SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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63–123
2000
LAW ENFORCEMENT PROBLEMS AT THE BORDER BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA: DRUG SMUGGLING, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND TERRORISM
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
IMMIGRATION AND CLAIMS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
APRIL 14, 1999
Serial No. 17
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin
BILL McCOLLUM, Florida
GEORGE W. GEKAS, Pennsylvania
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
ED BRYANT, Tennessee
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas
EDWARD A. PEASE, Indiana
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
JAMES E. ROGAN, California
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
MARY BONO, California
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SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
JERROLD NADLER, New York
ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
ZOE LOFGREN, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
MAXINE WATERS, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., General Counsel-Chief of Staff
JULIAN EPSTEIN, Minority Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chairman
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BILL McCOLLUM, Florida
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
EDWARD A. PEASE, Indiana
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
ZOE LOFGREN, California
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
GEORGE FISHMAN, Chief Counsel
JIM WILON, Counsel
LAURA BAXTER, Counsel
CINDY BLACKSTON, Professional Staff
LEON BUCK, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
HEARING DATE
April 14, 1999
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OPENING STATEMENT
Smith, Hon. Lamar, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims
WITNESSES
Brandland, Dale, Sheriff, Whatcom County, Washington State
Bromwich, Michael, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice
Davis, Eugene, Deputy Chief, United States Border Patrol, Blaine, WA
Hall, Mark, President, National Border Patrol Council Local 2599, Detroit, MI
Harris, David, President, Insignis Strategic Research, Ottawa, Ontario
Papademetriou, Demetrios G., Senior Associate, International Migration Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Pearson, Michael A., Executive Associate Commissioner, Field Operations, INS Headquarters
Trotter, Robert, Assistant Commissioner, United States Customs Service
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LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Brandland, Dale, Sheriff, Whatcom County, Washington State: Prepared statement
Bromwich, Michael, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice: Prepared statement
Conyers, John, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan: Prepared statement
Davis, Eugene, Deputy Chief, United States Border Patrol, Blaine, WA: Prepared statement
Hall, Mark, President, National Border Patrol Council Local 2599, Detroit, MI: Prepared statement
Harris, David, President, Insignis Strategic Research, Ottawa, Ontario: Prepared statement
Papademetriou, Demetrios G., Senior Associate, International Migration Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Prepared statement
Pearson, Michael A., Executive Associate Commissioner, Field Operations, INS Headquarters: Prepared statement
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Smith, Hon. Lamar, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, and chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims: Prepared statement
Trotter, Robert, Assistant Commissioner, United States Customs Service: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
Material submitted for the record
LAW ENFORCEMENT PROBLEMS AT THE BORDER BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA: DRUG SMUGGLING, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION AND TERRORISM
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1999
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration
and Claims,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:20 a.m., in room 2226, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Lamar Smith, Edward A. Pease, Sheila Jackson Lee, and John Conyers, Jr. [ex officio].
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Staff present: George Fisherman, Chief Counsel; Laura Baxter, Counsel; Judy Knott, Staff Assistant; Leon Buck, Minority Counsel; Stephanie Peters, Minority Counsel; and Nolan Rappaport, Executive Branch Detailee.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SMITH
Mr. SMITH. The Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims will come to order.
I have an opening statement; I know the Ranking Member has an opening statement as well; and then we will proceed to our first panel as quickly as possible.
This subcommittee has never held a hearing specifically addressing the northern border. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of reports highlighting the lack of Federal resources on the northern border and the resulting threat to U.S. national security and community safety. Three threats need to be addressed: drug smuggling, illegal immigration and terrorism. All these threats are exacerbated by the lack of resources on the northern border. In fact, the Border Patrol currently has only 289 agents along the 3,500 mile northern border. It is obvious that if we do not know who comes into our country, we do not know what comes into our country, like illegal drugs. A porous border is an open invitation for illegal drug smugglers and for terrorists and their goal of mass destruction.
Drug smuggling at the northern border is a significant concern. Numerous articles have documented the alarming rise in the smuggling of a type of highly potent marijuana grown indoors in British Columbia. This marijuana is five times as potent as regular marijuana and is more likely to increase drug addiction.
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A 1998 report from the National Drug Intelligence Center ''warned that marijuana exports from Canada to the U.S. are becoming a significant problem.'' Also disturbing to Americans and Canadians alike is that U.S.-Canada drug enforcement officials have reported that drug smugglers in the U.S. are exchanging British Columbia marijuana pound for pound for cocaine which ''has begun fueling a fledgling crack-cocaine trade north of the border.''
U.S. officials believe that the vast majority of drug smugglers make their way into the United States without detection. ''If we are getting one to 2 percent at the border, we are being lucky,'' said Tom Kelly, who worked as resident agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency of Blaine, Washington until earlier this month. Gene Kerven, Port Director for U.S. Customs, puts it at less than 5 percent.
There have been reports of drug smuggling at other points along the northern border as well. On June 8, 1998, for example, United Press International reported that a joint investigation between U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials culminated in the arrest of 18 individuals, 14 Canadians and 4 Americans, in the seizure of $3.7 million worth of drugs.
What about illegal immigration? In fiscal year 1998, fewer than 300 agents apprehended 12,146 aliens attempting illegal entry. The question is, of course, how many did they miss? So few agents cannot monitor a border thousands of miles long, 24 hours every day. The Border Patrol knows that the drug and alien smugglers monitor the Border Patrol's shifts and simply wait until agents go off duty.
The crackdown on illegal drugs and immigration along our southern border has caused more illegal aliens to enter the U.S. from the north. A former Acting Associate Commissioner for Enforcement stated, ''As southwest border enforcement continues to stiffen and the price charged for smuggling escalates, many choose the alternative of illegally entering the U.S. from Canada.'' Drug and illegal alien smugglers and terrorists are, of course, going to enter at the least secure point of entry.
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It may surprise many people to learn that Mexican nationals can enter Canada without visas, so it is often cheaper for them to fly to Canada and walk across the northern border than to have smugglers bring them across the southern border.
The number of Asian nationals being smuggled into the U.S. also is increasing. Regarding third country nationals, Canadians themselves make up the fourth largest group of illegal aliens in the U.S.
One of the most dangerous threats to our national security is the risk of a terrorist crossing our northern border undetected. This happened in 1997 when Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer crossed the northern border and attempted to blow up the New York subway system. In this case, the terrorist was caught before the crime was carried out. Next time, we may not be so fortunate. Since 1995, there have been at least 13 other cases of terrorists crossing the border from Canada, two in Blaine, Washington alone.
In 1998, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service acknowledged the presence of 50 terrorist organizations in Canada and outlined their activities: fundraising in aid of terrorism, smuggling, providing logistical support for terrorist acts and providing transit to and from the United States, ''one of the world's pre-eminent terrorist targets.''
Drug smugglers, terrorists and illegal aliens travel both ways across the border. Canadians as well as Americans will benefit from better border security. The United States and Canada already have engaged in cooperative efforts to combat illegal alien smuggling and to share intelligence information regarding drug smugglers and terrorists.
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Both countries have much to gain by supporting joint and individual efforts to reduce the threats to both Americans and Canadians.
That ends my opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. LAMAR SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND CLAIMS
This Subcommittee has never held a hearing specifically addressing the Northern Border. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of reports highlighting the lack of federal resources on the Northern Border and the resulting threat to U.S. national security and community safety.
Three threats need to be addressed—drug smuggling, illegal immigration, and terrorism. All these threats are exacerbated by the lack of resources on the Northern Border. The Border Patrol currently has only 289 agents along the 3,500 mile Northern Border.
It's obvious that if we don't know who comes into our country, we don't know what comes into our country, like illegal drugs. A porous border is open invitation for illegal drug smugglers and for terrorists and their goal of mass destruction.
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Drug smuggling at the Northern Border is a significant concern. Numerous articles have documented the alarming rise in the smuggling of a type of highly potent marijuana, grown indoors in British Columbia. This marijuana is five times as potent as regular marijuana and is more likely to increase drug addiction.
A 1998 report from the National Drug Intelligence Center ''warned that marijuana exports from Canada to the U.S. are becoming 'a significant problem.' '' Also disturbing to Americans and Canadians is that U.S.-Canada drug enforcement officials have reported that drug smugglers in the U.S. are exchanging British Columbia marijuana pound-for-pound for cocaine, which ''has begun fueling a fledgling crack cocaine trade north of the border.''
U.S. officials believe that the vast majority of drug smugglers make their way into the United States without detection:
If we're getting 1 to 2 percent at the border, we're being lucky,' said Tom Kelly, who worked as resident agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency at Blaine (Washington) until earlier this month. Gene Kerven, port director for U.S. Customs, puts it at less than 5 percent.
There have been reports of drug smuggling at other points along the Northern Border as well. On June 8, 1998, United Press International reported that a joint investigation between U.S. and Canadian law enforcement officials culminated in the arrest of 18 individuals (14 Canadians and 4 Americans) and the seizure of $ 3.7 million worth of drugs.
What about illegal immigration? In Fiscal Year 1998, less than 300 agents apprehended 12,146 aliens attempting illegal entry. The question is, how many did they miss?
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So few agents cannot monitor a border thousands of miles long 24 hours every day. The Border Patrol knows that the drug and alien smugglers monitor their shifts and simply wait until they go off duty.
The crackdown on illegal drugs and immigration along our Southern Border has caused illegal aliens to enter from the North. A former Acting Associate Commissioner for Enforcement stated that ''as Southwest border enforcement continues to stiffen and the price charged for smuggling escalates, many chose the alternative of illegally entering the U.S. from Canada.'' Drug and illegal alien smugglers and terrorists are going to enter at the least secure point of entry.
It may surprise many people to learn that Mexican nationals can enter Canada without visas. So it is cheaper for them to fly to Canada and walk across the Northern Border than to have smugglers bring them across the Southern Border.
The number of Asian nationals being smuggled into the U.S. also is increasing. Regarding third country nationals, Canadians themselves make up the fourth largest group of illegal aliens in the U.S.
One of the most dangerous threats to our national security is the risk of a terrorist crossing our Northern Border undetected. This happened in 1997 when Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer crossed the Northern Border and attempted to blow up the New York subway system.
In this case, the terrorist was caught before the crime was carried out. Next time, we may not be so fortunate. Since 1995, there have been at least thirteen other cases of terrorists crossing the border from Canada, two in Blaine, Washington, alone.
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In 1998, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) acknowledged the presence of 50 terrorist organizations in Canada and outlined their activities: fundraising in aid of terrorism; smuggling; providing logistical support for terrorist acts and providing transit to and from the United States, ''one of the world's pre-eminent terrorist targets.''
Drug smugglers, terrorists and illegal aliens travel both ways across the border. Canadians as well as Americans will benefit from better border security. The United States and Canada already have engaged in cooperative efforts to combat alien smuggling and to share intelligence information regarding drug smugglers and terrorists.
Both countries have much to gain by supporting joint and individual efforts to reduce the threats to both Americans and Canadians.
Mr. SMITH. The gentlewoman from Texas is recognized for her statement.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good morning.
I am delighted that you are holding this hearing this morning regarding issues along the northern border between the United States and Canada.
Beginning in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement opened the Mexican market to Canada and the United States. Two-way trade in goods, services and income between Canada and the United States totalled $390 billion in 1997, the largest bilateral exchange in the world. In my home State of Texas, because of NAFTA, there has been an increase in trade. Texas and Canada have a balanced and mutually beneficial exchange.
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According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, however, in 1997, Canada continued to serve as a destination and a transshipment point for drugs, particularly marijuana, cocaine and heroin. The Canadian Government estimates the worth of Canada's illicit drug market at $10 billion as compared with the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center's estimate of $57 billion in the U.S. market. However, only 300 U.S. Border Patrol agents are stationed on the northern border whereas 7,000 agents are stationed on the southwest border.
According to recent reports in the Associated Press in the Seattle Times, drug arrests along the U.S.-Canadian border has jumped 400 percent since October 1998, with more than 355 pounds of narcotics with a street value of $5.4 million. According to recent Border Patrol statistics, Border Patrol agents at the Spokane, Washington sector confiscated 2,850 pounds of narcotics between September 1997 and September 1998.
There is a problem along the northern border, Mr. Chairman. However, I would like to suggest that there is a great desire on behalf of Canada and its officials to work with us to help stem this problem. I believe more cooperation and collaboration can see us be more successful. Canadians, as our southern border friends, are our friends and they too want to have strong law enforcement.
Let us review for a moment Section 110 as proposed in prior legislation. The question is, how do we deal with and solve this problem. Is the solution Section 110 of the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996? Section 110 requires an automated entry and exit system at all airports, seaports and land border crossings to record departures and arrivals of every alien entering and exiting the United States. Under Section 110(a), this system must record every alien departing from the United States and match with the record of the alien arriving to the United States. If an admitted alien remains in the U.S. beyond the period authorized, the Attorney General will be able to identify the alien with an on-line computer procedure.
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However, I have some concerns with this proposed procedure. One, the implementation of an exit-entry removal system at the border would not indicate where non-immigrant overstays are to be found and would therefore not lead to any apprehension or removals.
Second, it would provide or produce a databank of non-immigrant overstays of which no action can be taken with this information. The implementation of Section 110 would also possibly increase traffic, discourage tourism and trade and increase costs of the Border Patrol.
Third, by duplicating the process for returning traffic from Canada, the process would cause extreme delays and congestion. The massive congestion problems will discourage Canadians from coming to the U.S. border communities.
However, will the implementation of Section 110 deter or stop drug trafficking or even identify drug smugglers? There are many who say that it would not. I would hope we would want to collaborate on what might be most effective. Section 110 would be of no use for this purpose because the proposed entry controls would not add any screening value in terms of either enhancing the quality or quantity of the intelligence available or applying it through lookouts at visa offices and border crossings. The proposed exit controls would obviously be of no use in this respect either.
Section 110 would be especially difficult to enforce with respect to drugs, the vast majority of which are smuggled into the United States as part of commercial freight shipments, not by individual traders. I think the best resolution to this would be a strong and definitive feasibility study as to how this might work or assist us.
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There is also the issue of terrorism. As a member of the Subcommittee on Crime, international terrorism is something that I have been working on for quite some time. We have had to deal with the bombings of the World Trade Center and let us not forget one of the most devastating and heinous acts of terrorism in American history which was perpetrated by Americans, the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City.
All Members of Congress and all Americans want to stamp out terrorism and the people who commit these heinous acts, whether it be domestic or international. However, will the implementation of a provision such as Section 110 stop or even identify these terrorists? Again, many have said not. Experts from the Americans for Better Borders, the American Immigration Lawyers Association say that it would be difficult.
Much publicity has been given to the case of Mr. Gazi Mezer who was arrested in Brooklyn in August 1997 after the police were informed that he and a friend were planning a bomb attack on the New York subway. Mr. Mezer had been apprehended three times while attempting to smuggle himself into the United States from Canada. He was never detained or prosecuted as a terrorist prior to his arrest because there was no intelligence in either country suggesting that he was one.
The most effective way to prevent the admission of terrorists is to develop the ability to identify them and deny them access ideally at the visa post and as a last resort, at the point of entry. Section 110 would be of little use for this purpose because the proposed entry controls would not add any screening value in terms of either enhancing the quality or quantity of intelligence available or applying it through lookout visa offices or Border Patrol points.
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In order for terrorists to be identified at the border, the INS or U.S. Customs must have the intelligence about these people. The implementation of a procedure as a screening procedure is not enough. Section 110 is designed to track visa overstays, it will not do anything to prevent drug smugglers and terrorists from entering the United States.
If an entry and exit system is implemented, I do want to ensure fairness in the process. If, in fact, controls are put in place at the southwest border, then those same controls should be put in place at the northern border. While both Mexico and Canada are different and have different problems facing their borders, both countries have benefitted from NAFTA and both have the same kinds of problems.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me suggest that a screening strategy that does not track or identify smugglers or terrorists is not enough. However, the best enforcement strategy should be a regional one that will ultimately focus key screening efforts of the two countries' external borders through the use of joint intelligence and homogenized or harmonized lookouts.
The Lookout Program is a State Department program that targets a suspected terrorist by computer. If each of the law enforcement agencies work together, the DEA, the U.S. Customs Service, the INS, the Department of Justice, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, this will be an effective way of increasing public safety as opposed to spending billions of dollars on what might be the cost of the infrastructure.
However, Mr. Chairman, I think this is an excellent hearing. I thank you so very much for having the hearing and I look forward to listening to the panelists on the issues and problems of the northern border.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you.
Before introducing our first panel, let me remind the panelists and also my Ranking Member, that today's hearing is not about trade, it is not about exports, it is not about tourism, it is not about the southern border, and it is not about Section 110. At the appropriate time, we will have a hearing on any and all of those subjects.
I did not think it was necessary but apparently it is. Let me read the subject of today's hearing. It is an oversight hearing on law enforcement problems at the border between the United States and Canada focusing on the issues of drug smuggling, illegal immigration and terrorism.
Let me suggest to the witnesses that since you only have 5 minutes, I hope that you will focus on those issues rather than the issues of trade, tourism, border crossings, or whatever it might be that are legitimate subjects of interest to this subcommittee but which are not the subject of today's hearing.
Let me introduce all the witnesses who are here and then we will proceed: Michael Pearson, Executive Associate Commissioner, Field Operations, INS Headquarters; Eugene Davis, Deputy Chief, United States Border Patrol, Blaine, Washington; Inspector General Michael Bromwich, U.S. Department of Justice; and Robert Trotter, Assistant Commissioner, United States Customs Service.
Let me say ahead of time, I have read all your testimony and I have read the testimony of the witnesses on the second panel as well. I think quite frankly we have a hearing today where every single witness has enlightening testimony and has something to contribute to the subject at hand which I certainly appreciate.
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Mr. Pearson, we will start with you.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL A. PEARSON, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, FIELD OPERATIONS, INS HEADQUARTERS
Mr. PEARSON. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Jackson Lee and members of the subcommittee, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to talk with you today about the Immigration and Naturalization Service's role in enforcing our Nation's immigration laws along the northern border. I am pleased to be joined this morning by my colleague, Deputy Chief Patrol Agent, Gene Davis, from Blaine, Washington.
I want to assure you that while our work and resources on the southern border tend to get more attention, INS is just as committed to strengthen control along our border with Canada.
Our border with Canada is the longest, non-militarized border in the world, nearly 4,000 miles excluding Alaska. This is a testament to the longstanding, friendly relationship between our countries, but it does not mean that this frontier is unmonitored or uncontrolled. INS maintains 114 Ports-Of-Entry, 8 Border Patrol sectors and 44 patrol stations along the border. This year, we are adding 22 new Border Patrol agents to the northern border, an increase of nearly 8 percent.
