Since the US 2024 election and the current federal government’s growing disregard for constitutional rights, responsibilities, and freedoms, whenever I sat at my computer, I faced the twin spectres of ICE detention and eventual deportation. Although I’d been a Permanent Resident of the US since 2003 and have no criminal record, I felt my Canadian citizenship determined my otherness after Trump suggested Canada become the 51st state and many Canadians made clear we were not having it. That I had been living in Vermont’s green mountains legally and at the same address for 23 years made no difference. As with other Canadians, my position became precarious when those of us living and working in the US joined the growing list of this current authoritarian regime’s targets for revenge.
I have longed to write about the US government’s hostility toward Canadians for months. Now, because I have returned home to Ontario, Canada, I can write without fear of detention and deportation.
Before I left Vermont for Ontario in mid-September, some American friends and family members didn’t understand my concerns. These people want to believe ICE agents, masked and armed, only target “immigrant criminals” in the larger cities of other states. If American citizens do not live in Vermont, they tend to be less aware of the state’s enrichment by and dependence on immigrants from across the world; nor are they aware of diverse populations of seasonal workers supporting Vermont’s agriculture and construction businesses. Because many US citizens don’t feel personally threatened by the terrifying wave of domestic militarization, they can’t understand why any law-abiding citizens and permanent residents would.
The caprice of the current president and his followers is proving them wrong. Anyone who offends those in power now can be targeted by a growing domestic army. The government’s rapid authoritarian crackdown is something many non-US citizens living in the states are horrified to experience. US reporters are also being targeted, as are activist citizens.
I am luckier than many. I self-deported to Ontario to express my solidarity with the growing number of people detained in deplorable ICE prison camps without due process. This administration’s attack on human rights is terrifying and should be of growing concern to everyone, particularly those living in states like Vermont that are economicaly dependent upon a transient work force and Canadian tourists. In the past, migrants have been valued workers on Vermont farms, many choosing to return year after year for paid work with Americans who depend upon their knowledge and skills. Canadian tourists have also contribute to Vermont’s economy, visiting in all seasons and making lasting friendships.
After moving to Vermont in the fall of 2002, I noticed how Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, had a morally driven welcoming attitude to refugees escaping war and famine in African countries; before that time, in the late 80s and 90s, I learned that a steady stream of refugees from the middle east resettled in the area around the University of Vermont, enriching Burlington’s culture and changing Vermont’s reputation as as a “white” state. These resettled peoples, along with anyone protesting the policies of the current federal government, are potential ICE targets regardless of citizenship status.
For those of us now designated as “other” by the current regime, living and working in Vermont has become precarious.
Informed people understand extremism is driving the crises in the US. Many US citizens are horrified by growing domestic, government-sanctioned, military terrorism. It is difficult to oppose this wave of militarism without risking life and limb. I understand the reluctance to speak out against this thuggery; it is terrifying to challenge several armed, mask-wearing individuals with total power over those who oppose them. Protesters now risk not only ICE detention and deportation, they risk being murdered by members of a hastily put together, largely untrained army whose members are as frightened of their targets as their targets are of them. The mandate to detain resisters by force is bound to lead to killings because all humans can be violent when frightened. What makes resistance even more dangerous is that the federal government has convinced these masked, all-powerful police their targets are criminals.
I am one of the few people lucky enough to have made a safe landing in my birthplace. I have been able to return to my family in Ontario without being incarcerated and deported because someone has taken issue with my speech, my writing, or my legal right to protest with others. Resistance is my right as a Permanent Resident of the US, and it is my obligation as a human being. In the US right now, those who fulfill this obligation risk imprisonment and death.
Reweaving myself into the Canadian fabric of life is a privilege. I face challenges and complexities because of provincial and federal government requirements, but such is the responsibility of citizens in the country and province of my birth. I am grateful to be able to meet my obligations because I am home and willing to accept all the responsibilities – as well as the rights – of Canadian citizenship.
In spite of the recent pall cast by this authoritarian government, Vermont will always live in my heart, no matter the brutalities sanctioned by the current US governing regime. For twenty-three years I lived in a birch grove that was part of a vast mixed-forest woodland. Home to raccoons, skunks, bears, birds of all descriptions, and even the occasional moose and big cat, my physically demanding life in a tiny remote cabin supported my healing and evolution beyond an early trauma that scrambled my brain and slid me to the margins of life. I was not alone in finding healing in Vermont’s wooded mountains.
Many Vietnam veterans and war protesters were part of the sixties and seventies’ homesteading movement in Vermont, people desperate to heal from the shocks of their traumas as I was to heal from mine. How they spent their time after resettlement gave rise to food co-operatives and local farms as well as land conservation policies and timber framing expertise. For some time, Burlington, Vermont, was home to IBM’s head office. Now Burton Snowboards Global Headquarters makes its home there, as does the Ben and Jerry’s Factory, famous for both its ice cream and its activist founders.
In this remote, mountainous region, civility and kindness toward neighbours and strangers alike is a way of life. This courteousness is the gift of isolation. The state’s current diverse populations of people continue to find healing from various traumas, because a place with more trees than people is a sanctuary that offers deep peace, both to those who live among the trees and to those passing through.
Sixties and seventies settlers, along with generations of Vermonters – the farmers and homesteaders, loggers and hunters, entrepreneurs and artists – accept newcomers as the trees accept the humans weaving themselves into forest patterns of dark and light. Among such generous beings we return to ourselves even after the worst experiences. Our scars may be visible, but we are all the stronger for them once the peace of those forested green mountains permeates our hearts.
Now, in Ontario, I will, with grace, pay that peace forward. Here at home, with my family around me, I have the luxury of creating the next phase of my life. I am excited to discover this part of my home province, find local and regional farmers and growers, and steep myself in the diverse and inclusive Canadian communities rooting in the Greater Toronto Area. I loved Ontario before I left for Vermont. I love it even more now.
As life unfolds in the Northern Hemisphere’s fall season, Ontario maples blaze as Vermont maples do, and the maple syrup cooked up in Ontario and Vermont will taste equally good come spring. After an Ontario rain, I smell worms just as I did in my Vermont garden. Winter will come sooner to Vermont, and while I’m very glad to enjoy a longer fall here in Ontario, winter is winter. In both places, the cold and the dark will support the renewal promised by the Winter Solstice. Spring will come earlier here in Ontario, and I will revel in the warmer temperatures and this season’s longer, warmer presence in my home province.
As I root in my new home and polish the connections with my family members and my birthplace, I grieve my lost world of trees and woodstove fires and the daily tender companionship I enjoy with my husband, an American citizen finishing up a building project in Vermont. But my grief will be companion to my gratitude for an Ontario home in which to flourish once again. Even as I feel my Vermont losses, I anticipate visiting Point Pelee after far too many years of only remembering its scents and harmonies and of breathing in the magic of its rare swath of Carolinian forest. I will relish connecting with old friends, even as I welcome new relationships.
Yes, I am free to write these thoughts, because Canada continues to value the rule of law, democratic processes, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Here at home, we face the challenges created by human excesses and tunnel vision, including climate crises, poverty and homelessness, Indigenous People’s inequalities, police militarization, and the blatant marginalization of 2 Spirit and LGBTQ+ folk, mentally ill folk, and disabled populations. I know many people here are committed to addressing these issues. And . . ., I will be free to join them and write about my experiences without fear of arrest, incarceration, and deportation.
It’s good to be home. Home.
Until next time,
Jane