Amish caught up in national security policies; can’t cross border

A man belonging to the Old Order Amish who visited his ailing father in Ontario was not being allowed back into the United States because he did not have photo identification, according to officials in Licking Township, a municipality of 475 people midway between Pittsburgh and the New York border.

Old Order Amish take literally the Bible’s prohibition of graven images and in the past have been given waivers to make the crossing. U.S. officials told the man that waivers once granted to the Amish have been cut off due to security concerns, township officials said.

Canadian border guards allowed the man into the country just before Christmas, but the United States has prevented him from returning. The man’s wife and child remain in the United States. His Ontario destination was not released.

Officials in the office of U.S. Representative John Peterson are now involved in the case, although they concede there is little they can do to change national security policy set out by the Department of Homeland Security.

Reed Smith, an international law firm, said Friday that it was taking up the case.

Border policy that allowed photo waivers on religious grounds was altered when Homeland Security absorbed the old Immigration and Naturalization Service, said attorney Mark Knapp. Homeland Security now controls border security through its U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“We have a conflict between First Amendment rights and national security interests,” Knapp said.

Neither Reed Smith nor Peterson’s office would identify the man because the family has asked to remain anonymous.

Amish scholars say the restrictions could adversely affect the Old Order Amish who have historic ties to Pennsylvania and travel regularly from the states of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania to Ontario, where there is a huge community.

The Amish have become more transient and are more dispersed as they become squeezed by development and pressures to farm lands, said Simon Bronner, a professor of American Studies and Folklore at Penn State University.

While the Amish have scattered from Pennsylvania, where they first arrived from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland in the late 17th century, they consider the state their historic homeland, Bronner said.

“Symbolically, this is disturbing because it’s not connected to the state, but the state’s war-making powers,” he said. “The Amish, as you know, are pacifists and there’s not much room for compromise on that.”

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