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INS personnel on the northern border are responsible for approximately 27 percent of our inspections and 1 percent of our Border Patrol apprehensions. Nothing multiplies the effectiveness of personnel and equipment more than team work. Our longstanding tradition of cooperation and coordination which is critical to our success on the northern border with our Canadian counterparts is formalized in the United States-Canada Accord on our shared border. This 1995 joint agreement seeks to address common enforcement concerns, including the smuggling of people and contraband, the abuse of asylum processes, and the pooling of resources.
Technology at Ports-Of-Entry allows us to facilitate the flow of legal traffic, while strengthening our enforcement capabilities. Two examples are the dedicated commuter lanes where we expedite precleared, low-risk passengers and remote video inspection systems which provide inspections around-the-clock in remote, low volume ports. We are further enhancing enforcement with the deployment of other technology to the Border Patrol including night vision goggles, infrared scopes and ground sensors. In addition, integrated surveillance intelligence systems which use high-tech cameras are currently planned for installation in Blaine and Buffalo.
Successful deployment of state-of-the-art technology is not the only thing we have achieved by working closely with our Canadian counterparts. The partnerships we have forged with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and other agencies have produced impressive results in the investigation of alien smuggling operations, a prime example of which is Operation over the Rainbow II.
This year-long, multi-agency investigation directed by our Buffalo District crippled a syndicate that had smuggled as many as 150 Chinese nationals monthly into the United States over the past 2 years, charging a fee of $47,000 per person. To deliver their human cargo to the United States, the organizers attempted to take advantage of the complex law enforcement situation on Native American territory that straddles the northern border. Both the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Toronto Police dedicated considerable resources to this investigation.
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Illegal immigrants often exploit the fact that Canada, like the United States, has a long and cherished tradition of embracing immigrants, especially those fleeing conflict or political repression. Some enter Canada using fraudulent documents, claim to be refugees and are released by Canadian authorities pending a hearing freeing them to attempt entry to the United States.
A few of those who seek to exploit the relative openness of U.S. and Canadian societies are terrorists. Last fall, the director of the Canadian Intelligence Service told his senate that CAIS was investigating 50 terrorist organizations that had established infrastructures in his country.
Let me assure you that INS personnel nationwide are vigilant to the potential of terrorist entry into the United States. INS inspectors at Ports-Of-Entry and Border Patrol agents who monitor areas between ports have access to a variety of databases, including TIPOFF a repository of classified information on suspected terrorists collected by Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
In urban areas along the border, such as Detroit, our special agents participate in FBI joint led terrorism task forces which proactively investigate and detect aliens suspected of involvement with or support terrorist activities.
As you can see, the situation along the northern border presents unique challenges and because of our close relationships with Canada, unique advantages and opportunities. Through increasingly cooperative efforts, the United States and Canada are seizing these opportunities to strengthen control of our shared frontier, but clearly there is more to be done.
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In closing, I would like to emphasize that inherent in our strategy is the flexibility to respond to emerging conditions and changing tactics. As we have demonstrated in the past, INS is prepared to shift the deployment of new and existing resources to meet any threat anywhere.
I look forward to working with the subcommittee to ensure that INS can continue to meet today's demands and tomorrow's challenges.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer questions that you and the members of the subcommittee may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pearson follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL A. PEARSON, EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER, FIELD OPERATIONS, INS HEADQUARTERS
Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Jackson-Lee, and Members of the Subcommittee, I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk to you today about the Immigration and Naturalization Service's (INS) role in enforcement of our immigration laws at the Northern Border of the United States that we share with Canada. I am also pleased that my colleagues, Mr. Gene Davis, Deputy Chief Patrol Agent, Blaine, Washington, and Mr. Thomas Leupp, Chief Patrol Agent, Swanton, Vermont, are here with us today.
Our border with Canada is the longest nonmilitarized border in the world. This is a testament to the longstanding, friendly relationship that exists with our northern neighbor. This border, however, is not unmonitored or uncontrolled. The INS maintains 114 Ports-of-Entry (POEs) , 8 Border Patrol Sectors and 44 Patrol stations along the 3,987 miles of border with Canada (excluding Alaska).
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Before I cover our border enforcement strategy, I want to discuss four important, related issues. The first is the importance of our close cooperation with Canada. Second, is the means by which we utilize the latest improvements in technology to control illegal immigration on the Northern Border. The third subject is our anti-smuggling effort as it relates to both alien and drug smuggling. And lastly, I will discuss the serious topic of terrorism and the use of Canada as a staging area for terrorists seeking entry to the United States.
COOPERATION
The joint United States/Canada Accord on Our Shared Border, announced February 24, 1995, committed the United States and Canada to a number of commercial goals. The Accord also addressed common enforcement issues, including:
Combating the misuse of asylum applications;
Enhancing border protection with more effective inspection efforts which target drugs, smugglers and the illegal movement of people; and
Continuing our commitment to pool our inspection and enforcement resources.
Since 1995, the two countries have worked as partners to implement a number of Accord initiatives. A steering committee, made up of representatives from the various government departments involved, is guiding this implementation. Together, the United States and Canada are sharing technology that will detect movement of illegal persons and contraband. Together, the United States and Canada are working toward the long-term goal of preserving and further developing the unique nature of this shared border, while jointly addressing concerns about illegal migration to North America.
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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) actively assist in investigations of alien smuggling organizations. One unique indicator of the good working relationship between the United States and Canada is that in Canada it is a crime to conspire to break U.S. laws. This Canadian law gives the RCMP the legal leverage necessary to act against organizations planning to commit crimes in the United States. The RCMP has devoted considerable personnel and money to assist U.S. law enforcement efforts. As an example, for Operation Over the Rainbow II, the RCMP and the Toronto Police dedicated approximately 15 officers on a full-time basis for six months.
Operation Over the Rainbow II, coordinated out of the INS Buffalo District Office, involved alien smuggling activities through the St. Regis Mohawk Territory at Akwasasne, located near Massena, NY. Alien smugglers, using Native American guides, smuggled Chinese aliens. With the assistance of the RCMP, a total of 46 individuals were indicted. Currently, 36 defendants in the United States are in custody. Three of the defendants have accepted plea agreements. The remaining ten defendants were indicted in Canada. The case highlights how shared intelligence and close coordination between the two countries, in both undercover operations and in the execution of the various arrest warrants, is essential to the dismantling of an organization that straddles an international border.
TECHNOLOGY
The United States and Canada are able to detect and refuse admission to criminals through shared data contained in systems that are quickly accessed in coordination with border operations. This technology is a small part of the advanced systems being utilized on the Northern Border.
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Other technology advances utilized along the Northern Border have assisted INS in expediting low-risk, high volume traffic through our Ports-of-Entry (POEs), while maintaining effective enforcement. These inspections enhancements allow the Service to concentrate our enforcement personnel on higher risk border crossers
Dedicated Commuter Lane/CANPASS—programs to expedite pre-cleared low-risk, frequent crossers at land ports, currently in Buffalo, NY; Blaine, WA and Detroit, MI.
INSPASS/CANPASS—programs to facilitate low-risk, frequent air travellers are in place in pre-clearance sites in Vancouver and Toronto.
Remote Video Inspection Service (RVIS)—This provides 24-hour access to inspections at low volume land ports of entry. It ensures inspection at remote locations. RVIS is currently deployed to 11 Northern Border locations, with plans for expansion to additional sites.
Outlying Area Reporting Station (OARS) Videophone inspections systems have allowed INS to expand the hours of operation at smaller POEs and provide a means to inspect persons from remote locations. Without videophones we were unable to offer the enhanced benefit of longer hours and the inherent enforcement benefit of conducting an inspection where none previously existed. The system allows private pleasure boats to report for inspection at remote stations where no previous inspection site existed. OARS is currently deployed to 35 Northern Border locations, with plans for further installation.
We continue to enhance Border Patrol technology for enforcement efforts as well. Northern Border Patrol Sectors have received 9 LORIS infrared scopes, 152 night vision goggles, 35 pocket scopes, 1,333 sensors, 110 ASTRO portable Encrypted Voice Radio Program (EVRP)-capable radios and 82 ASTRO Spectra EVRP-capable mobile radios.
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In addition, two new technology camera systems are currently planned for installation on the Northern Border. These systems, known as Integrated Surveillance Intelligence Systems (ISIS) consist of high-resolution day cameras and infrared night vision cameras. These cameras provide live video to the Border Patrol. This video is used to monitor the border, identify the source of ground sensor activations, detect illegal activities and dispatch agents as needed.
The Blaine Border Patrol Sector will get the first Northern Border ISIS installation, expected to be completed this year. A second camera project, now in the planning stages, will be located in Buffalo Sector near the Niagara River. We estimate that project will be completed early next year.
SMUGGLING
Along the Northern Border our efforts against alien smuggling continue to increase, especially in the area of criminal prosecutions. Like our other enforcement efforts, cooperation and coordination with the Canadians is key to our efforts. The Northern Border is a favored transit point for aliens from the Asia, particularly China. Canada's asylum law permits persons to enter Canada, claim asylum and be free while their cases are processed. Some of them attempt entry to their real destination—the United States. Chinese nationals typically board Canada bound airliners with fraudulent passports or other travel documents. Upon arrival, the aliens then claim to be refugees and are released by the Canadian authorities pending a hearing. Groups of Chinese then travel to large cities such as Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal, where they are staged for the smuggling attempt into the United States. Other nationalities typically follow this format, with variations, dependant on applicable Canadian law. For example, some nationalities need only a passport and no visa to enter Canada. The most active entry points are through Swanton Sector in Northern New York and Vermont, Blaine Sector in Washington State, and Buffalo Sector in Western New York.
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With increased INS anti-smuggling activity, and with the support of U.S. Attorneys on the Northern Border, the number of smuggling case prosecutions for the Northern Border have increased from 184 in FY 1997, to 194 in FY 1998, to 137 in just the first six months of FY 1999.
The INS Inspections Division is involved in combating drug smuggling in cooperation with the U.S. Customs Service at POEs, while the Border Patrol as the primary agency responsible between the POEs.
The Inspections Division of INS participated in 303 drug seizures on the Northern Border in FY 1998, about 13% of the Inspections national total, i.e. less than 1% of the marijuana and cocaine by weight. Border Patrol Sectors along the Northern Border were responsible for 217 (4%) of the 6,665 national drug seizures made by the Border Patrol in FY 1998. By weight, the Northern Border was responsible for less than 1% of the marijuana and less than 1% of the cocaine seized by the Border Patrol.
The INS is not the primary agency responsible for drug investigations. Our cases originating at POEs are processed through the efforts of the U.S. Customs Service. Customs either makes the drug seizures from INS referrals or takes over seizure and investigation based upon an INS discovery on primary inspection. Between the ports-of-entry, where Border Patrol is the lead agency responsible for interdicting drugs, Border Patrol turns cases over to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for federal level cases, or to local enforcement agencies for non-federal level seizures. Accordingly, we do not have statistics on prosecutions or outcomes of these cases.
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TERRORISM
When it comes to a potential terrorist threat to the United States, numbers do not tell the story. Much of the terrain from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest is rugged and sparsely populated. While this deters casual illegal entrants, it also renders detection more difficult for those charged with patrolling our borders. Nonetheless, the U.S. Border Patrol is ever vigilant to the potential threat of terrorist entry across the Northern Border.
On notable case is the case of Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer. This Palestinian was ultimately arrested within the United States, charged and convicted for possession of pipe bombs, which he intended to detonate in the subways and other public places of New York City.
Now, you may wonder why I cite Mezer as an example of success, since he did enter the United States. But the reality of Mezer's case is that he was intercepted by INS three times as he attempted to cross illegally. After his first two attempts, Mezer, who claimed refugee status in Canada, was repatriated across the border. On his last attempt at entry he was placed in removal proceedings, and INS recommended he be held without bond. However, he was released on bond by a judge because there was no record or other indication of a criminal history or involvement in terrorism. Mezer's case illustrates both the effectiveness of the Border Patrol at the Northern Border, and the complexities of combating terrorism in a free society.
Abu Mezer is not the only terrorist who has used Canada as his portal to the United States. Other aliens with terrorist ties to such diverse groups as the IRA, HAMAS, the Tamil Tigers and various Sikh separatist groups have also done so.
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In the fall of last year, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) testified before his Senate that CSIS was investigating 50 terrorist organizations that had established infrastructures in his country. Put simply, this is because Canada, like the United States, has a long and cherished tradition of embracing immigrants and openness of expression. And, as with the United States, one of the challenges for their democracy is in striking the right balance between openness and guarding against becoming a refuge for terrorists from abroad.
In combating terrorism, in particular, the challenge for United States and Canadian officials is the rapid and timely exchange of information on such individuals, who pose a shared threat. While most exchanges of information follow established formal protocols, there is also considerable personal liaison between officers and direct communication between INS and Canadian agencies.
There are three different locations in which INS identifies suspected terrorists, and I will briefly describe them:
Ports-of-Entry: At POEs, our inspectors use the Interagency Border Inspections System, or IBIS, to verify and obtain information on applicants for admission. IBIS is made up of several information systems including: National Crime Information Center (NCIC), Treasury Enforcement Communication System (TECS). It also includes the INS' own National Automated Immigration Lookout System (NAILS), and the State Department's Consular Lookout And Support System (CLASS), as well as TIPOFF, a (non-acronym name) terrorist database. Each of these systems is capable of providing information on an applicant's past history and affiliations. TIPOFF is particularly helpful in the detection of terrorists, as it is a repository of classified information collected from the federal intelligence and law enforcement communities.
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In addition to these index checks, of course, INS inspectors are continually alert to the possibility of presentation of altered or counterfeit documents. When this occurs in combination with other factors leading to a suspicion that the subject may be a terrorist or supporter of terrorist organizations, the Inspector notify the FBI, as well as others within INS's own chain of command. This results in an extensive debriefing of the suspect and a thorough search of his or her possessions. Determinations as to custody and initiation of criminal or removal proceedings are made thereafter.
Between the Ports: When Border Patrol agents apprehend an alien attempting to enter without inspection, they too conduct automated index checks and thereby have access to the same information databases. In addition, Border Patrol and Inspectors at POEs are routinely notified via ''heightened security alerts'' of any activities or events of which they must be particularly vigilant in their patrol duties. Standing instructions require that apprehended subjects suspected of terrorist involvement be immediately reported to INS Headquarters through regional offices. This notification triggers a chain of events, including coordination with other intelligence and enforcement agencies of the government (FBI, CIA, etc.), in order to determine the true identity and affiliations of the suspect taken into custody.
Urban Areas Proximate to the Border: In U.S. cities and populated areas under the jurisdiction of district offices, such as Detroit, INS Investigations special agents are assigned to the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). By this liaison and coordination mechanism, these agents work side-by-side with other agency counterparts in proactively investigating and detecting aliens suspected of involvement with, or support of, terrorist activities. Determinations are made jointly with the FBI as to whether and when to initiate criminal or administrative enforcement actions within INS jurisdiction.
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BORDER STRATEGY
Now that I've discussed these important and unique aspects of our operations at the Northern Border, I would like to address our border strategy. The INS has a national strategy for control of the border. Simply stated, that strategy is to regain control of the border by focusing new resources on those areas where most illegal crossings occur. We know that as our enforcement presence increases, crossing patterns shift. Our newest resources are assigned accordingly. In the case of the Border Patrol, we are concentrating our efforts on the area of greatest need—the Southwest Border—where we commenced deployment of new personnel in 1994 in the El Paso and San Diego areas. Further deployments have progressed to Tucson and South Texas. Future concentrations will be in the remainder of the Southwest Border, the Coastal States, Puerto Rico and the Northern Border. Our experience to date does not indicate a shift in illegal entries from the Southwest to the Northern Border. The shifts have occurred within the area of the Southwest Border, as we had anticipated in our planning.
Nationally, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 1.5 million aliens in FY 1998. Of these, about 12,000, or 1%, were apprehended near the Northern Border. Of these 12,000, only a small number were recent entries without inspection who came across the Northern Border. A statistical chart details these figures for the last three fiscal years (see attachment 1.1, 1.2). Apprehension figures of illegal entries from Canada into the United States are small when compared to those on our Southwest Border. Still, the Northern Border is an alternative gateway for illegal entry into the United States, and migrants from well over 100 countries attempted illegal entry into the United States from Canada last year.
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Illegal immigration across the Northern Border has been through attempts at Ports-of-Entry utilizing traditional means, such as false claims to U.S. citizenship, misrepresented purpose for entry, and fraudulent or improper documentation, and through entry without inspection between ports. I have provided a statistical chart (attachment 2.1) that covers the last three fiscal years, and compares total numbers of persons inspected to detected illegal attempts for entry. Total persons inspected on the Northern Border for FY 1998 was 113 million, while persons refused entry was 131,793. The Southwest Border numbers were 304 million and 396,976, respectively. As with the experience of our Border Patrol, a higher percentage of inadmissible persons are encountered on the Southwest Border.
Also of serious concern is the illegal migration of persecutors. Canada, like the United States, is a responsible member of the international community. Both countries have undertaken peacekeeping responsibilities in various parts of the globe under the auspices of the United Nations or North Atlantic Treaty Organization. And, both countries have accepted their fair share of refugees fleeing war, oppression and even genocide abroad. Thus, both countries have also faced the difficult problem that emerges when human rights abusers and persecutors, fleeing justice, change their identities to merge among the throngs of persecuted seeking refuge in stable and welcoming democracies. And, when discovered by their hosts, such persecutors will again attempt to hide among the displaced. Because of geographical proximity, when such persecutors are discovered by Canadian immigration or security authorities, they often flee south to the United States. This has happened, for instance, with a number of former officials of the Siad Barre regime in Somalia. These active cases are under proceedings and we are unable to site specifics at this time.
With regard to staffing, expansion of personnel in officer occupations within the INS has been at a much slower rate than the Border Patrol increases. The national strategy for these other officer positions is to examine the individual need of each INS district and distribute new assets equitably, according to the overall analysis of each identified need. Accordingly, we have seen minimal, if any, increases in officer staffing along the Northern Border.
