Her Pleasant Beach Jog Turns Into 2-Week Nightmare

The border between the US and Canada is the longest in the world, and it's not always well marked, points out the Bellingham Herald in Washington state. For proof, just ask 19-year-old Cedella Roman, who went out for a jog on the beach in British Columbia, inadvertently crossed into the US, and was held for two weeks by US border authorities, reports the CBC. Roman is a citizen of France and she was in BC visiting her mother in May. As she was jogging up the coast on the evening of May 21, she made a quick detour to avoid the incoming tide, and then stopped to take a photo of the pretty scene. That's when two US border patrol officers approached and informed her that she had just crossed the international boundary without permission.

"I said to myself, well I may have crossed the border—but they'll probably only give me a fine or they'll tell me to go back to Canada or they'll give me a warning," she tells the CBC. No such luck. Roman was taken into custody and transferred to a facility in Tacoma, where she remained for two weeks as she and her mom attempted to clear up the red tape. The biggest beef of Roman's mother, Christiane Ferne, is that no signs were present in the area where her daughter was jogging calling attention to the border. "It's like a trap," she says. A US statement says the law is the law, even if a person crosses the border accidentally. "The moral of the story is when you go our for a run, walk or hike, know where you are—exactly where you are," writes David Rasbach in the Herald. (More US-Canadian border stories.)