don’t even go there.
No, we don’t walk behind the customs building though.
Louise Boisvert: No, I don’t go around in back of the customs anymore. I go through the backyard here.
Does it work?
Alexandre Silberman: She was telling me it does. However, when I was chatting with US Customs, they’re telling me they strongly encourage and asked residents to go through the port of entry. Because if they see somebody just popping out of the brush or popping out of this wooded area a little bit behind their building, they’ll wonder, who is this person? Where they coming from? What’s their motive?
How did they describe the sort of emotional impact that these new changes are having on them?
Alexandre Silberman: Well, for a lot of them living on Canusa Avenue used to be such a unique, really one of a kind experience. Pat Boisvert was telling me living on Canusa was the coolest thing. He told me it was really — you could almost live in two countries, just going back and forth.
Pat Boisvert: It’s such a unique experience. Used to be pretty neat to live on the street, because it’s the only thing in the whole country like this. Yeah, that was a big deal, like when I was in college and stuff, they’re: you know, live on Canusa. Canadian side, right across the road and all that. I was quite the topic of conversation. But now, God, I wouldn’t want anybody to know you live here even. Because it’s such a pain in the neck.
Alexandre Silberman: But now residents are telling me friends and family don’t want to visit. They can’t hire people to come work on their homes, or paint their houses, because they don’t want to deal with hassles at the border, or potentially being searched by border patrol officers.
Janice Beadle: I guess they think, you know, these people have lived here for so long. This is just normal for them.
Pat Boisvert: Well it isn’t.
Louise Boisvert: It’s anger.
Pat Boisvert: Well, it is not normal, you know, every time I leave this street.
Louise: I don’t want to invite people to the house to put them through it.
Alexandre Silberman: It’s really disrupted their way of life. And what once was a really unique place, where you could experience a really one of a kind way of life, is now a problematic place to live.
In talking to the folks up there, is there an understanding of why the Border Patrol is doing this? Are they tolerant of the need for increased security at the same time as recognizing how it’s inconveniencing them?
Alexandre Silberman: They understand the need for security for the most part, but they feel they’re not necessarily being heard and having their concerns be heard by US Customs and Border Protection.
Louise Boisvert: When you’re trying to absorb this information, a lot of people don’t get it. They don’t know what we’re up to.
Pat Boisvert: I think that’s basically the problem with the damn border twits to begin with. They have absolutely no idea what goes on here because they don’t live here they don’t care.
Louise Boisvert: I don’t think they care either.
Pat Boisvert: They come here and they sniff around — “oh, yeah, we got a problem” — but they don’t actually spend the time to figure out what the hell the problem is. So they just go off and do what they feel like they want to do, and they don’t give a rat’s—
Janice Beadle: We’re not given any consideration whatsoever.
Louise Boisvert: Jan works, has to get to work on time. We don’t like being late for church. We don’t like being late for appointments, because that’s just not how we operate. And you never know when there’s going to be someone there that’s holding you up.
Janice Beadle: Yeah, and if they’re searching a car under the port, then you’re stuck for you don’t know how long.
Alexandre Silberman: And they feel that they shouldn’t need to go through this border patrol protocol stop under the canopy as they’re going into the town of Derby. Given all the security we have in the 21st century, they feel that there’s some sort of technological solution out there that could ease these problems for them.
What did the authorities say when you talked to them about what was going on up there?
Alexandre Silberman: Border Patrol, I spoke with a fellow named Kevin Coy. He’s the assistant area port director for US Customs and Border Protection. And he was telling me about some of the recent security challenges that Border Patrol’s had at this port of entry, where they’ve had a number of vehicles attempt to illegally enter the United States just by running the border by driving across. There’s one vehicle that they apprehended all the way down in Barton that ran through that border, which is quite a ways south. And then there was another vehicle which they actually weren’t able to stop.
They just got away?
Alexandre Silberman: They just got away. They weren’t able to end up stopping it, and they have no idea where that vehicle is now.
And those events kind of precipitated this new barrier and some of these new changes they’ve been instituting.
Alexandre Silberman: Yep. That’s what Kevin was telling me, that they needed to install some new sort of barrier to prevent vehicles from just barreling across the border. And Kevin was saying that he believes this new barrier will allow for back and forth movement for Canusa residents while balancing the security needs of border patrol.
Yeah, I’m curious, how did they characterize their relationship with the folks who live on Canusa?
Alexandre Silberman: Kevin was telling me, and he kept on stressing, that he’s very open to communication, talking with residents, hearing about their concerns. That a number of officers live in Derby, they’re members of the community, and that they’re really committed to working with these residents and trying to find some sort of solution.
So what happens next for these people?
Alexandre Silberman: There’s a number of solutions that have been thrown out into the air. None of them have been formally proposed to my knowledge, but there’s been a lot of talk around these possibilities.
One of them is building a new road or a new street that would be behind these houses to allow residents to access their homes without having to go through this port of entry, kind of international territory in a sense, so they could avoid Canusa and access their homes from behind. But there’s a number of questions with that solution, where residents wouldn’t be able to access their garages as easily because the entrances are on Canusa. The land behind is owned by an individual who may or may not be willing to sell. And the cost of building any road would be very high as well.
Right. Who would even pay for that?
Alexandre Silberman: So that’s a question I asked, actually, in speaking with Kevin Coy of US Customs and Border Protection. He was on the phone with me with a spokesperson, and both Kevin and the spokesperson jumped in and said that would fall outside of the purview of US Customs and Border Protection, that that would be up to the town or up to the state. But that would not be a cost US Customs and Border Protection would be willing to absorb.
That’s interesting. Because it seems so contradictory to what the residents there characterize as intrusions by Border Patrol. And the argument there, it seems, is often that they have jurisdiction because there’s a lot of leeway in how federal authorities get jurisdiction within, I think, it’s a 100 mile radius of the borders. So it’s interesting to hear that those two things would kind of be at odds with each other.
Alexandre Silberman: For sure. Another solution that was thrown out there was a government buyout. A number of residents have told me if they’re offered fair market price, they would definitely leave the area to no longer have these issues. I also brought up that solution with Border Patrol, and that was also another solution that they said they they wouldn’t be paying for.
Janice Beadle: It’s just, you know, it’s almost like, OK, what’s next? What’s next? Am I really leaving my home in Vermont, in the US? I want to be like everyone else, to be able to just, go around the corner, whatever.
Big picture, we’re talking about 14 American households here. It’s not a lot of people. What’s the broader significance of a story like this?
Alexandre Silberman: I think the broader significance here is it really shows the impacts of security changes over time. Where this town is often looked at as the place where you can see the direct human impact of border security changes, as tensions have risen between the United States and Canada recently, as border security has mounted, this is really kind of the microcosm of where you can see the impact directly, and how this is affecting people.
Thanks, Alexandre. I appreciate it.
Alexandre Silberman: Thank you, Mike.
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