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The INS staffing for the Northern Border for the last three fiscal years is covered in the third chart (attachment 3.1). We have allocated 22 new Border Patrol Officer positions to three of the Northern Border Sectors this fiscal year. A total of 113 million people were inspected on the Northern Border in FY 1998, and 131, 793 people were refused entry into the United States during that period. The FY 1998 figures for the Southwest border were 304 million inspections and 396,976 persons refused entry. Thus, approximately 27% of the workload is covered by a commensurate 25% of INS' Inspections staff. Thus h is staffed with 25% of the INS personnel assigned to the Inspection program. Both apprehension statistics and inspection statistics overwhelmingly indicate that our greatest need for enforcement is along the Southwest Border.
CONCLUSION
As you can see, the situation at the Northern Border presents both challenges and, because of our close partnership with Canada, unique advantages and opportunities. Through cooperation and technology, the United States and Canada have maintained our shared goal of a secure border. Clearly, there is much more to be done. But while we work in partnership on the Northern Border, we must focus the bulk of our efforts and resources toward regaining control of the Southwest Border. This is our strategy, and we believe it is sound. In closing I would emphasize that inherent in our strategy is the flexibility to respond to emerging conditions and changing tactics. As we have demonstrated in the past, INS is prepared to shift the deployment of new and existing resources to meet any threat, in any location.
I thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to present this testimony and I am available to answer any questions that you might have.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Pearson.
Mr. Davis?
STATEMENT OF EUGENE DAVIS, DEPUTY CHIEF, UNITED STATES BORDER PATROL, BLAINE, WA
Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Engene R. Davis. I am the Deputy Chief Patrol Agent for the U.S. Border Patrol for the Blaine Sector in Blaine, Washington.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to testify on enforcement issues and concerns that exist along the U.S.-Canada border.
For the past 20 years, it has been my privilege to serve as a Border Patrol agent, supervisory Border Patrol agent and staff officer in the Blaine area of operations. It is my hope that I can convey to you an accurate synopsis of the day-to-day challenges that the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol in the Blaine sector encounter.
The Blaine sector shares approximately 102 miles of land border with Canada plus 150 miles of water boundary. The majority of illegal smuggling activity takes place within the 35 miles between Blaine and Ross Lake, Washington. The other 65 miles which extends to the crest of the North Cascade Mountains is mostly remote wilderness area made up of terrain which is very difficult to enter.
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The 35-mile area between Blaine and Ross Lake is diverse and very challenging to patrol. Much of this land consists of open berry fields on both sides of the border and roads in Canada and the United States that parallel each other. It is very easy to simply jump or drive across the small ditch that separates the two countries.
The U.S.-Canada border is significantly different than our border with Mexico in that most of the smuggling on our southern border is north bound, whereas smuggling along the border in Blaine sector is both north and south. In fact, it is common to have the same smugglers moving illegal contraband in both directions. Their bottom line is profit.
At the present time, Blaine Sector has 42 Border Patrol agents on duty with an additional 7 agents allocated for fiscal year 1999. These positions are spread among five Border Patrol stations and also include our sector staff positions. The present 42 agent positions also include an aircraft pilot and an intelligence agent. Currently, we have three agents on detail to the southwest border.
By far, the best strategy that has been developed along the border is the operational liaison and intelligence the sector has been able to establish with other law enforcement agencies. This includes working closely with U.S. Customs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, local law enforcement agencies and with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada.
Each of our individual agencies have limited manpower along the border, so we have developed a unique border management posture. We have treated the border as a common entity and have made great strides in not only sharing intelligence but in actually working joint operations. We share a common radio frequency and we are in constant contact as we work along both sides of the border.
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With HIDTA funding, we are in the midst of establishing an intelligence center at Blaine Sector headquarters which will house intelligence analysts from the various agencies along the border. We anticipate in the near future most operations will be intelligence-driven.
Over the last 10 years, there has been phenomenal growth in the areas north of us in Canada. Vancouver, British Columbia has become one of the fastest growing cities in North America. It is an important link along the Interstate 5 corridor which runs north from southern California into the Pacific Northwest and then into Canada.
We have experienced large increases in organized crime along the border. Our manpower levels during this time have been static. Ten years ago we experienced very little alien or drug smuggling activity along the border. We now know that illegal smuggling activity takes place on a daily basis. Due to limited manpower, we are able to respond to only 50 percent of the sensor intrusion alarms on any given day.
Canada has an non-visa requirement with several countries that the United States continues to require visas from. This has resulted in many smugglers being able to easily bring third country nationals into Canada and then smuggle them across the border into the United States. As an example, we have noted a large increase in the smuggling of Korean nationals during the last several years.
Over the last 3 years, the Blaine Sector has experienced an increase in drug seizures along the border. The primary drug has been high quality BC Bud marijuana that is grown in British Columbia. This high grade marijuana has a THC level which tests between 20 and 30 percent. Most Mexican marijuana usually contains a THC level of around 5 percent. We have had reports of BC Bud going for as high as $8,000 a pound in the Los Angeles area. Blaine Sector seizures of BC Bud during the last fiscal year was 600 percent over the previous year.
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Since June 1996, Blaine Sector Border Patrol agents have arrested three different individuals with terrorist ties, the most notable being Abu Mezer. A New York City Police Department police responded and shot Abu Mezer just before he planned to put bombs on the New York subway system.
In closing, I again appreciate the opportunity to address the committee. Each of us in the Border Patrol have worked on the southern border over the last decade and are aware of the terrific challenges that are there. I do not believe that we will ever have the same magnitude of problems along the Canadian border but we do have significant challenges that need to be met.
I will be happy to attempt to answer any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Davis follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF EUGENE DAVIS, DEPUTY CHIEF, UNITED STATES BORDER PATROL, BLAINE, WA
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Eugene R. Davis. I am the Deputy Chief Patrol Agent, U.S. Border Patrol, at the Blaine Sector, in Blaine, Washington. Thank you very much for this opportunity to testify on enforcement issues and concerns that exist along the U.S./Canada Border. For the past 20 years it has been my privilege to serve as a Border Patrol Agent, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent, and Staff Officer in the Blaine Sector area of operations. It is my hope that I can convey to you an accurate synopsis of the day to day challenges that the men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol in the Blaine Sector encounter.
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INTRODUCTION
The Blaine Border Patrol Sector shares approximately 102 miles of land border with Canada. The majority of illegal smuggling activity takes place within 35-miles between Blaine and Ross Lake, Washington. The other 67 miles, which extends to the crest of the North Cascade Mountains, is mostly remote wilderness area, made up of terrain which is very difficult to enter. The 35-mile area between Blaine and Ross Lake is diverse and is very challenging to patrol. Much of this land consists of open berry fields on both sides of the Border and roads in Canada and the United States that parallel each other. It is very easy to simply jump or drive across the small ditch, which separates the two countries. This is the most common modus operandi for the smugglers operating along both sides of the border. The U.S./Canada Border is significantly different than our border with Mexico in that most of the smuggling on our Southern Border is northbound, whereas smuggling along the Border in Blaine Sector is both north and south. In fact, it is common to have the same smugglers moving illegal contraband in both directions. Their bottom line is profit.
Blaine Sector also is responsible for 150 miles of water boundary that separates the United States and Canada. Within these waters just south of Canada are the San Juan Islands, which number close to 200 small to medium size islands. Over the past 100 years these islands have always been a haven for smuggling activity.
In addition to the responsibility for controlling the border areas, Blaine Sector has also been tasked with various interior enforcement functions. The Sector has overall enforcement responsibility for 16 counties in Western Washington and five counties in Oregon. The majority of the work in these areas has consisted of working with other law enforcement agencies to identify and remove criminal aliens. We also have enforcement responsibility in agriculture, reforestation, and the commercial fishing industry in Western Washington, Oregon and Alaska.
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MANPOWER RESOURCES
Blaine Sector at the present time has 42 Border Patrol Agents on duty. These positions are spread out among five Border Patrol Stations and also include our sector staff positions. (We also have a six member Anti-Smuggling unit and eight Detention Enforcement Officers.) The 42 Agent positions also include an Aircraft Pilot and an Intelligence Agent.
Within the past two months Blaine Sector has been given an additional seven agents that will increase our total Border Patrol Agent level of staffing to 49 positions. These additional Agents will be assigned to our Stations at Blaine and Lynden, Washington. This will increase the total Agents at Blaine Station to 21 and Lynden Station to 13.
OPERATIONAL STATEGIES
By far the best strategy that has been developed along the Border is the operational liaison and intelligence that the Sector has been able to establish with other law enforcement agencies. This includes working closely with U.S. Customs, the Drug Enforcement Administration, local law enforcement agencies and with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canada. Each of our individual agencies has limited manpower along the border, so we have developed a unique Border Management posture. We have treated the border as a common entity and made great strides in not only sharing intelligence, but in actually working joint operations. We share a common radio frequency and are in constant contact as we work along both sides of the border. With HIDTA funding, we are in the midst of establishing an Intelligence Center at Blaine Sector Headquarters which will house Intelligence Analysts from the various agencies along the border. We anticipate that in the near future most operations will be intelligence driven.
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PROBLEM AREAS
Over the last 10 years there has been phenomenal growth in the areas north of us in Canada. Vancouver, British Columbia has become one of the fastest growing cities in North America. It is an important link along the Interstate 5 corridor, which runs north from Southern California into the Pacific Northwest and then into Canada. We have experienced large increases in organized crime along the border. Our manpower levels during this time have been static. Ten years ago we experienced very little alien or drug smuggling activity along the border. We know now that illegal smuggling activity takes place on a daily basis. Due to limited manpower, we are able to respond to only 50% of our sensor intrusion alarms on any given day.
Over the past several years Canada has adopted a non-visa requirement policy with many countries that the United States continues to require visas from. This has resulted in many smugglers being able to easily bring third-country nationals into Canada and then smuggle them across the border into the United States. As an example, we have noted a large increase in the smuggling of Korean nationals during the last several years.
Over the last three years, Blaine Sector has experienced an increase in drug seizures along the border. The primary drug has been the high quality ''BC Bud'' marijuana that is grown in British Columbia. This high-grade marijuana has a THC level which tests out to 20% to 30%. Most Mexican Marijuana usually contains a THC level of around 5%. We have had reports of ''BC Bud'' going for as high as $8,000 a pound in the Los Angeles area. Blaine Sector's seizure of ''BC Bud'' during the last fiscal year was 600% over the previous year, that is 117 pounds interdicted in 1997 compared to 692 pounds in 1998.
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Since June of 1996, Blaine Sector Border Patrol Agents have arrested three different individuals with terrorists ties. The most notable being ABU MEZER. A New York City Police Department Response team shot ABU MESER just hours before he planned to put bombs on the New York Subway System. The Canadian Government has stated that virtually every known terrorist group in the world has offices in Canada.
The Blaine Sector has no marine presence in the 150 miles of water boundary between the United States and Canada. It is suspected that there is a lot of smuggling activity taking place, but the only agency operating in these international waters on a permanent basis is the Coast Guard. They are tasked mainly with search and rescue type operations.
The last major concern that the Blaine Sector has is the continual detail of Blaine Agents to the Southern Border. At the present time we continue to send three agents south each month. This seems like a relatively small number but it reflects over 7% of our assigned manpower resources. We certainly see the need to send experienced journeyman agents to the southern Border and we have always done so when requested. However, it does affect our ability to provide coverage in our own area of responsibility.
CONCLUSION
In closing I again appreciate the opportunity that I have had to address the committee. Each of us in the Border Patrol have worked on the Southern Border over the last decade and are aware of the terrific challenges that are there. I do not believe that we will ever have the same magnitude of problems along the Canadian Border. But we do have significant challenges that need to be met. I will be happy to attempt to answer any questions that you may have.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Bromwich?
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BROMWICH, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. BROMWICH. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Ms. Jackson Lee and members of the subcommittee, I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the work of the Office of the Inspector General with respect to immigration law enforcement issues at the U.S.-Canadian border.
As the subcommittee is well aware, the OIG has done extensive work in investigating, auditing and inspecting programs and personnel along this country's southern border with Mexico. At this point, northern border issues have received far less of our attention and far less attention from the INS and other Federal agencies seeking to secure our Nation's borders.
There is ample work for us to do along the northern border and I am hopeful that our budget situation will improve in fiscal year 2000 such that we will be able to do more such important work.
This morning, I plan to do two things briefly. First, to describe an initiative underway in our Inspections Division to review INS' strategy and deployment of resources for securing the border between the U.S. and Canada. Second, I will discuss a special investigation we completed last year that involved a Palestinian who crossed the northern border illegally and was convicted for plotting to bomb the New York City subway system.
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The U.S.-Canadian border, as other witnesses have said, extends for approximately 4,000 miles and is one of the longest land borders in the world. Approximately 300 Border Patrol agents assigned to one of eight sectors share responsibility for controlling it.
Our inspection, which began in February of this year, will review law enforcement threats along the northern border and the Border Patrol's use of its resources, intelligence information and law enforcement relationships to address these threats. Thus far, the inspection team has reviewed considerable background information, including the Border Patrol's strategic plan, annual intelligence assessments, workload data and press reports on northern border issues. The team also has interviewed senior Border Patrol officials at INS headquarters in Washington, D.C. and senior managers at Border Patrol sectors in Spokane, Washington; Grand Forks, North Dakota; Havre, Montana; and Holton, Maine. We are just beginning the field work phase of this inspection and plan to visit Border Patrol sections in Swanton, Vermont, Buffalo, New York, Detroit, Michigan and Blaine, Washington. We expect to complete our site visits and interviews by mid-June.
While our inspection team is just beginning its field work, I would like to share some preliminary observations with you. First, the Border Patrol's national strategy implemented in 1994 focuses on deterrence, that is, preventing illegal aliens from penetrating the border. This approach differs from the Border Patrol's previous operational strategy that mixed deterrence with traffic checks, farm and ranch checks and jail checks.
The current strategy has curtailed these Border Patrol interior enforcement activities significantly in favor of a greater emphasis on a show of force to prevent illegal immigration. The best known examples—quite well known to this subcommittee—are the Gatekeeper operation in the San Diego Sector and Operation Hold-the-Line in El Paso, Texas.
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The Border Patrol's national strategy includes four phases for controlling the entire U.S. border. The first three phases direct the vast majority of Border Patrol resources to the southwest border until sufficient deterrence is achieved. When this is accomplished, the Border Patrol will move to the fourth phase that calls for achieving deterrence at all remaining border areas, including the northern border. The Border Patrol is currently in the second phase of this strategy and it may be several years before Phase IV begins and the northern border is provided significant additional resources.
The nature of the law enforcement threats on or near the northern border includes alien smuggling, drug smuggling, illegal alien entry and terrorism. The intensity and type of specific threats vary from sector to sector.
Several examples: The border in western Washington is experiencing, as witnesses have already said, a marked increase in the smuggling of ''BC Bud,'' an especially potent strain of marijuana that sells at a price as high as cocaine in southern California.
The Swanton, Vermont Sector has experienced a unique alien smuggling operation in which Native Americans have used tribal lands that straddle the border to smuggle illegal aliens from Asia into the United States.
INS and other intelligence reports indicate that terrorist groups locate in Canada, in part because of Canada's liberal visa and asylum laws, and because of the country's proximity to the United States.
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I look forward to sharing the results of our inspection with the subcommittee when it is completed.
Now, on to our special investigation. A special investigation by my office was released in March 1998 and was called ''Bombs in Brooklyn, How the Two Illegal Aliens Arrested for Plotting to Bomb the New York Subway Entered and Remained in the United States.'' That special investigation highlighted the fact that illegal aliens who enter the country through the northern border may be involved in terrorist activities.
In this investigation, the OIG examined how two aliens, Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer and Lafi Khalil, entered and remained in the United States before they were arrested in July 1997 for allegedly planning to bomb the New York City subway system. Mezer was subsequently convicted of the bomb plot and received a life sentence.
As the subcommittee may remember from my testimony several weeks ago, Khalil illegally remained in the United States after his visa expired. He was a visa overstay. He was acquitted of charges stemming from the bombing plot but convicted of immigration charges and was sentenced to 3 years in prison.
As our report discussed, Mezer was first apprehended attempting to enter the United States on June 23, 1996 when the National Park Service stopped him in a remote area in North Cascades National Park in Washington State. After Mezer was turned over to the Border Patrol he was returned voluntarily to Canada. During our investigation, INS officials told us that because of the unavailability of detention space, aliens who are apprehended attempting to enter the U.S. illegally along this stretch of border are typically returned to Canada voluntarily, as Mezer was, unless there are unusual circumstances such as evidence that the alien is an aggravated felon.
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The vast majority of illegal aliens apprehended entering the United States from Canada, for example 723 of 794 in the Blaine Sector in fiscal year 1996, are voluntarily returned to Canada. We found that record checks are rarely done on these illegal aliens to see if they may be suspected terrorists. In addition, aliens are rarely prosecuted for the criminal offense of entry without inspection even after repeated apprehensions.
Six days later, the Border Patrol detained Mezer again trying to enter the U.S. illegally through a park next to a busy port of entry 65 miles west of where he had been apprehended the previous week. Once again, the Border Patrol voluntarily returned Mezer to Canada. Six months later, Mezer was apprehended a third time by a Border Patrol agent as Mezer was boarding a bus in Bellingham, Washington, 25 miles south of the Canadian border. This time Canadian immigration officials told the Border Patrol that Canada probably would not accept Mezer back. The Border Patrol agent commenced formal deportation proceedings against Mezer but as is common in such cases, Mezer was released on bond. He subsequently filed an asylum application to remain in the U.S. claiming that he was persecuted in Israel because the authorities incorrectly believed he was a member of the terrorist group Hamas. He subsequently withdrew the application and was placed in voluntary departure status, meaning he had 60 days to leave the country voluntarily. A month later, Mezer was arrested in Brooklyn for the plot to bomb the subway.
Contrary to the perception that arose at the time of Mezer's arrest, he was not a known terrorist the U.S. immigration authorities allowed to travel around the United States while awaiting deportation. Although we did not find improper actions by any individual officials, our review did reveal important and systemic problems that are not unique to Mezer's case. First, his easy entry into Canada and his ability to remain in Canada despite criminal convictions for use of a stolen credit card and misdemeanor assault, coupled with his repeated attempts to enter the United States illegally, highlight the difficulty in controlling illegal immigration into the United States.
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Second, Mezer's case shows the inadequacy of INS resources for preventing illegal immigration along the northwest border. With an average of four Border Patrol agents assigned to western Washington stations that cover 102 miles of the border and no coverage of the border from midnight until the morning, it is surprising that Mezer was apprehended once, much less three times.
