Men Abandon Car At Border, Flee To US – Bomb Squad Called

Both ends of the Ferry Point Bridge from St. Stephen to Calais, Maine were apparently closed shortly after 6 p.m. last night and the RCMP bomb squad was called to stand by as American authorities questioned five people who attempted to enter the United States on foot  after abandoning their vehicle.

Update: The incident began when five men left a vehicle on the Canadian side of the border, walked across the Ferry Point Bridge and attempted to enter the United States, confirmed Ted Woo, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Homeland Security.

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No one was arrested by U.S. authorities, Woo said, and the men were returned to Canada.

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Woo said he was scrambling Monday to counteract “wild rumors” and dozens of telephone calls from people who believed that the car contained a bomb and that the men were from Afghanistan.

He said the men were not from Afghanistan, but he said U.S. privacy laws prevented him from providing details about their citizenship status or identification.

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Border agencies in neither Canada nor the United States intend to charge the five people with anything, Gillmore and Woo said.

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From The Telegraph Journal
The five people who attempted to cross into the United States are not Canadians and are possibly illegal immigrants – possibly from Afghanistan, RCMP J Division media relations officer Sgt. Claude Tremblay said late Sunday night from Fredericton.

“The reason we closed the bridge is because they left their vehicle and went on foot,” Tremblay said.

The RCMP spokesman declined to say precisely where the five people parked the vehicle, but admitted that a person could draw a logical conclusion from the location of the police roadblocks at either end of the bridge.

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He did not know Sunday night if the American authorities would return the five people to Canada or deal with them in the United States. For that reason he could not say whether to expect court appearances in St. Stephen today.

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