8/11/18
OTTAWA — Canadians often boast that their 5,525-mile boundary with the United States is the longest undefended border in the world. But tempers have frayed on at least one small stretch. Machias Seal Island is a 20-acre, treeless island teeming with puffins, razorbills, terns, eiders and other seabirds, making it a prime destination for birdwatchers. Canada and the United States both claim sovereignty over the island, which is about 10 miles off the coast of Maine, and the surrounding 277-square-mile Gray Zone, where fishermen from both countries compete over valuable lobster grounds. In late June and early July, Canadian fishermen said, U.S. Border Patrol agents in speedboats intercepted Canadian lobster boats in the Gray Zone. “I have no idea where they came from,” said Laurence Cook, a lobsterman and representative of the Fishermen’s Association from nearby Grand Manan Island. “We’ve never seen U.S. Border Patrol in the Gray Zone before.” Cook said at least 10 Canadian boats were stopped and their crews interrogated about whether they were carrying drugs and illegal immigrants.
Canada’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it is investigating the incidents, which it said “occurred in Canadian waters.” “Canada’s sovereignty over Machias Seal Island and the surrounding waters is long-standing and has a strong foundation in international law,” the statement said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said U.S. Border Patrol agents — who are a part of Customs and Border Protection — were simply conducting “regular patrol operations” to enforce immigration and other U.S. laws in “the jurisdictional waters of the United States.” The agency said it boards Canadian vessels only with consent. The State Department maintained in a statement that Machias Seal Island belongs to the United States and has since 1783. There are four boundary disputes along the countries’ border, but the fight over Machias Seal Island is the “only one that actually involves sovereignty over a piece of territory,” said Stephen Kelly, a retired U.S. diplomat and a research scholar on boundary issues at Duke University. The other disputes are squabbles over marine boundaries. Kelly, who has a summer home on the Maine coast, said the recent presence of U.S. Border Patrol in the Gray Zone was unusual. “I don’t know what they were doing out there. It’s hardly a well-known smuggling path,” he said.