Third, the virtual impunity from prosecution that aliens face when they are caught entering the United States illegally is also made apparent by Mezer's case. Border Patrol statistics show that most illegal aliens apprehended entering the United States from Canada are voluntarily returned without any criminal or immigration consequences. Despite twice being caught attempting to enter the U.S. illegally within 1 week, Mezer was simply returned voluntarily to Canada each time.
Fourth, Mezer's case demonstrates the significant differences of understanding as to which Federal agencies check for information regarding whether an asylum applicant is a terrorist. We found that the Immigration Court and INS Asylum Officers believe that the State Department checks its databases for information about individual terrorists. State Department officials said they thought INS and its Asylum Officers had access to such information and conducted these checks. In fact, absent unusual circumstances, the State Department does not check for terrorist information.
While we were told that the Border Patrol stations have access to the State Department's ''Tipoff'' system that contains information about suspected terrorists, it is not clear whether these officers check this information routinely when an alien is detained. Even more significantly, we were told that no terrorism checks are performed either by INS or by the Department of State on the vast majority of asylum applications that are submitted by asylum officers, more than 90 percent of the 150,000 asylum applications filed annually. While we have no indication that any information was available to indicate that Mezer was a terrorist, we believe that Mezer's case shows that the INS and the State Department need to coordinate more closely on appropriate procedures for accessing and sharing any information suggesting that a detained alien or an asylum applicant may be a terrorist.
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Since issuance of our report last March, we have sent two letters to the Immigration Service to check on the status of their corrective actions, the first in October 1998 and the second in January of this year. INS has not responded to either letter.
It is clear to me from this case example and from the work that our inspection team has conducted to date that the northern border enforcement issues are vitally important to the security of the United States. I encourage this subcommittee's continued oversight of this issue and I look forward to sharing the results of our review of INS' strategy and deployment of resources for securing the northern border between the United States and Canada.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bromwich follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BROMWICH, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, and Members of the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims:
I. INTRODUCTION
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee to discuss the work of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with respect to immigration law enforcement issues at the border between the United States and Canada. As this subcommittee is well aware, the OIG has done extensive work investigating, auditing and inspecting programs and personnel along this country's southern border with Mexico. Up to this point at least, northern border issues have received far less of our attention and, I suspect, far less attention from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and other federal agencies charged with securing our nation's borders. While the OIG will continue to play an active role in Southwest border states, I am hopeful that our budget situation will improve in FY 2000 to enable us to open a small field office in Detroit, MI, to handle an increasing number of northern border issues.
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This morning I plan to do two things during my remarks: first, describe an initiative under way in our Inspections Division to review INS's strategy and deployment of resources for securing the northern border between the United States and Canada. Second, I will discuss a Special Investigation we completed last year that involved a Palestinian who entered this country illegally across the northern border and was convicted for plotting to bomb the New York City subway.
I. OIG INSPECTION OF BORDER PATROL EFFORTS ALONG THE NORTHERN BORDER
The U.S.-Canadian border, which extends for approximately 4,000 miles (excluding Alaska), is one of the longest land borders in the world. Approximately 300 Border Patrol Agents assigned to one of eight Sectors share responsibility for controlling this vast border. Our inspection—which began in February of this year—will review law enforcement threats along the northern border and the Border Patrol's use of its resources, intelligence information, and law-enforcement relationships to address these threats.
Thus far, the inspection team has reviewed considerable background information, including the Border Patrol's Strategic Plan, annual intelligence assessments, workload data, and press reports on northern border issues. The team also has interviewed senior Border Patrol officials at INS headquarters in Washington, D.C., and senior managers at Border Patrol Sectors in Spokane, Washington; Grand Forks, North Dakota; Havre, Montana; and Houlton, Maine. We are just beginning the fieldwork phase of this inspection and plan to visit Border Patrol Sectors in Swanton, Vermont; Buffalo, New York; Detroit, Michigan; and Blaine, Washington. We expect to complete our site visits and interviews by mid-June.
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While our Inspections team is just beginning its field work, I offer several preliminary observations:
The Border Patrol's national strategy implemented in 1994 focuses on deterrence—i.e., preventing illegal aliens from penetrating the border. This approach differs from the Border Patrol's previous operational strategy that mixed deterrence with traffic checks, farm and ranch checks, and jail checks. The current strategy has curtailed these Border Patrol interior enforcement activities significantly in favor of a greater emphasis on a ''show of force'' to prevent illegal immigration. Perhaps the best-known examples of this strategy are the ''Gatekeeper'' operation in the San Diego Sector and ''Operation Hold-the-Line'' in El Paso, Texas.
The Border Patrol's national strategy includes four phases for controlling the entire U.S. border. The first three phases direct the vast majority of Border Patrol resources to the Southwest border until an appropriate level of deterrence is achieved. When this is accomplished, the Border Patrol will move to the fourth phase that calls for achieving deterrence at all remaining border areas, including the northern border. The Border Patrol is currently in the second phase of this strategy and it may be several years before Phase IV begins and the northern border is provided significant additional resources.
The nature of the law enforcement threats on or near the northern border includes alien smuggling, drug smuggling, illegal alien entry, and terrorism. The intensity and type of specific threats vary from sector to sector. A few examples:
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— The border in western Washington is experiencing a marked increase in the smuggling of ''BC Bud''—an especially potent strain of marijuana—that sells for as much as cocaine in Southern California.
— The Swanton, Vermont, Sector has experienced a unique alien smuggling operation in which Native Americans have used tribal lands that straddle the border to smuggle illegal aliens from Asia into the United States.
— INS and other intelligence reports indicate that terrorist groups locate in Canada in part because of Canada's liberal visa and asylum laws and the country's proximity to the United States.
I look forward to sharing the results of our Inspection with the Subcommittee when it is completed.
III. SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: BOMBS IN BROOKLYN
A. Investigative Findings
A Special Investigation by my office released in March 1998—''Bombs in Brooklyn: How the Two Illegal Aliens Arrested for Plotting to Bomb the New York Subway Entered and Remained in the United States''—highlighted the threat that illegal aliens who enter the country through the northern border may be involved in terrorist activities. In this investigation, the OIG examined how two aliens, Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer (Mezer) and Lafi Khalil (Khalil), entered and remained in the United States before they were arrested in July1997 for allegedly planning to bomb the New York City subway system. Mezer was subsequently convicted of the bomb plot and received a life sentence. As the Subcommittee may remember from my testimony several weeks ago, Khalil illegally remained in the United States after his visa expired—a visa overstay. He was acquitted of charges stemming from the bombing plot but convicted of immigration charges and sentenced to three years in prison.
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As our report discussed, Mezer was first apprehended attempting to enter the United States on June 23, 1996, when the National Park Service stopped him in a remote area in North Cascades National Park in Washington state. After Mezer was turned over to the Border Patrol, he was returned voluntarily to Canada. During our investigation, INS officials told us that because of the unavailability of detention space, aliens who are apprehended attempting to enter the United States illegally along this stretch of border are typically returned to Canada voluntarily, as Mezer was, unless there are unusual circumstances, such as evidence that the alien is an aggravated felon.
The vast majority of illegal aliens apprehended entering the United States from Canada—for example, 723 of 794 in the Blaine Sector in FY 1996—are voluntarily returned to Canada. We found that record checks are rarely done on these illegal aliens to see if they may be suspected terrorists. In addition, aliens are rarely prosecuted for the criminal offense of entry without inspection, even after repeated apprehensions.
Six days later, the Border Patrol detained Mezer again trying to enter the United States illegally through a park next to a busy port of entry 65 miles west of where he had been apprehended the previous week. Once again, the Border Patrol voluntarily returned Mezer to Canada.
Six months later, Mezer was apprehended a third time by a Border Patrol agent as Mezer was boarding a bus in Bellingham, Washington, 25 miles south of the Canadian border. This time, Canadian immigration officials told the Border Patrol that Canada probably would not accept Mezer back. The Border Patrol agent commenced formal deportation proceedings against Mezer, but, as is common in such cases, Mezer was released on bond. He subsequently filed an asylum application to remain in the United States, claiming that he was persecuted in Israel because the authorities incorrectly believed he was a member of the terrorist group Hamas. Mezer was later arrested in Brooklyn for the plot to bomb the subway.
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B. Systemic Weaknesses
Contrary to the perception that arose at the time of Mezer's arrest, he was not a known terrorist who U.S. immigration authorities inappropriately allowed to travel around the United States while awaiting deportation. Although we did not find improper actions by any individual officials, our review did reveal important and systemic problems that are not unique to Mezer's case.
First, his easy entry into Canada and his ability to remain in Canada despite criminal convictions for use of a stolen credit card and misdemeanor assault—coupled with his repeated attempts to enter the United States illegally—highlight the difficulty in controlling illegal immigration into the United States.
Second, Mezer's case shows the inadequacy of INS resources for preventing illegal immigration along the northwest border. With an average of four Border Patrol agents assigned to Western Washington stations that cover 102 miles of the border—and no coverage of the border from midnight until the morning—it is surprising that Mezer was apprehended once, much less three times.
Third, the virtual impunity from prosecution that aliens face when they are caught entering the United States illegally is also made apparent by Mezer's case. Border Patrol statistics show that most illegal aliens who are apprehended entering the United States from Canada are voluntarily returned without any criminal or immigration consequences. Despite twice being caught attempting to enter the United States illegally within one week, Mezer was simply returned voluntarily to Canada each time.
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Fourth, Mezer's case demonstrates significant differences of understanding as to which federal agencies check for information regarding whether an asylum applicant is a terrorist. We found that the immigration court and INS asylum officers believed that the State Department checks its databases for information about individual terrorists. State Department officials said that they thought that INS and its asylum officers had access to such information and conducted these checks. In fact, absent unusual circumstances, the State Department does not check for terrorist information. While we were told that Border Patrol stations have access to the State Department's ''Tipoff'' system that contains information about suspected terrorists, it is not clear whether these offices check this information routinely when an alien is detained.
Even more significantly, we were told that no terrorism checks are performed either by INS or by the Department of State on the vast majority of asylum applications that are submitted by asylum officers—more than 90 percent of the 150,000 asylum application filed annually. While we have no indication that any information was available to indicate that Mezer was a terrorist, we believe that Mezer's case shows that the INS and the State Department need to coordinate more closely on appropriate procedures for accessing and sharing any information suggesting that a detained alien or an asylum applicant may be a terrorist.
Since issuance of our report last March, we sent two letters to the INS to check on the status of their corrective actions—the first in October 1998, the second in January of this year. INS has not responded to either letter.
IV. CONCLUSION
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It is clear to me from this case example, and from the work that our Inspection team has conducted to date, that northern border enforcement issues are vitally important to the security of the United States. I encourage this subcommittee's continued oversight of this issue, and I look forward to sharing the results of our review of INS's strategy and deployment of resources for securing the northern border between the United States and Canada.
I would be pleased to answer any questions.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Bromwich.
Mr. Trotter?
STATEMENT OF ROBERT TROTTER, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, UNITED STATES CUSTOMS SERVICE
Mr. TROTTER. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is a pleasure to appear here today before you.
We appreciate being invited to this hearing. I think you well know that the U.S. Customs Service handles about one-half of the primary processing on the northern and southern land borders, so we are right there next to the Immigration Service. We also are in charge of cargo inbound and outbound. So that is part of our role along the borders.
In February of this year, Commissioner Ray Kelly of the Customs Service named me as the new Northern Border Coordinator, a position that has never been held before in the Customs Service. I think this shows the importance of the northern border to the new Commissioner. I am wearing two hats right now. I am Assistant Commissioner for Strategic Trade as well as U.S. Customs Northern Border Coordinator. I travel a great deal on the northern border, look at the operations up there and meet routinely with the Canadians. In fact, I was in Ottawa just this Monday with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Revenue Canada (their customs service), talking about new methods for work along the border as well as enforcement efforts.
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We, in the U.S. Customs Service, have found it extremely important to look at what is going on on the northern border. We have faced southward for many years looking at the southern border. Not to diminish the importance of the southern border, but we are also quite aware of the importance of the northern border. The Canadians are our number one trading partner and very important people with which to deal.
We are working with the Immigration Service, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Revenue Canada on a number of programs to actually look at what we are doing, to measure how well we are doing it, and then to develop new programs, after deciding whether to use technology or additional resources. We also are in the throes of looking at resource needs throughout the entire Customs Service. The Commissioner has gone outside to a private contractor to build an allocation model of resource needs in the Customs Service.
We know that this subcommittee is interested in the enforcement activities along the border with respect to narcotics. Just to name a few of the instances that have occurred on the border, we summarize them in actual contraband seized. In fiscal year 1998, the U.S. Customs Service seized a total of 4,413 pounds of drugs along our northern border. In terms of types of drugs, we seized a little over 615 pounds of cocaine, 3.84 pounds of heroin and 3,800 pounds of marijuana. We also have a concern about narcotics interestingly enough going northbound and southbound both.
As was mentioned, in the Vancouver, Seattle, Blaine corridor, BC Bud, the very high potent marijuana that is being grown out there is a concern for us. It is a concern that, as was mentioned by the Border Patrol, the people who are engaged in smuggling drugs often are engaged in smuggling currency as well.
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We also know that some of the best opportunities we have in dealing with the growth along the border, not only the enforcement risks as they come to us, but also just the general passenger and cargo flow along the border, is the use of information sharing. We work very hard with the other agencies—Immigration, DEA, the FBI and other Federal, State and local agencies—on information sharing. We are working very closely with the Canadians on data and information sharing. These are important issues to us.
As mentioned earlier, we need to know as far in advance as possible those risks that are coming at us. Our job is to separate out the low risk traveler, the low risk cargo and concentrate our efforts in the high risk areas. One thing that we are very interested in which was talked about a little bit is the weapons of mass destruction. We are certainly concerned about the movement of weapons of mass destruction along our borders coming from Canada as well as through the seaports and airports.
We have recently trained many of our inspectors and many have a detector they wear on their belts to determine if they are being exposed to any nuclear or atomic release at least small enough to know that would give them advanced warning. We are working very closely with the DEA, FBI and Immigration through the Department of Justice on forming an intelligence group that has been in existence for some time in Buffalo, New York. Speaker of the House Hastert has asked us to relook at that group and see if it is as viable as it could be, to see if we have to reenergize that. That is one of the issues we are looking at for not only continuing the information exchange but taking that next step.
I have cut my presentation short as you asked. Because most of these gentlemen have covered everything else, we stand by to answer any questions you may have.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Trotter follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROBERT TROTTER, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, UNITED STATES CUSTOMS SERVICE
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, it is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the emergence of a new focus that the U.S. Customs Service is placing on its activities along the Northern Border.
In February of this year, Customs Commissioner Kelly took a major step towards placement of a new focus on the Northern Border by naming me as U.S. Customs first Northern Border Coordinator. In addition to examining our passenger, cargo and enforcement activities and initiatives along the border, I am charged with the following:
Identifying opportunities and take steps to improve service through the use of technology;
Engaging in the development and implementation of both bilateral and U.S./Canadian Accord initiatives; and
Consulting with a broad spectrum of U.S. and Canadian government officials, to identify and exchange ideas relative to Northern Border issues.
Since assuming my new role, I have been traveling to border sites, educating myself and others, and building relationships with U.S. and Canadian border enforcement agencies. I have met with senior representatives of Revenue Canada with Citizenship and Immigration Canada representatives, and with U.S. Ambassador Giffin and his staff in Ottawa.
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I hope the following facts will help to highlight the enormity of our task but also the magnitude of the economic relationship we have with Canada:
Canada is our oldest and largest trading partner. In terms of area, it is the second largest country in the world.
Our common border from Maine to Blaine and North to Alaska is some 5,500 miles in length.
Most Canadians live within 100 miles of the U.S. border with more than half the population concentrated in the eastern provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
The U.S. Customs Service supports 125 Northern Border crossings with 27 Commercial Centers that are open 24 hours each day. At these 125 crossings, we have 83 ports of entry and 42 stations, including 5 seasonal crossings.
The total trade in goods between the United States and Canada in 1998 was $330 Billion.
U.S. exports to Canada equaled $153.2 Billion or 22% of total U.S. exports to the world ($682 Billion); and, U.S. imports arriving from Canada equaled $176.7 Billion or 20% of our worldwide imports ($897 Billion).
By value, almost 56 percent of our imports from Canada move through three of our 83 Northern Border ports of entry—namely—Detroit, Buffalo and Port Huron.
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In addition to processing cargo at the Northern Border, U.S. Customs processes passengers, busses, trains and trucks. In Fiscal Year 1998, we processed almost 101,700,000 passengers and close to 44 million conveyances that crossed our border with Canada.
We are working with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Revenue Canada on a number of programs to improve the processing of travelers and merchandise across our common border. The Remote Video Inspection System (RVIS) is an example. It expands service at small locations and relies on the agencies working together to approve applications, monitor crossings and conduct compliance checks. In another initiative, Immigration officers on a collateral duty basis have been added to our Intelligence Collection and Analysis Team in Buffalo.
A significant amount of time is being expended by U.S. Customs on the ''Canada/US Accord on our Shared Border,'' which is the foundation for enhancing the management of our shared border with Canada to meet future enforcement, trade and facilitation needs. This Accord, announced by Prime Minister Chretien and President Clinton on February 24, 1995, contributes to fulfilling the expectations of the traveling public and business community for better service. Recognizing successes that have been achieved under the Accord umbrella, U.S. Customs, Revenue Canada, INS, and Citizenship and Immigration Canada agreed during a meeting in Buffalo in early March, to support ongoing joint efforts. In June, the Accord Coordinating Committee with representatives from each of the aforementioned agencies will meet in Halifax, Nova Scotia to discuss and focus our Accord-related efforts.
A decision in the spirit of mutual cooperation Accord cooperation was U.S. Customs and Revenue Canada's agreement to exchange ''Liaison Officers'' to focus on specific issues. This past Monday, I traveled to Ottawa with our first ''Liaison Officer'' to discuss a 30-day temporary assignment that he is undertaking in Ottawa with Revenue Canada. This individual will be working with the Canadians on passenger programs. His primary focus will be on CANPASS, a Canadian approach to expediting the movement of legitimate U.S. and American travelers into Canada. Next Monday, Revenue Canada will send a representative to Washington to perform a similar detail focused on trade automation.
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As I am sure the members of this subcommittee know, drug smuggling activities along our Northern Border are markedly different from that of the Southern Border. Nevertheless, we cannot lose sight of the fact that trade patterns are constantly shifting and as these shifts occur, new opportunities for the smuggling of drugs and contraband will occur. In Fiscal Year 1998, U.S. Customs seized a total of 4,413 pounds of drugs along our Northern Border. In terms of types of drugs, we seized 614.77 pounds of cocaine, 3.84 pounds of heroin, and 3,794.63 pounds of marijuana (including from South East Asia) We are concerned about and we are attempting to address potential shifts in trade patterns that could accelerate the flow of illegal drugs and other contraband via Canada into the United States.
