On
The National Front
"Surfing
Santa"
Taken Into Custody -- Temporarily Only
(Whew!)
The
Border Patrol of the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service took "Surfing
Santa"
into custody in
Buffalo,
N.Y.
Thankfully, there weren't too many kids
around to witness such a dastardly event.
|
Photo courtesy of
CNN.com |
"Surfing
Santa"
had just completed his 18th annual
crossing of the Niagara
River
between Fort
Erie,
Canada,
and Buffalo,
New
York
when the Border Patrol officers pulled him
aside, asked him to strip off his Santa
suit (GASP!), patted him down, put him into a patrol
car and drove off with
him.
John
Fulton,
aka "Surfing
Santa,"
42, wasn't upset. "I
entered in the country illegally," he said. "They
wanted to make sure they followed the new
Homeland Security regulations? I'm right behind
what they did."
(quoted in Border Patrol takes Santa
into custody, briefly,
CNN.com)
"They
were real nice guys," said
Fulton.
"Normally in the past, you'd just touch
down, then call in [to the Border Patrol]. It used
to be more lax," he said. "I felt
like an illegal alien."
But
not to worry, folks. He was
soon released back into
Canada
after he proved who he was and signed a
declaration admitting he was in the
United
States
illegally.
Fulton
didn't have any ID on him, so he had the INS go
to his website to prove who he was.
Fulton
has the INS officials add to his paperwork
"subject inadvertently landed in the
U.S.
while performing Surfing
Santa
duties."
This year Santa
rode his substitute sleigh, a windsurf board, to
raise money
for
the "Out Of the Cold," a non-profit organization
for the homeless and the Resource Association
for Teens (RAFT), a center for troubled teens,
both in St.
Catharines,
Ontario.
LaVada
Davis
