Customs Officials Harass SDSer Entering Canada

A fourth-year graduate student in mathematics was denied entrance to Canada last Wednesday after immigration officials discovered a box of SDS literature in his possession. He was admitted a day later after posting $1000 bond.

Carl Pomerance, a "regional traveler" for SDS, had been invited by a Canadian University Student Assembly to speak on the American student movement. On Thursday he talked to a crowd of several hundred about the "Campus Worker-Student Alliance."

Immigration authorities informed Pomerance on Wednesday that he would have to post a $1000 "peace bond" in order to enter the country, and forfeit the money if he did not leave by midnight of the following day. Canadian student organizers raised the money for Pomerance, which was returned to him by immigration officials when he left Canada on Friday.

Pomerance was detained and questioned for over two-and-a-half hours by Canadian border officials before being asked to post bond. After presenting the money on Thursday, he was questioned for another hour before being allowed to attend his speaking engagement at Brock University, located in St. Catherines, On-taro.

Fifty students demonstrated in support of Pomerance at the border crossing, and released a statement which said, "We are now, more than ever, interested in what he has to say that so much scares Canadian authorities."