Among the other enforcement challenges we face on the Northern Border are:
Prohibited imports from Iran including Iranian rugs, which are the nation's second largest export.
Drug proceeds entering the United States.
Cigarette and liquor smuggling.
Telemarketing fraud.
Precursor chemicals used to manufacture illicit drugs entering the United States.
Stolen vehicles.
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To help address these ever present threats, U.S. Customs has an excellent relationship with Revenue Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and provincial authorities across Canada.
Similarly, we are concerned with and involved in the fight to combat international terrorism. We have two broad goals in combating international terrorism:
Protect the American public from the introduction of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and other instruments of terror into the U.S. from abroad; and,
Prevent international terrorists from obtaining WMD materials and technologies, arms, funds and other support from U.S. and foreign sources.
To achieve these goals, Customs employs its unique border search and law enforcement authority in processing international passengers, conveyances and cargo to detect and pursue violations related to international terrorism. Our overall objectives are to disrupt illegal trafficking of WMD materials and technologies, arms, and other instruments of terror through interdiction of illicit shipments; and to dismantle trafficking organizations supplying and supporting rogue states and international terrorists.
During the past fiscal year, we provided training on radiation detection and assigned radiation detectors to our Customs Inspectors. Additionally, Customs uses various other technological devices to assist in the detection of terrorist-related devices and materials. Included are x-ray vans, portal radiation detectors and particle detectors. Currently, we are in the process of developing satellite broadcast training for the detection of illegal importations of chemical and biological warfare agents to curb the threat of illegal proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
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Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee to address the new emphasis that the U.S. Customs Service is placing on the Northern Border. The border is changing and we are working both here and in Canada to modernize and streamline our processes. Our intent is to meet our obligations while taking into account the needs of our ''customers'' and the needs of the American public. This concludes my statement and I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Trotter. It looks like you timed it just perfectly.
We appreciate the contributions of all witnesses.
It is my understanding that the Ranking Member of the full Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers, can only be with us a few minutes, so I am going to recognize him first for questions.
Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congratulations to the Ranking Member who I will ask to carry on my responsibility.
Welcome to our distinguished witnesses on this panel and to Mark Hall of the Detroit National Border Patrol Council. We are looking forward to your testimony. Unfortunately, I will not be able to stay.
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This is a very important subject and I think that the concern all of us bring to it is going to signal a good way to continue the oversight and working out the problems at the northern border that may remain.
I have a letter that I would like to introduce from the Ambassador of the Canadian Embassy plus my own statement.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Conyers follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN CONYERS, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
I want to thank the Chairman for holding this hearing on law enforcement problems at the border between the United States and Canada. No member is more concerned about this is than I am. We can see Windsor, Canada from my District. Each day, thousands of people cross the Ambassador Bridge in and out of Detroit and Windsor. More commerce crosses this bridge than is involved in all of the U.S. exports to Japan. I need to hear from the witnesses first hand on what the border crossing problems are and what is being done to correct them.
I want to extend a special welcome to Mark Hall, President of the Detroit National Border Patrol Council, Local #2599. I look forward to his testimony and the other panelist who are in the day to day work of protecting our borders. I am pleased the U.S. Customs Service is here to testify to share with us their multifaceted responsibilities in enforcing criminal laws but if we really want an understanding of how law enforcement is combating terrorism and drug trafficking, I believe receiving testimony from Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the federal agencies responsible for criminal laws, is warranted.
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Drug and alien smuggling can only be curtailed and eliminated by cooperation between Canadian and United States law enforcement agencies. Although hearing the problem first hand is critical, it is also important to hear the Canadian and United States criminal law enforcement perspective. I request unanimous consent to insert in the record a letter from the Canadian Ambassador which sets forth the cooperation between the two country law enforcement agencies. I am also requesting that the record remain open to receive testimony from the FBI and the DEA on their efforts on the northern border.
Mr. Chairman, I hope that we do not have to deal today with argument that we need to implement Section 110 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996. This section requires an automated system to document every ''alien'' entering and leaving the United States. Clearly, section 110 will not assist law enforcement in identifying or apprehending drug smugglers or terrorists because it would do nothing to limit ''movement'' once the individual has recorded his or her entry. Furthermore, although it will provide the Immigration and Naturalization Service with better statistics, it will not help the INS remove non-immigrant aliens who have stayed longer than permitted. The information produced by this system will not tell the INS where to find the overstays. Section 110 is ''an expensive guest book'' and creating this entry/exit system will divert funding from legitimate law enforcement programs. This tells you what Section 110 won't do, let me tell you what is will do:
Cause unnecessary delays and traffic jams at land borders. Eighty per cent of U.S. exports to Canada and 70 per cent of total bilateral merchandise trade is shipped by truck. Any delays at the border would have a serious impact on the buyers and sellers of goods in both countries. Deliveries in border state industries are required on a ''just-in-time'' basis. Delays would have an immediate economic impact, particularly on the automobile industry.
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Hurt commerce, trade and tourism. The United States trade more than one billion U.S. dollars a day with Canada. In 1996, Canadian visitors spent at total of $7.3 billion in the United State. Over 10 million Canadians take overnight trips to the United States each year. Implementation of Section 110 would greatly jeopardize U.S./Canada trade relations.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I believe that we should examine and solve the problems on the northern border. But I want to reiterate that Section 110 is not the answer. It is bad for our economy, a burden to U.S. citizens, and inefficient enforcement tool. It is my hope that this hearing is not just an attempt to resurrect Section 110 for immediate implementation, as if, it is an answer to any of the border problems.
Mr. CONYERS. I shall be back in touch with all of you about the kinds of problems that bring us here today.
Thank you very much.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. We appreciate always your presence.
Without objection, the documents that Mr. Conyers has just mentioned will be made a part of the record.
Mr. CONYERS. Thank you.
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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Pearson, let me direct my questions first to you and say that I appreciate your being candid in your prepared statement. Let me read a couple of phrases from it and I will base my first question on those.
You mentioned the use of Canada as ''a staging area for terrorists seeking entry to the United States.'' You mentioned that ''The northern border is a favored transit point for aliens from Asia, particularly China.'' You say that ''Canada's asylum law permit persons to enter Canada, claim asylum and be free while their cases are processed. Some of them attempt entry to their real destination, the United States.'' By the way, that is a theme that we are going to hear from a number of witnesses today, that we have a situation where, because the Canadian immigration laws are more relaxed, it is easier to enter Canada and get to the United States or cross our northern border than some other direction. You also mentioned that the number of prosecutions for smuggling cases has been increasing dramatically along the northern border.
That all might lead to an obvious question which is, if these kinds of problems exist and if, in fact, they are increasing in many instances, why are not we providing more Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officials along the northern border, not at a loss of such personnel along our southern border but in addition to what we are doing along our southern border?
Mr. PEARSON. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for that question.
You took a number of things there that are absolutely accurate. We do have concerns on the way that some people are coming in, some we suspect are terrorists, and that they are using the Canadian laws to get into that country more easily and not be incarcerated so that those who want to seek entry to the United States have an opportunity to do so. That is why we have increased our investigations, why we have put more focus in this area.
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I know this is a northern border issue but it really gets down to a matter of how we are spreading our resources, the resources that we do have.
Mr. SMITH. Actually, that was not my question. I was not assuming a fixed amount of resources. Maybe I will ask more directly. It is my understanding that the INS did request 1,000 new Border Patrol agents from the White House and the White House vetoed those requests. What are you doing to convince the White House that more Border Patrol agents are necessary, if you feel that they are?
Mr. PEARSON. Mr. Chairman, we do need more Border Patrol agents, that is clear Commissioner Meissner said that, and we have said that all along. We do need more on the northern border.
Specifically what we are doing through the Department of Justice and OMB, I am not prepared to tell you at this point because I have not been involved in those specific discussions, but clearly, we do need more resources on the northern border and we know that.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you for that answer.
This was not something we warned you we were going to ask about, but I am just curious if you know. How many terrorists has the INS known about who have crossed from Canada into the United States? I mentioned in my opening statement that we had public records of I think 14 altogether. Are there more than that of which we are not aware? What is the total number of terrorists who might have entered across the northern border?
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Mr. PEARSON. Mr. Chairman, I do not have that number handy. I asked for the numbers I looked at since 1993 and the number is not significantly off the number that you used that we have reported.
Mr. SMITH. If you can get those to us, if possible by the end of the hearing, we would be interested because it is my understanding there have been half a dozen in the last year so.
Mr. Bromwich, in his testimony in his prepared remarks, said ''We found that record checks are rarely done on those illegal aliens to see if they may be suspected terrorists. In addition, aliens are rarely prosecuted for the criminal offense of entry without inspection even after repeated apprehensions.'' Why is that? How do you justify a policy that does not prosecute repeaters and how do you justify a policy where you do not check to see if illegal aliens are suspected terrorists?
Mr. PEARSON. We do have several policies to check on these people. We have the IDENT system that is deployed, we have run people through that to find out who they are and to have a record of who is coming through.
Mr. SMITH. So you are saying that you do check illegal aliens to see if they are suspected terrorists?
Mr. PEARSON. I said that we have policies that do so.
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Mr. SMITH. Ah, semantics here. I know you have a policy. Why do you not do it if you have the policy? That is even more damaging that you have the policy and do not use it.
Mr. PEARSON. I understand what you are saying and part of it has to do with workload as we spoke about earlier and what is going on at the time; with the number of people we have on the northern border, how many apprehensions are made and how much time we have them. I think Mr. Davis can probably answer that question better and how it works in Blaine Sector.
Mr. SMITH. My time is up and we will have another round of questions. I will pick this up then.
The gentlelady from Texas is recognized for her questions.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me also thank the panelists for their very instructive testimony.
Just to emphasize my understanding of this hearing as an oversight hearing dealing with drug smuggling, illegal immigration and terrorism, but as I am listening to the problems, I know that it is also important to keep in mind what may ultimately be the resolution. So my referral to 110(a) was to acknowledge that if that was a possible solution, we might want to ensure that we have a complete feasibility study to ensure that it would, in fact, answer some of these very important concerns that have been expressed.
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Mr. Bromwich, let me thank you for your report and query you on several points. Though you might not want to pose yourself as an expert, I think having done the study, you can be very helpful to us.
For example, I noted your comment about the need to collaborate between States and INS, the procedure of checking on asylum applications. How would that work? How would you see that working, at least a check on asylum applications?
Mr. BROMWICH. My understanding is that the databases are available. It is not just a matter of routine practice for those databases to be queried to determine whether there is any information connecting an individual with terrorist organizations. We have not done a lot of work in this area. The inspection I described in my prepared testimony is just in process and the special investigation that I summarized, those are really the only pieces of work that we have done. So this is new territory for us. My understanding is that partly because this is a new phenomenon, there needs to be an emphasis in the Immigration Service and the State Department, a greater degree of collaboration. The State Department needs to provide training and information to INS making INS more aware than apparently people in the field are of the databases that exist that can be queried and INS needs to train its people to do so on a routine basis.
My impression, Congresswoman, is that the tools and the data are there. It is a matter of better collaboration between the State Department and INS on the one hand, and better training for INS and Border Patrol personnel to make themselves use those tools.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. That is very helpful. Existing infrastructure, existing data that could be utilized in a more effective manner is certainly one step.
In looking at the border and its size, correct me if I am wrong, did you mention or where do you see the piece of the Border Patrol portion playing on the northern border? I say that in the context of the fact that obviously Canada and the United States maintain very friendly relations. Of course there are the Royal Mounties who are very committed to law enforcement. Where do you see the nexus on the Canadian border between what we do in the United States and what they do?
Mr. BROMWICH. I think the Immigration Service witnesses have been clear, they do not have adequate resources right now to patrol a vast northern border. There is simply too much land across which terrorists, drug smugglers and alien smugglers can work for the Border Patrol to really have an effective deterrent affect right now. It is an enormous task they have right now. I think they clearly do need additional resources in order to provide more of a deterrent. I think it is a major problem right now.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. You would agree with them.
Let me go right to the gentleman on the front line, Mr. Davis. Tell us what you need.
Mr. DAVIS. I think obviously manpower is one of the areas that we do really need. I think for a number of years we have needed more technology and right now, we are getting that technology. As Mr. Pearson stated, we are in the process of getting a camera system which will be a tremendous help to us. Instead of having to respond to a sensor and not know what is there, it will give us the opportunity of hooking the sensor to the video to actually see if we have a vehicle coming, and to have a description of that vehicle. Technology is coming, but with the technology, we are still going to have to have sufficient number of agents in order to back it up.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would you venture a guess for me, Mr. Davis, as to how many agents would aid you along, may not give you all that you want? Maybe you want to give me a second place prize and a first place prize in terms of numbers? I am told you have 300 now. Maybe that is a correct number or not. What would help you out?
Mr. DAVIS. In the Blaine Sector, right now we have 42 agents. I can only address the needs of the Blaine Sector, but in order to effectively work the area in which we have responsibility, we would need a minimum of an additional 74–75 agents.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. In your area?
Mr. DAVIS. In our area alone.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I see my light has come on. Let me also indicate that I am going to leave. I have a meeting to go to and I will be returning and hopefully will be in time for the second panel.
Thank you very much.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you.
Mr. Pearson, let me return to the question I asked before and read the statement I read a minute ago by the Inspector General and one other in addition. He said, ''We found that record checks are rarely done on those illegal aliens to see if they may be suspected terrorists. In addition, aliens are rarely prosecuted for the criminal offense of entry without inspection even after repeated apprehensions.'' Later on, the Inspector General says, ''We were told that no terrorism checks are performed either by INS or by the Department of State on the vast majority, about 90 percent of the asylum applications that are submitted by asylum officers.''
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You were saying that the INS has a policy of checking to see if illegal aliens and asylum seekers are suspected terrorists but you have not been able to implement that policy. You said we need more Border Patrol agents. If we do not get those additional Border Patrol agents, are we increasing the risk that we will be allowing terrorists to come into our country and perhaps even perform deadly deeds?
Mr. PEARSON. Mr. Chairman, I was aware of the Inspector General's report and since my arrival at INS, we have put out guidance and talked with the Chief of the Border Patrol and the Northern Chiefs to ensure that the weaknesses described in his report of not doing these checks were overcome. So we do have policies now to ensure the checks are done.
Mr. SMITH. Can you implement those policies completely with the current number of Border Patrol agents or is the reason you said you needed more to help implement those policies?
Mr. PEARSON. We did not ask for more in order to implement the policies, but you are right, there is a totality in this. There is a nexus in doing all of this.
Mr. SMITH. So again, you said we need more Border Patrol agents. I suspect one of the reasons we need more Border Patrol agents is to prevent terrorists from coming into the country?
Mr. PEARSON. Yes, sir.
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Mr. SMITH. Also, in the Inspector General's statement, and he mentioned it verbally a minute ago, he said he had sent two letters to the INS to check on the status of their corrective actions, the first in October 1998 and the second in January of this year. The INS has not responded to either letter. Is that true as we sit here right now?
Mr. PEARSON. Mr. Chairman, I am embarrassed to say I was not aware of either of those letters, but I will certainly check on that. Also, on a previous question you asked about the number of terrorists and I do have the numbers. My records go back to 1978, 22 terrorists suspected encounters along the northern border by the districts and the sectors and Canadian authorities. The majority of the encounters, 19, have been since 1990. Of the 22 encounters, 5 were confirmed to be terrorists or affiliated with known groups and the remaining were only suspected or self-proclaimed.
Mr. SMITH. That is helpful. Thank you, Mr. Pearson. Mr. Davis, you mentioned a minute ago, ''The same smugglers moving illegal contraband operate in both directions.'' I think that is an important point which is to say that both American citizens and Canadian citizens have much at stake and much to benefit from a more secure border. Certainly Canadians do not want more drugs coming into their country from the United States and the United States certainly does not want more drugs coming this way either. Again, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that both countries benefit by stopping the flow of drugs which, unfortunately, is a two-way street. You mentioned this in your prepared remarks, that there are large increases in organized crime along the border. You say ''Our manpower levels during this time have been static. We know now that illegal smuggling activity takes place on a daily basis but due to limited manpower, we are able to respond to only 50 percent of our sensor intrusions or alarms on any given day.'' A minute ago, the Ranking Member asked you what you needed. If you are only responding to half the indications you get of illegal activity of one sort or another, and if there have been increases in organized crime, what is the number of Border Patrol agents and other backup staff you think is needed either in your area or along the entire northern border?
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Mr. DAVIS. Again, sir, the entire northern border, I cannot speak for, but I know for Blaine Sector, as I stated, in the last 10 years, the growth north of us has been phenomenal. We find the BC Bud coming in and our intelligence sources tell us that two main organized groups that have involvement with the drugs are one, Hell's Angels out of BC, and the second is organized Asian crime. This is a problem that just continues to escalate. I do not know what the future holds, but every year for the last 4 years, we have seen an increase.
Mr. SMITH. Let me follow up on that. I know you need the increase and I will not push you on the exact figures because clearly you need more. You and another witness today also said you had absolutely no individuals to help along the water boundaries between the two countries. In your case, you have a 150 miles and in another case, it is slightly less. I presume you need more agents to protect the waterways. How much of a problem is it, do you think, that alien smugglers or drug smugglers use the waterways?
Mr. DAVIS. I believe that there is a major problem. The 150 miles of waterway we have that goes from Blaine Sector's area out through the Straits of Juan de Fuca historically has always been an area that has been a problem of smuggling into the United States. You have Canada, you have Vancouver Island which is a huge area and a lot of that area is very remote. South of there you have the San Juan Islands which is in the United States. There are over 200 islands along this route.
Mr. SMITH. And yet you have no one along that 150-mile border?
Mr. DAVIS. We have no presence whatsoever on the water.
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Mr. SMITH. You and others have mentioned that you believe the drug and alien smugglers actually monitor agents' schedules and then when the agents are off duty, the smugglers see an open border and they come in. That is so incredible. Do you know that is the case? What is your basis for saying that?
Mr. DAVIS. Several years ago, we had a very interesting case that we worked along with Customs and DEA that involved a group of local people who were involved in the smuggling of BC Bud. They actually were surveilling our units. They sat across the street with cellular phones, watched when our people went home and were actually doing surveillance on us.
Mr. SMITH. It occurs to me while you are saying that, we have a little fewer than 300 Border Patrol agents on the close to 4,000 mile northern border. If you divide that into three 8-hour shifts, that means at any time you only have 100 agents for close to 4,000 miles. It is no wonder that can be taken advantage of one way or the other, whether it is agents' schedules or lack of agents altogether. You mentioned something that other individuals mentioned as well. You said ''Over the past several years, Canada has adopted a non-visa requirement policy with many countries that the United States continues to require visas from. This has resulted in many smugglers being able to easily bring third country nationals into Canada and then smuggle them across the border into the United States.'' Is that one reason you think the illegal alien and illegal drug traffic is increasing on the northern border?
Mr. DAVIS. I think certainly it is a factor. We have noted from South Korea the last several years an increase of people being flown from Seoul into Vancouver, held somewhere overnight and then the next day simply walk across the border.
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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Davis, a last question, and that is, you now are getting ready to finish 30 years with the Border Patrol, is that correct?
Mr. DAVIS. Yes, almost 30 years.
Mr. SMITH. When is it going to be 30 years?
Mr. DAVIS. One more year.
Mr. SMITH. One more year. Let me say to you personally what I have said to many other Border Patrol agents who have testified and that is, I have never met a Border Patrol agent who has not been completely professional, completely dedicated to their job, and wanting to act in the best interest of the communities they, quite frankly, protect. I thank you for all that and for your testimony as well. My final question is, with 29 years of hindsight and practical experience and expertise, what do you think generally we can do to solve some of the problems we have with illegal immigration and illegal drugs?
Mr. DAVIS. I really appreciate that question. My 29 years of service with INS is not only within the Border Patrol; I have also spent time as an immigration inspector, I spent time as a special agent. Just a quick example. In September 1994, I had the opportunity of reading the report of the Select Commission on Immigration that was chaired by Barbara Jordan. I am usually not a letter writer but when I read this particular report that was put together by this bipartisan committee and they talked about the problems with immigration, it was my opinion that they hit the nail right on the head with the area where they talked about verification.
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Interestingly enough, several months later, I had the opportunity when Barbara Jordan and her committee came to Canada of attending a luncheon and actually speaking to them and briefing them on the problems that were unique along the northern border. I will always remember as I went in to meet Barbara Jordan, here was a woman in a wheelchair, incapacitated, in chronic pain and I said you probably do not know me but I wrote you a letter because I want you to know that when you talked about the need for verification based on Social Security, as far as I am concerned, that has to be an important element. To me that is the key, to shut off the magnet. As I said this to her, she said, come over here, would you, and she reached up out of her wheelchair, she put her arms around me and gave me a hug. She said, Mr. Davis, I do not know if you know how much that means to me to have somebody from Immigration say that.
I guess what I would like to say to you, sir, as someone from Immigration, I really believe that it is important. It is very important that we put agents along the border. This is needed, there is no doubt about it. But from all of my years of experience, the thing that brings people to this country are jobs. Documentation shows us that only 50 percent of the people in the country illegally came across the border; others who came here strictly as visitors, did not go home because of jobs.
I believe the only way to do this is through verification based on Social Security and then we go from there. If we need to make other adjustments such as a guest worker program or other things, we need to do it.
The thing that really disappoints me about this is this report was prepared by Congress. I met with my own congressman several years ago and we talked about this issue. He had never even seen a copy of the report.
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My hope is that the torch Barbara Jordan carried on this thing—she was exactly right—that when she died, this does not die as well.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
I will not ask you a question about what you think of the current INS policy about reducing the number of work site enforcement efforts, but I agree with you and let me say also that Barbara Jordan's legacy continues. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that 80 or 90 percent of what this Immigration Subcommittee does is based upon the recommendations made by the Barbara Jordan bi-partisan commission, whether it be legal or illegal immigration reform. We continue and try to implement her good recommendations. I appreciate your testimony to her.
Mr. Bromwich, I have already quoted you a couple of times today. Maybe you are going to get those letters from the INS after all. We hope Mr. Pearson will make sure that happens.
You mentioned early in your testimony the problem areas. You mentioned western Washington, Vermont and you said ''The INS and other intelligence reports indicate that terrorists locate in Canada in part because of Canada's liberal visa and asylum laws and the country's proximity to the United States.'' How serious of a problem is that? It seems to me it is an open invitation for people to take advantage of both the Canadian immigration system and our system or lack of system along the northern border. What is the potential for problems there?
Mr. BROMWICH. I think the potential is high. Again, our work in this area has been quite limited but my experience has always been you learn a lot of general things about a problem by looking at a specific case. We learned a lot from looking at the Mezer case.
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It is quite clear, based on statements that he made both to Immigration officials and others, that the reason he came to Canada was to come to the United States. The United States all along was his ultimate destination, but he was aware that it was more difficult to get here so he went to Canada as his first step. Once there, he then tried to come to the United States by applying for a visa. I am happy to report that application was denied as a so-called routine refusal by the State Department. That is when he had to resort to trying to come across the border illegally multiple times.
Oddly, the Mezer case is a case study in which various aspects of the system worked reasonably well. The State Department denied his visa application, the Border Patrol apprehended him three different times, even with terribly inadequate resources. So we did not find any individual misconduct at all. We found systemic issues and problems which we think the Immigration Service, together with the State Department and Customs, needs to address, which is why we harp on the letters because we think corrective action needs to be addressed and the Immigration Service needs to focus on the specific findings we have made.
Mr. SMITH. One more question. You found there were no record checks or rarely were there record checks on illegal aliens and their background and there was rarely prosecution of individuals who had repeated crossed illegally. Do you think there are sufficient number of Border Patrol agents now to rectify that problem?
Mr. BROMWICH. No, I do not think there are sufficient number of Border Patrol agents. I think they definitely need more. The non-prosecution policies that exist along the northern border really mirror, to some extent, the policies that have existed along all of our borders for quite some time. Those have been changed recently in San Diego and in other locations along the southwest border such that there are administrative consequences on the second entry and frequently, if not always, criminal prosecution on the third.
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So one of the things I think, not just the Immigration Service, but the U.S. Attorneys' Offices in those northern border States need to consider is whether to put more of their resources into providing a credible criminal deterrent to illegal aliens who come over the border repeatedly.
Mr. SMITH. I could not agree more.
Let me just add that the Administration's own drug czar, General McCaffrey, has said that we felt we needed about 20,000 Border Patrol agents. We have close to 9,000 today, so even he is recommending twice as many as we have today which would certainly be of great help and it help would stop the flow of illegal drugs and the threat of terrorism as well.
As I have done before, I will put that in perspective for those who do not know it. Compare the 9,000 Border Patrol agents we have today with the 30,000 police officers just in the City of Chicago alone and you get a feel for why we need more Border Patrol agents.
Mr. Trotter, we have a vote coming up but let me ask you a question or two. You said in your prepared testimony, but maybe not in your verbal testimony, that ''In 1998, Customs seized a total of 4,400 pounds of drugs along our northern border.'' That was in 1998. How does that 4,400 pounds of drugs on the northern border in 1998 compare to five or 10 years before? Give us a sense of whether it is increasing or decreasing?
Mr. TROTTER. It is certainly increasing. I do not have the facts right at my finger tips to say how much but there is no doubt about it—on the border we continue to refer to and where the Border Patrol Chief is from, Blaine, WA, is pumping more drugs into our country.
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Also, oddly enough I was up in Champlain, New York to look at the other side of the equation, and one of our inspectors actually stopped a truck that was what we would consider a rather routine shipment of textiles coming down from Canada, though the driver looked a little bit out of sorts, nervous perhaps. Our inspector opened the truck and on the back of it he found 100 pounds of marijuana stored there.
What we are seeing is that these trends, although the preponderance tends to be on the West Coast and that connection is out there, it may be spreading, especially the ability to grow marijuana indoors. That has really changed. The Canadian climate, for the most part, is not too receptive to growing marijuana outdoors and we are seeing that.
Mr. SMITH. That is not stopping them. They go indoors?
Mr. TROTTER. That is correct. We do have some new technologies to help fight that we do exercise with the RCMP, MP and others.
It is increasing. We have to put it in somewhat of a picture. I know we do not want to talk too much about the southern border.
Mr. SMITH. That is all right.
Mr. TROTTER. For example, we seized a million pounds worth of narcotics last year. So 4,000 pounds is less than .4 of a percent of what we seized, so just some perspective.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Trotter.
Let me say again, and correct me if I am wrong, if anyone else thinks I am wrong, but it seems to me that every witness today has said the problem is increasing on the northern border, both in regard to the quantity of illegal drugs coming across, as far as illegal immigration goes and as far as our inability to check the backgrounds of individuals who might be known terrorists. You wouldn't disagree with that?
Mr. TROTTER. No, sir.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Trotter.
Thank you all for testifying today.
Let me say that I am going to be gone for about 15 minutes for a vote and we will return and finish up, and welcome the second panel. So we will be in recess until that time.
[Recess.]
Mr. SMITH. The Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims will reconvene.
Let me introduce our next panelists: Sheriff Dale Brandland, Whatcom County, Washington State; Mark Hall, President, National Border Patrol Council Local 2599, Detroit, Michigan; David Harris, President, INSIGNIS Strategic Research, Ottawa, Ontario; and Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Senior Associate, International Migration Policy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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Welcome to you all and Sheriff Brandland, we will begin with you.
STATEMENT OF DALE BRANDLAND, SHERIFF, WHATCOM COUNTY, WASHINGTON STATE
Mr. BRANDLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Dale Brandland. I am the Sheriff of Whatcom County, Washington State.
I have been in law enforcement for 23 years and I have been the sheriff for the past seven.
I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee and testify on law enforcement issues at the northern border.
Whatcom County is located in the northwest corner of Washington State, just south of Vancouver, British Columbia. Our northern border is shared with Canada and the population of greater Vancouver just across our border is 1.5 million. Because of our proximity to the border, Whatcom County has several Federal agencies that are in some way involved in controlling the transportation of drugs to and from Canada. It is a pleasure to report to you that we enjoy a high level of cooperation among local and Federal agencies.
We encounter the full spectrum of drugs seen throughout the country but in a very general sense, as you have heard, much of our attention is focused on high grade marijuana being exported from Canada and cocaine that is being imported into Canada. I cannot tell you the number of cases that are generated by our Federal agencies but I can tell you that almost all of their cases are handled at the local level. Most Federal cases taken to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle are declined because they do not meet the minimum weight threshold for prosecution. The case is then referred to our local agencies.
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It is handled by our prosecutor, processed in our courts and eventually those arrested are housed in the Whatcom County Jail or sent to the State Department of Corrections. If we did not handle these cases, they would not be prosecuted at all.
We have watched the threshold for prosecution climb over the years and as things have gotten worse and the quantity of drugs seized increases, so does the threshold. The reality is that the Whatcom County criminal justice system is doing most of the Federal Government's work after the initial arrest is made.
Our friends to the north, the Canadians, are good neighbors but I must tell you that I too am troubled by their liberal immigration policies. Anyone that has a passport can enter Canada and there is very little to stop them from entering the United States once they get there. Mr. Abu Mezer is a prime example.
Local Border Patrol personnel in Whatcom County had apprehended Mr. Abu Mezer on three separate occasions after attempting to enter the country illegally. He was finally held pending formal deportation but was able to post bond and be released. Approximately 7 months later, he was shot by the New York City Police Department just prior to planting a bomb that would have blown up the subway system.
There have been more recent incidents involving suspected terrorists entering the country at Blaine, so I do not think that this is an isolated incident. The front line to stop this type of person from entering our country is the U.S. Border Patrol and as you well know, our front line is relatively nonexistent.
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As you may well imagine, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Border Patrol have a close working relationship. Both of our agencies have a limited number of people to work in a very large area and we regularly depend on one another for backup. Unfortunately, our relationship at the local level does not extend to the regional level.
I would like to say that I take strong exception to the decision that minimizes the Border Patrol's presence here. The attitude at higher levels seems to be that all of their resources should go to the southern border. I certainly agree that the problem is greater there, but to ignore the problems facing us at the northern border is courting disaster.
The Blaine Sector now has 49 people assigned to it. Those 49 people cover all of Alaska, western Washington and all of Oregon. They do not have enough people to adequately cover the border 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that does not address the fact that they do not have any personnel to cover our coastline.
Several years ago, the Border Patrol implemented a policy that diverted manpower from the northern border to the southern border. This was said to be a temporary measure because of an increased threat at that time. This practice is still going on today. Of the 49 people assigned to the Blaine Sector, 3 are regularly sent south to bolster southern manpower. I believe that a cost benefit analysis would show that there is far greater benefit to the Border Patrol by leaving them there.
I would like to conclude by saying that I am aware that our problems at the northern border cannot compare with those at the south, but I do feel that we have distinct needs and those needs are not being properly addressed at this time. I do not expect the Border Patrol to shift its entire focus but I would appreciate it if they would at least acknowledge that there is a problem.
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Thank you very much and I too am available for questions.
[The prepared statement of Sheriff Brandland follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DALE BRANDLAND, SHERIFF, WHATCOM COUNTY, WASHINGTON STATE
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Dale Brandland and I am the Sheriff of Whatcom County in Washington State. I have been in law enforcement for 23 years and have been the Sheriff for the past 7 years. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee and testify on law enforcement issues at our northern border.
DEMOGRAPHICS
Whatcom County is located in the northwest corner of Washington State. We are just south of Vancouver, British Columbia. Our county has just over 2000 square miles and the population is approximately 160,000. Our northern border is shared with Canada and the population of greater Vancouver, just across our border is 1.5 million.
DRUGS AT OUR BORDER
Because of our proximity to the border, Whatcom County has several agencies that are in some way involved in controlling the transportation of drugs to and from Canada. It is a pleasure to report to you that we enjoy a high level of cooperation among the local and Federal agencies. We meet on a regular basis and information sharing is the norm. We also enjoy working relationships with our counterparts in British Columbia. We encounter the full spectrum of drugs seen throughout the country. But, in a very general sense, much of our attention is focused on high-grade marijuana being exported from Canada and cocaine that is being imported into Canada.
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I cannot tell you the number of cases that are generated by our Federal agencies but I can tell you that almost all of their cases are handled at the local level. Most Federal cases that are taken to the U.S. Attorneys Office in Seattle are declined because they don't meet the minimum weight threshold for prosecution. This means that they will not prosecute the case. The case is then referred to our local agencies for prosecution. It is handled by our prosecutor, processed in our courts and eventually those arrested are housed in the Whatcom County Jail or sent to the State Dept. of Corrections. If we did not handle these cases they would not be prosecuted.
We have watched the threshold for prosecution climb over the years. As things have gotten worse and the quantity of drugs seized increases . . . so does the threshold. The reality is that the Whatcom County criminal justice system is doing most of the Federal government's work, after the initial arrest is made.
Another unfortunate consequence of our proximity to the border is warrant arrests. It is not uncommon to have out of state fugitives apprehended at the border. They rarely agree to immediate extradition so we have to absorb the cost of prosecution, public defender, court infrastructure and, of course their time in jail.
LIBERAL IMMIGRATION POLICIES IN CANADA
Our friends to the north, the Canadians, are good neighbors but I must tell you that I am troubled by their liberal immigration policies. Anyone that has a passport can enter Canada and there is very little to stop them from entering the United States once they get there. Mr. ABU MEZER is a prime example.
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Local Border Patrol personnel in Whatcom County had apprehended MR. ABU MEZER on three separate occasions, after attempting to enter the country illegally. He was finally held, pending formal deportation, but was able to POST BOND and be released. Approximately 7 months later he was shot by the New York City Police Department just prior to planting a bomb that would have blown up the subway system. There have been more recent incidents involving suspected terrorists entering the country at Blaine so I do not think that this is an isolated incident. The front line to stop this type of person from entering our country is the U.S. Border Patrol and as you well know, our front line is relatively nonexistent.
THE ROLE OF THE BORDER PATROL
As you may well imagine the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Border Patrol have a close working relationship. Both of our agencies have a limited number of people to work in a very large area so we regularly depend on one another for back up. Our personnel monitor each other's radio frequencies and it is not uncommon for both of our agencies to be involved in the same event. In fact, in March of 1998 two border patrol personnel apprehended a homicide suspect within minutes of the incident because they were monitoring our frequency. Had they not done this it is very likely that we would not have been able to resolve the case. Unfortunately, our relationship at the local level does not extend to the regional level.
I would like to say that I take strong exception to the decision that minimizes the Border Patrols presence here. The attitude at higher levels seems to be that all of their resources should go to our Southern border. I certainly agree that the problem is greater there but to ignore the problems facing us at the northern border is courting disaster.
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The Blaine sector now has 49 people assigned to it. That brings them up to the level that they were at 4 years ago. Those 49 people have to cover all of Alaska, Western Washington and all of Oregon. They do not have enough people to adequately cover the border 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that does not address the fact that they do not have ANY personnel to cover our coast line of that area of water that separates us from Canada.
Several years ago, the Border Patrol implemented a policy that diverted manpower from the northern border to the southern border. This was said to be a temporary measure because an increased threat at that time. At the start, 50% of the sectors manpower was sent south. This practice is still going on today. Of the 49 people assigned to the Blaine sector, 3 are regularly sent south to bolster southern manpower. I believe that a cost benefit analysis would show that there is far greater benefit to the Border Patrol by leaving them here. It would have a big impact locally and I doubt that anyone would notice their absence down south.
PT. ROBERTS
In Whatcom County we have a unique situation in that you have to enter Canada in order to get to one part of our county. I am referring to Pt. Roberts. Pt. Roberts is a small two square mile peninsula that is only accessible by driving into Canada. After you enter Canada at Blaine, you have to drive 26 miles to the North and West before you can reenter the U.S. at Pt. Roberts. The population is about 750 and I have two deputies that live there full time. If they arrest someone, we need to have the Coast Guard remove them by boat because we cannot drive them through Canada. Pt. Roberts has a port of entry but it is relatively easy to smuggle contraband or drugs in by boat and then walking into Canada. This is another area where we see very little of the Border Patrol
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CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, I would like to conclude by saying that I am aware that our problems at the northern border do not compare with those in the south. But, I do feel that we have distinct needs and that those needs are not being properly addressed at this time. I don't expect the Border Patrol to shift its focus but I would appreciate it if they would acknowledge that there is a problem.
Thanking you again for inviting me here today and for your interest in our northern border issues. I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Sheriff Brandland.
Mr. Hall?
STATEMENT OF MARK HALL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL LOCAL 2599, DETROIT, MI
Mr. HALL. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Mark Hall. I am President of the National Border Patrol Council, Local 2499 in Detroit, Michigan. I have been a Border Patrol agent for over 14 years. Currently, I work as a senior Border Patrol agent in the Detroit, Michigan Station on the Canadian Border. I have been working in the Detroit station for 12 years.
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In the past few years, enhancements on the southwest border are much needed but during the same period, resources on the northern border have actually decreased. In 1988, there were 21 field agents in the Detroit Sector; today, there are only 19 field agents to cover over 800 miles of border.
The most recent staffing numbers I was able to obtain are from September 1998. They show there are 7,357 agents on the southwest border to patrol 1,900 miles of border. The northern border has 289 agents to patrol 3,987 miles of border. That is more than twice the border with 25 times less the manpower.
The Canadian Government immigration laws make it simple for citizens of numerous countries to enter Canada with only a passport. We see these individuals using Canada as nothing more than a stopover on their way to the United States. This is highlighted by an incident that occurred last month.
I arrested two Mexicans entering the United States illegally. They stated to me they entered Canada from Mexico with only their passports. They claimed under NAFTA they no longer needed visas. They said, the southwest Border Patrol enhancements have escalated the risk of apprehension and the fees that smuggler's charge. They said they could buy an airline ticket to Canada, then cross into the United States. They said they knew the number of Border Patrol agents on the northern border was small. They knew if caught, we had no money to return them to Mexico or any money to detain them. They were right. They were released and sent on to their final destination in the United States after a short processing period.
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In the Detroit Sector, we have no money to detain criminal aliens, let alone the illegally entering alien. Our funding for detaining aggravated felons allows us to only detain two per week. This is very frustrating and it makes us feel that we are nothing more than a bump in the road for these criminals.
The tongue and cheek acronym, CARP, which stands for catch and release program is now a common usage on the northern border. The Detroit Sector has 19 field agents for 5 stations. Not one station in this sector has 24-hour coverage. We have to respond to details to the southwest border, oral hiring boards and training details at the Academy. There are days when nobody is even on duty.
Detroit Sector's border is totally comprised of water. Last year, the station's patrol boat logged only 20 hours due to manpower shortages.
When we look at terrorism, terrorist experts have identified terrorist organizations with ties to the metro Detroit area. During the Gulf War, we had information of possible terrorist smuggling efforts in our area from Canada. Our manpower was so low, we could not even muster up enough agents to put one agent in one patrol car for 24 hours a day.
Securing our southwest border is essential, but the resources needed on our northern border must be addressed. The number of arrests on the northern border in Detroit are greater than they have ever been in my 12 years, 44 percent greater this year compared to last year for the same period. I believe this corresponds directly with the pressure being placed on the southwest border. This will only worsen as more pressure is placed on the southwest border.
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Last year in Detroit Sector, a jet skier was stopped on his personal watercraft and arrested going into Canada with four kilos of cocaine as he departed the United States. The stakes in the illicit smuggling activities are great, the profits are far too high for all of the smugglers to abandon their lucrative activities.
A strategy to bring the southwest border under control without dedicating any resources and manpower to the second front line is fatally flawed. Prioritization is absolutely essential to any well run organization. However, to declare you only have one priority is patently unsound and impractical. This jeopardizes the safety of the men and women whose duty it is to protect the integrity of our borders.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I thank you for this opportunity and I would be pleased to answer any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hall follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK HALL, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL BORDER PATROL COUNCIL LOCAL 2599, DETROIT, MI
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Mark P. Hall. I am the President of the National Border Patrol Council, Local 2499 in Detroit, Michigan. I have the honor of being employed as a Border Patrol Agent and proudly serving my country for over fourteen years. I currently work as a Senior Border Patrol Agent on the U.S./Canada border and have done so since 1987. Thank you for this opportunity to testify on the law enforcement problems at the border between the United States and Canada, focusing on the issues of illegal immigration, terrorism, alien and drug smuggling.
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INTRODUCTION
There has been a call from Congress and the American people to focus greater attention on controlling our borders. The additional resources to the southwest border over the past few years are much needed. But during this period the resources on the northern border actually declined. This lack of attention to our northern border undermines the enforcement efforts on our southern border and will simply divert the flow of illegal activity across our borders.
RESPONSE
The past several years the Border Patrol has seen an increase in resources/manpower never seen before in the 75 years of proud history. The Border Patrol has gone from about 3,500 agents to approximately 7,600 as of September of 1998, a dramatic increase in just a few years. The increases in technical equipment such as, state of the art infra-red cameras, sensors and communications equipment have made the job of controlling our borders more manageable and safer for my fellow agents. These unprecedented increases were in response to the overwhelming call by the American people for us to get control of our borders. The southwest border was out of control. Alien and narcotics smuggling were rampant; the risk of arrest was far outweighed by the opportunities of the illicit activities transpiring on our borders. These increases in the Border Patrol resources have helped to stem this illicit flow and bring our southwest border under some form of control.
As of September 1998 approximately 7,357 Border Patrol Agents protect our 1,945 miles of southwest border with Mexico. Our northern border with Canada is 3,987 miles long with 289 to protect it. The northern border is more than twice the size of the southwest border. But yet the southwest border has a more 25 times the manpower than the northern border with less than half the border.
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ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
The Canadian government's immigration laws make it simple for citizens of numerous countries to enter with nothing more than a passport. We see these individuals using Canada as nothing more than a stopover on their journey to the United States. Almost every year since my transfer to the northern border in 1987, our apprehensions have increased. Last year the Detroit Border Patrol Sector's apprehensions were at a five-year high. So far this year our arrest numbers are over 40% greater than last year for the same time. Ironically, amount of agents that work the field for this period has actually decreased. Though there has been a net decrease in available manpower, arrests continue to rise. Request from local, state and federal law enforcement have steadily increased as well. As the southwest border is brought under control, there is a corresponding increase in apprehensions on the northern border. The strategy to bring the southwest border under control without dedicating any resources and manpower to the other second frontline of defense is fatally flawed. The stakes in the illicit activities are great. The profits are too high for all of the smugglers to abandon their lucrative illicit activities. We have seen this, assault on agents have increased as the frustrations of the smugglers increase. Others have simply changed how they operate.
This is highlighted by an incident that occurred last month. I apprehended two Mexican nationals as they entered the United States illegally from Canada. After a lengthy interview and examination of their documents I discovered an emerging trend. The Mexicans flew from Mexico with their passports into Canada. They claim that under NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) Mexicans no longer need visas to enter Canada, simply a passport. Then can just come to the United States by way of our northern border. They told me why they chose the northern border route because the Mexican border is more difficult to cross into the United States because of the large Border Patrol presence. This has escalated both the prices the smugglers and the risk of apprehension and returned to Mexico much greater. The aliens said they can buy and airline ticket to Canada, travel to the border and cross into the United States. They said they knew the number of Border Patrol Agents on the northern border was very small. Even if they were caught by the Border Patrol, they said they knew we had no money to return them back to Mexico or detain them. They were right. We have very little money to detain criminal aliens let alone the undocumented border crosser.
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This fiscal year funding for the detention of undocumented aliens is all but non-existent. What little we have seen has trickled in and is quickly gone. Agents here in Detroit have been told the only detention funding available is to be used for aggravated felon aliens. I&NS Deportations branch maintain the detention funding. We have been told we can arrest and detain only two aggravated felons per week. This has to be done during the hours that Deportations is ''open'', Monday through Friday during day shift, otherwise these individuals are not detained because Border Patrol has no detention money. We have no I&NS detention facility in the Detroit Metro area, therefore we must rely on local jails and pay for the use of their facilities
In March of this year, a local police department arrested five foreign nationals involved in a $45,000.00 jewelry store robbery. These subjects claimed to have been from five different countries. Investigation revealed these subjects were members of a highly organized interstate robbery/fraud ring operating in at least five states. One subject had a photo altered passport. A fingerprint check revealed two were listed with the FBI as having previous felony theft convictions. Due to lack of detention funding these subjects were processed for a deportation hearing at a future date and released on their own recognizance with not so much as a dollar posted for bond.
Border Patrol Agents are dedicated to performing their duties in the highest tradition of the Agency. Unfortunately, we all know the duties of a Border Patrol Agent can call for the ultimate sacrifice. Last year, sadly we lost the greatest number of Agents ever within a year period. At one point in the Detroit Station, 50% of the Agents had been involved in a shooting. Personally, I have been involved in two shootings on the northern border. When Border Patrol Agents answer the call to protect our nation's borders, only to have the violators of law show little concern for arrest, because we have no money for detention or repatriation, has a devastating effect on our morale. This frustrating dilemma is taking its toll on agents. The tongue in cheek recently this frustrating dilemma is taking its toll on Agents. The acronym, C.A.R.P., which stands for Catch and Release Program, is common usage on the northern border.
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One of the Border Patrol's biggest problems on the northern border is lack of resources. There is not one station within the Detroit Border Patrol Sector that has agents on duty 24 hours a day. There are days when not a single agent is on duty. Often days go by without an agent even coming close to patrolling our sector's northern border area. The manpower shortage is alarming. Agents have to respond to other law enforcement agency's requests concerning foreign nationals in an area responsibility of four states with only 19 field agents. Agents must also participate in oral hiring boards, academy details, and details to the southwest border. At one point, the Detroit Station had three agents detailed to the southwest border for 30 days, thus leaving only four of seven at the station for the day to day patrol duties. Last summer the manpower shortage was so great and calls from other agencies were high, the station's patrol boat had less than 20 hours of service logged. With such shockingly low actual border patrolling hours we can not even get an idea of what is happening on our northern border.
In the Detroit Sector it is not uncommon for an agent to travel 200 miles one way to pick up an alien from another law enforcement agency only to process the individual and then release him. The Detroit Sector has only one Detention Enforcement officer to transport these individuals. Over the past two years the Detroit Sector's only Detention Enforcement Officer travels over 200 miles per day on average. More support personnel are needed to free Border Patrol Agents to do their regular duties.
As stated earlier the Detroit Sector has 19 field agents. This year the Detroit Border Patrol Sector's management/union partnership council drafted a proposal of what they felt would meet the sectors manpower needs for 24 hour on duty coverage. The minimum number was an astounding additional 104 Border Patrol Agents or 5 1/2 times as many field agents currently in the sector. This I believe would have to be done over several years. It is my firm belief that northern border agents should transfer from the southwest border for a number of reasons. First, to obtain the foreign language skills needed to do the job, which someday could save that officer's life. Another reason is to gain the unique skills necessary to work the southwest border so that when they are detailed to the southwest border for short periods of time, they are effective. Finally, and be no means the least importantly, employees from the southwest border should be allowed to transfer to the northern border for morale purposes and to help stem an alarming rate of attrition on the southwest border.
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TERRORISM
The FBI has identified several Mid-East organizations as known terrorist groups. The Detroit Metro area has the largest mid-east population on the globe outside of the mid-east. The Detroit area also has a significant Serbian and Albanian population. Although it is true, there are many other groups through out the world that are known and acknowledged terrorists groups, I am going to address our situation here locally in Detroit. Terrorism experts indicate that Canada has become an assembly point for potential terrorists seeking U.S. targets.
During the Gulf War the Detroit Border Patrol was in a high state of security. We received intelligence almost daily of potential terrorist smuggling efforts from Canada in our area of operation. The intelligence indicated that smuggling of terrorist across the border to transit to ''safe houses'' in our area was a very real probability. Due to extremely low staffing levels, vigilance on the border was minimal to none. This was the best we could do with the dismal manpower we had at that time. Our staffing today is less than it was then.
In the mid-1990's an environmentalist group sailed by vessel up the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Detroit River. They anchored off the shore of a local nuclear power plant located on the international boundary waterway. They then surreptitiously and illegally entered the grounds, scaled the cooling towers and held security, police, and FBI at bay for 6 hours. The nearest on duty Border Patrol Agent responded from another state after being requested by the FBI. This group transited more than 100 miles of our international waterways unmolested, unchallenged by any law enforcement. We can only be thankful that this group did not have more of a destructive motive. Our role is to protect and secure our national sovereignty, but we are unable to do so effectively because of the lack of personnel and resources.
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In summer 1995 Detroit Border Patrol had received reports that a group of more than 20 Serbians at an unknown location in the Windsor, Ontario, Canada area. These individuals, at least some were thought to have terrorist ties, were suspected to attempt entry into the United States via the Detroit River. One evening while no agents were on duty, we received a call from the U.S. Coast Guard. They had apprehended six of these subjects, only after their boat broke down in the Detroit River in front of the Coast Guard Station. Witnesses stated this boat was seen traveling back and forth from Canada to the U.S. all day, always loaded with people. All six subjects in the boat were listed on our ''lookout'' bulletin. Suspiciously, only the operator of the boat had a sunburn. I can not tell you how many made of the other 20 individuals made it to our shores, or how many were suspected terrorists.
DRUG SMUGGLING
We know drug smuggling is prevalent on our Canadian border, but to the actual extent is unknown for all of the previously mentioned reasons. Over the past several years Detroit Sector Border Patrol has been involved in several millions of dollars worth of narcotics seizures. We have arrested Canadians buying drugs to resell them in Canada. Agents have arrested Americans taking drugs to sell in Canada. We have stopped watercraft on our border and found hidden compartments with drug dogs alerting on these empty spaces, indicating there had been drugs in them. I stopped watercraft with specially designed PVC type containers that could be tethered underwater to a boat for surreptitious transport of contraband. Again a police drug dog alerted to the presence of a controlled substance.
We have detained individuals coming from Canada via the Detroit/Windsor freight train tunnel (this tunnel runs under the Detroit River from Canada). We have stopped known gang members with empty duffel bags making return trips from Canada, persons with pending criminal drug cases, pending weapons smuggling cases to name a few. This tunnel has been a hot bed of illicit activity ever since prohibition.
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Intelligence indicates that the increasing Asian gangs in Toronto, Ontario are smuggling heroin into the United States across our northern border and smuggling back cocaine. Intelligence tells of increased marijuana smuggling from Canada into the United States because of an increasing trend of hydroponics production in Ontario, British Colombia, and Quebec.
Confidential Sources of Information tell us that contraband smuggling across the waterways is rampant. We are told that individuals run contraband by boat with little fear of being stopped due to the meager law enforcement presence. We are told they would rather travel unchallenged by boat as opposed to car and face questioning at a traditional vehicle Port of Entry.
This past year we were so short of manpower it was difficult to get two agents on duty at the same time to run the Detroit patrol boat. Border Patrol agents rode with Coast Guard in order to have some coverage. On one such night last fall while stopping and boarding boats crossing the international waterway from Canada, three boats ran at high speed and evaded apprehension by ''blacking out'' and out-running federal law enforcement. This was just one night! This past year a ''Jet Ski'' type personal watercraft was stopped on the St. Clair River and four kilograms of cocaine were seized as it entered Canada from the United States.
LACK OF PHYSICAL RESOURCES
The Detroit Sector sorely lacks the resources to assist its agents. Its patrol vehicles are older and have high mileage. Boats are the basic tool for patrolling a border entirely comprised of water. Only four of our five stations in the Detroit Sector have a boat. Two of the boats we have, one at Trenton Station and the other at the Port Huron Station are cast off equipment from other sectors. These two boats were old and headed for the surplus pile, but were fixed up and put into service in the Detroit Sector.
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The Detroit Sector two-way radio system, as most on the northern border is outdated, and easily scanned by smugglers. When agents leave their patrol vehicles their walkie-talkies are useless in all but a few locations. We see agencies such as the Michigan State Police receiving huge federal funding (rightfully so) to replace their out of date two-way radio system with a state of the art 900 MHz. Digital systems.
Intrusion sensors and cameras in the sector are decades behind in current technology. Intrusion cameras don't even project a ''real time'' picture. They simply ''click'' a picture and send it over a phone modem, thus valuable time and information is lost. Thereby the risk of escape by offenders is greatly increased.
CONCLUSION
The resources needed on our northern border must be addressed. I believe that the increased flow of illicit traffic across the northern border that we have already seen will only worsen as more pressure is placed on the southwest border. Prioritization is absolutely essential to any well-run organization, however, to declare that you have only one priority is patently unsound and impractical. To declare the Border Patrol has only one priority jeopardizes the safety of the men and women whose duty it is and threatens the integrity of our borders.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I thank you for this opportunity and I am pleased to answer any questions you might have.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Hall.
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Mr. Harris?
STATEMENT OF DAVID HARRIS, PRESIDENT, INSIGNIS STRATEGIC RESEARCH, OTTAWA, ONTARIO
Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, my name is Dave Harris. I am with INSIGNIS Strategic Research in Ottawa, Canada. I was formerly Chief of Strategic Planning with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Through academics and other undertakings, I maintained my interest in terrorism and counterterrorist issues.
Canada is often thought of and frankly flatters itself as being a peaceable kingdom. That is the historic label Canadians are often brought up with. Others talk about us as being a land of milk, toast and honey. We are considered masterly inoffensive on any number of levels and we have been kind of proud of having kept it that way for a good deal of our history.
While the United States has had the agonies of Vietnam and various nuclear and conventional force balance concerns to worry about, Canada has focused increasingly internally on priorities like Medicare, bilinguals and multiculturalism and of course, peacekeeping.
We are a population of 29 million people. We have relatively few obvious enemies, unlike many other countries familiar to you. Altogether, you could say that we have a remarkably unthreatening profile.
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One of the problems that we who have been involved with our intelligence community and concerned about terrorism in Canada and links of terrorism is Canada is the fact that perception I described of a completely nonthreatening, almost a non-player in the terrorism world is now tremendously dated. I think it is tremendously important that we come to recognize the potential for political violence in Canada, the risk of it spreading through the United States and other friendly nations, and indeed, the lack of national resolve found in Canada for confronting this potential terrorism and violence.
I would like to review quickly certain highlights of the 1980's and 1990's in Canada, a period when we first began to see the clearest possible evidence of the spread and manifestation of terrorist activity. I think the message in all of this is that we are seeing in this the tip of a few very unpleasant icebergs.
We have had several incidents in Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada involving Armenian-related violence, including the assassination of a turkish diplomat. We have had invasion of the Turkish Embassy and a series of matters of this general sort implying the presence, among other groups, of the BKK.
The world's biggest single terrorist toll was linked to Canada in 1985 when over 300 passengers died in the Air India Boeing 747 bombing. This has been linked to Sikh extremists, themselves desirous of an independent country or state in India.
Another airliner at that time was also bombed and both of these bombs were put on board in Canada it is believed, by Canadian residents or people with extremely close ties to Canada. We have also seen in the 1980's an assassination attempt on a Cabinet minister from India in British Columbia, this again linked to similar sources.
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In 1992, the Mujahedin-E-Khalq made their presence violently known in Ottawa as part of a coordinated worldwide response to an Iranian attack on an MEK base in Iraq. They invaded the Iranian Embassy, there was some violence involved there and there were more questions about the extent of coordination of the Mujahedin group in Canada and around the world.
Hassan al-Turabi, who may be known to subcommittee member as Sudan's power beyond the throne and not himself far removed from concerns about terrorism was wounded in an assassination attempt at Ottawa International just a month after the Mujahedin attack in Ottawa and the resident Sudanese exile was charged in that.
Zaire's Ottawa High Commission was invaded by Congolese representatives in 1993 and at about that time an IRA-linked individual, an Irish-born Canadian, was arrested for involvement in major IRA weapons and technology networks.
Perhaps quite dramatic, beginning in the early 1990's has been developing evidence of a Hizballah network in Canada. We have in the form of the Federal Court of Canada documents and transcripts, proof accepted by the Federal Court of Canada that there is and are such networks in Canada.
A proceeding that occurred about 2 years ago featuring Mr. Al Sayegh resulted in his being reviewed for possible deportation and other concerns relating to security certificates. He was implicated, as you are well aware, I believe, in the Al Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia.
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We had a Molotov-cocktail attack on the U.S. Consulate in Toronto only weeks ago and we had similar confrontations relating to consulates and other such establishments in Montreal and Toronto recently.
All in all, this is to at least suggest, I would say highlight in vigorous terms, the fact that terrorism is now alive and well and living in Canada. It is the obligation of the Canadian Government and the Canadian people to emphasize that fact and begin to adjust.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harris follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID HARRIS, PRESIDENT, INSIGNIS STRATEGIC RESEARCH, OTTAWA, ONTARIO
Mr. Chairman, Ms. Jackson Lee and Members of the Subcommittee, thank-you for your invitation to testify on important Canadian aspects of the northern boundary security situation. My name is Dave Harris. I am a Canadian citizen, President of INSIGNIS Strategic Research, and formerly served as Chief of Strategic Planning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). I continue to pursue my specialties in intelligence, counterterrorism and international affairs as a lecturer and commentator in Canada and abroad.
Americans often tell me that it is difficult to think of Canada and international terrorism in the same context. Canadians themselves have the same problem. But the largely untold truth is that Canada and terrorism do go together. A failure to see this stems from a failure to realize that Canada is simply not the country it used to be.
Abroad, Canada is often regarded as a land of milktoast and honey. Even with the occasional French-English tiff, Canadians are considered a well-intentioned and largely harmless species of North American, awash in crystalline lakes, grizzly bears and mounted police. We almost revel in the historical label, ''the peaceable kingdom.''
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To be sure, Canada has seen history's sharper edges. Its losses in the First World War were greater per capita than those of the United States. In WWII, Canada had the world's third largest navy, and Canadian forces suffered through the Korean stalemate with the rest.
But, in the half-century following all this, much changed in the Canadian experience and attitude. Canada drifted far from the concept of a threat-aware, front-line nation. While the US, for example, was in the agony of Vietnam, strategic nuclear doctrine and European force balance, Canadians were largely removed from such concerns, living under America's protective nuclear and conventional force ''umbrella''. Indeed, Canadians practically liquidated their military, and have developed an essentially inward-looking national self-image embracing peacekeeping, medicare, bilingualism, multiculturalism, and—our national sport—constitutional debate. At 29 million in population, the country recently boasted the highest standard of living among OECD nations.
All this explains something of Canada's unthreatening profile on the world scene and Canadians' belief that they are almost innately free from international political violence. However, although the myth has largely endured, it is increasingly misleading. For, the last decade or two have seen quiet shifts in the country and its society, with the development of pronounced undercurrents that highlight both the potential for political violence, and the lack of national resolve in confronting this potential.
Let me highlight just a few examples from the 1980s and 1990s of signs pointing to the engaging of Canadian territory and residents in internationally-related violence. It is crucial to bear in mind that international political violence—terrorism and its networks—had been practically non-existent in Canada before this period. These examples therefore represent a new trend which finds Canadians and their contacts engaged in planning, fundraising, arms' transfer and storage, and execution of international terrorism. In short, these episodes should be viewed as the tip of a variety of icebergs and reflective of a disquieting trend.
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EXAMPLES OF GROWING VIOLENCE
In separate incidents in Ottawa in the mid-1980s, Armenian-related violence resulted in the assassination of a Turkish diplomat and severe injury to another. The Turkish embassy itself was invaded.
The world's single biggest terrorist toll was linked to Canada in 1985 when over 300 passengers died in the bombing of an Air India Boeing 747. The explosive was planted in Canada by Sikh extremists working for an independent Sikh state in India. Another was placed at about the same time in Canada on another airliner, exploding later than planned, after the aircraft landed in Japan, and killing baggage handlers. In British Columbia in the 1980s a visiting cabinet minister from India was wounded in an assassination attempt linked to Sikh extremism.
In April 1992, members of the Iraq-backed Mujahedin-E-Khalq invaded the Iranian embassy in Ottawa as part of a coordinated worldwide response to an Iranian attack on an MEK base in Iraq.
A month later, Hassan al-Turabi, Sudan's power-behind-the-throne, was wounded in an assassination attempt at Ottawa International Airport. A resident Sudanese exile was charged.
In 1993, Zaire's Ottawa high commission was invaded by Congolese. At about this time an Irish-born Canadian was arrested for involvement in a major IRA weapons and technology network.
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By the late 1990s, immigration proceedings brought several revelations. In one, the Federal Court of Canada considered a security certificate issued by Canada's Solicitor General and Minister of Citizenship and Immigration against Mr. Mohamed Husseini al Husseini under s. 40 of the Immigration Act. Mr. Al Husseini confirmed that Hizballah members were in Canada. Two years ago, a similar proceeding was undertaken in the Federal Court with respect to Mr. Hani Abd Rahim Al Sayegh, a suspect in the June 1996 Al Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia. The Court accepted as proved, government evidence that Mr. Al Sayegh was a member of Saudi Hizballah, that Hizballah has networks in Canada, and that these are directed from south Lebanon.
Only weeks ago, Serbian-Canadians Molotov-cocktailed Toronto's US consulate. Days before, in response to Turkey's capture of a Kurdish guerilla leader, Kurdish supporters invaded a Montreal consulate and attacked an Ottawa embassy with Molotovs.
All of this underscores the potential in Canada for ''homelands''-related terrorism.
A major element in this situation is immigration. For about two decades roughly a quarter of a million immigrants have entered Canada yearly, making the country the biggest recipient of immigrants, by proportion, in the western world. Every year immigration adds another percent to the national population.
The composition of immigration reflects a dramatic shift from the regional—many would say European-based—preferences of 40 years ago. Four decades ago, 80% of each year's immigrants were coming from relatively stable European regions. Today, and for some years now, 80% of our quarter-million annual immigration intake has been coming from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and other regions thought to include trouble spots. A great many of these trouble spots are areas where, as counterterrorist specialists would say, ''homelands'' disputes predominate.
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It is trite, of course, to say that the overwhelming mass of our immigrants are peaceful, productive citizens. But it is also undeniable that a small portion have imported with them the issues and hostilities—the resentments—from foreign homelands. The result of this influx has been Canada's growing engagement in world terrorism. From the limited, relatively minor Quebec terrorist activity that petered out in the early 1970s, we have now progressed to more expansive and ominous activity on a variety of fronts connected with global political violence. Intelligence highlights the use of Canadian territory and resources in the planning, funding, recruiting and provision of cover for international terrorist activity.
In the face of this situation, Canada's security and intelligence community have done heroic work. But Government reaction at the political level has not been adequate to the counterterrorist task, and is reflected in a number of ways.
One serious area of concern involves the collecting of funds destined for terrorism, by groups benefiting from charitable tax status. Mr. John Bryden, a highly-respected Member of Parliament and author, has condemned the fact that, under Canada's antiquated accountability regime for ''charitable'' organizations, tens of millions of dollars in tax-free donations are channeled to groups supporting international terrorism. Thus Canadians, through their tax system, inadvertently subsidize terrorism and send abroad the message that Canada is a soft source for the soft money of terrorism. Mr. Bryden points out that ''the only law on the books as far as Revenue Canada is concerned that actually describes what charities are supposed to do is an Elizabethan statute of 1601.'' Little has been done to make legislative adjustment.
Nor has Canada any statutes comparable to the US terrorism legislation that allows the government to declare certain countries and groups ''terrorist'' in nature, with the triggering of derivative sanctions, measures and intelligence targeting.
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And security and intelligence budgets have been cut at a very dangerous time. As an example, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), with major counterterrorism responsibilities, has had staff reduced 26 percent, from 2760 in FY 1992–93, to a current level below 2000. Depending on its calculation, the CSIS budget will have fallen by between 21 and 37 percent over the period 1993–94 to 1998–99.
What is the answer? At bottom, the problem is that Canadians lack an attitude appropriate to the severity of the threat and our responsibility for guarding against it. Having been beneficiaries of their peaceful history, Canada and Canadians are becoming victims of it. Canadian political leadership must bring home the message that ''it can happen here'' and act appropriately on the several fronts noted earlier. This means more in counterterror funding and research. It also means a decisive change in attitude, especially in the framework and ethos underlying immigration.
Observers point out, for example, that federal politicians' delay in taking action against terror funding in Canada arises from the growing political clout of expanding immigrant groups and their lobbyists. The auguries are not good, and to understand this it is important to appreciate the concept of Canadian multiculturalism.
Federally-supported, that is, funded, multiculturalism has meant a lack of real integration of newcomers into Canadian society and values. Public policies and pronouncements have made government-funded multiculturalism untouchable, giving recent immigrants a reasonable expectation that they need not sacrifice allegiance to foreign groups and interests with whom they, as a matter of ideology or other sentiment, might associate themselves. Growing immigration numbers and lobbying power have moved Canada's political leadership further from integration and from dealing directly with related terror potentialities.
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Perhaps indicative of the resulting malaise and inaction was a report made a week or two ago by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—CBC Television—as Canadian aircrew were risking their lives in combat over Yugoslavia. The CBC interviewed a few Serbian Canadians who were condemning Canada's action in support of NATO, essentially swearing allegiance to Yugoslavia, and, in one case, baldly declaring his intention to return to his homeland to fight for the Milosevic government against Canadian forces if necessary. (Recall, incidentally, that in the Yugoslav conflict three years ago, a Serb-Canadian participated in chaining United Nations—including Canadian—peacekeepers to NATO targets as human shields.)
Despite the quasi-wartime situation, Canadian authorities have neither condemned nor taken action against such ''patriots''. This is a telling comment on the laissez-faire attitude of Canada's federal politicians and public in the face of major issues of international security and terrorism.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Harris, for your excellent testimony.
Mr. Papademetriou. After all these years, I think I am finally pronouncing it correctly.
STATEMENT OF DEMETRIOS G. PAPADEMETRIOU, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION POLICY PROGRAM, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE
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Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Jackson Lee for your leadership on this important issue. Ms. Jackson Lee, I also want to thank you for giving the thrust of my testimony in your opening remarks.
What my colleagues at the Carnegie Endowment and I have tried to do is basically sit back the last few days and reflect on some preliminary ideas and findings from a project that is about one-third of the way to completion. It basically looks at border issues and how different countries or different borders within different countries handle the challenges that are implicit in every single border.
My colleagues at the Endowment and I have focused our efforts on the northern border. That is what we are trying to do, giving you an idea of some of our initial thoughts on that.
We have spent quite a bit of time, maybe 20 days, on the northern border, three parts of the northern border—Detroit, Windsor and Port Huron, Buffalo, Fort Erie, Niagara, Seattle, Bellingham, Surrey and Vancouver. We have done that in the last 6 months.
What we have found after about 70 or 80 interviews and speaking with maybe 150 or so people, many of whom are the types of people you have had in this hearing, Border Patrol agents, INS district directors, Customs district directors, as well as businesses and NGOs. We have, in sense, concluded a number of things that I am going to read for you.
First, we think we should not inconvenience everyone and interfere with economic interests and local community dynamics in the hopes of catching a few additional violators. There are more effective and efficient ways to deal with the bad guys, in our view, and we can perhaps discuss some of those in our Q and A period after this.
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Secondly, we think we should be working more closely with our Canadian counterparts at every level, institutionalizing contacts, enhancing cooperation and sharing information on matters small and large. Our respondents made clear to us time and again that interagency cooperation across the border is extremely effective and that, in fact, is taking place quite routinely among officials in both countries, if only informally and intermittently because it is not yet formally sanctioned by the two central governments.
Cooperation of this nature should be actively encouraged by the governments of both countries. In doing so, neither country should shy away from unconventional ways of solving problems. Among these might be the physical sharing of buildings and facilities, cross-training, joint operations and the like.
In all the sites we visited along the border, we heard nothing but positive comments about the Canadian consulates and their effectiveness in pulling together a variety of interested parties on border issues and being catalysts for change and forward thinking. Interestingly enough, the Mexican consulates play a similar role along the southern border quite effectively, especially given the nature of their challenges.
If indeed these are shared concerns, in other words the concerns of this hearing as we believe they are, our U.S. consulates in Canada and Mexico where appropriate should do no less.
Third, we believe that we should be making much greater investments in intelligence gathering and gradually focus ever larger parts of that effort at the initial entrance into the North American continent. For those who are so inclined, a fortress North America may in fact be easier to create than a fortress USA.
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We should be making far greater investments in infrastructure and technology, both at ports of entry and the corridors leading to such ports. Both types of investments are critical components of any comprehensive effort at improving the management of the border. Such investments must proceed, we believe, from a reconceptualization of the current inspection methodology to rely much more on risk assessment and random inspections and less on inspecting every person.
Under the current methodology, as you know, Mr. Chairman, an inspector, whether Customs or INS, must speak with every crosser. They must also focus most directly on targeting resources toward preclearance programs for both people and cargo. The fifth recommendation is that we should work more closely with private sector interests whose thinking is often ahead of the curve, ahead of our thinking.
Whether these interests have a financial stake in making the border work more smoothly and predictably or simply are community-based organizations committed to better border management, better treatment by border officials and more efficient travel, their ideas should be solicited and listened to systematically.
Finally and most importantly, we believe that the Federal Government should make a habit of working more closely with the communities that are affected by these issues on a daily basis. Their input, including soliciting ideas and providing feedback on others' ideas, should be incorporated at an early stage in the policy process.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Papademetriou follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF DEMETRIOS G. PAPADEMETRIOU, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION POLICY PROGRAM, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE
ABSTRACT
This testimony is based on preliminary impressions from fieldwork along the U.S.-Canada border that aims to catalogue existing local initiatives, understand and explain similarities and differences, pull out and contextualize ''best practices'' in local self-management, and share these with a variety of stakeholders. The project's point of departure is a widely-shared concern that policy-making and discussion about borders and their management occurs primarily in national capitals. We start from a working hypothesis that at the local level, communities on both sides of a common border are thinking creatively and often collaboratively about common problems and interests and, to the degree they are allowed to do so, develop processes and institutions that give substance to the concept of devolution. After extensive fieldwork along the U.S.-Canada border, we have become convinced that local officials, in partnership with business interests, worker organizations, and community-based and other relevant group, should play a much more significant role in the ongoing discussions about and the implementation of policies that affect their lives.
We would like to summarize our observations with the following six statements:
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1. We should not inconvenience everyone and interfere with economic interests and local community dynamics in the hopes of catching a few additional border violators. There are more effective and efficient ways to deal with the bad guys.
2. We should be working with our Canadian counterparts at every level, institutionalizing contacts, enhancing cooperation, and sharing information on matters small and large. Our respondents made clear to us time and again that inter-agency cooperation across the border is extremely effective and that it in fact is taking place quite routinely among officials in both countries—if only informally and intermittently because it is not yet formally sanctioned by the two central governments. Cooperation of this nature should be actively encouraged by the governments of both countries.
3. We should be making much greater investments in intelligence gathering and gradually focus ever larger parts of that effort at initial entries into the North American continent. For those who are so inclined, a Fortress North America may be easier to create than a Fortress U.S.A.
4. We should be making far greater investments in infrastructure and in technology (both at ports-of-entry and the corridors leading to such ports). Both types of investments are critical components of any comprehensive effort at improving the management of the border. Such investments must proceed, we believe, from a reconceptualization of the current inspection methodology to rely much more on risk assessments and random inspections and less on inspecting every person.
5. We should work more closely with private sector interests whose thinking is often ahead of the curve. Whether these interests have a financial stake in making the border work more smoothly and predictably or are simply community-based organizations committed to better border management, better treatment by border officials, and more efficient travel, their ideas should be solicited and listened to systemically.
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6. Most importantly, perhaps, the federal government should make a habit of working more closely with the communities that are affected by these issues on a daily basis. Their input (including soliciting ideas and providing feedback on others' ideas) should be incorporated at an early stage of the policy process.
I. INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman, Ms. Jackson Lee, Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Demetrios Papademetriou, and I am the Co-Director of the International Migration Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thank you for asking me to testify today regarding the U.S.-Canada border.
I am submitting this testimony on behalf of myself and my colleagues at the Carnegie Endowment, Deborah Meyers and Nicole Green. It reports on the preliminary impressions from extensive fieldwork along the U.S.-Canada border. That fieldwork is part of an ambitious comparative international project that seeks to advance understanding of how communities that straddle an international border, and at times form a single economic and cultural entity, manage common challenges, and particularly the migration relationship. The project looks at five different international border regions—U.S.-Canada, U.S.-Mexico, Germany-Poland, Russia-China, Russia-Kazakh. It aims to catalogue existing local initiatives, understand and explain similarities and differences, pull out and contextualize ''best practices'' in local self-management, and share these with a variety of stakeholders, including central governments.
The project's point of departure is a widely-shared concern that policy-making and discussion about borders and their management occurs primarily in national capitals. We started from a working hypothesis that at the local level, communities on both sides of a common border are thinking creatively and often collaboratively about common problems and interests and, to the degree they are allowed to do so, develop processes and institutions that give substance to the concept of devolution. After extensive fieldwork along the U.S.-Canada border, we have become convinced that local officials, in partnership with business interests, worker organizations, and community-based and other relevant group, should play a much more significant role in the ongoing discussions about and the implementation of policies that affect their lives.
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Although our project is looking at several borders, my remarks today are based upon our own work in three different regions along the U.S.-Canadian border, as well as on our understanding of circumstances along the U.S.-Mexican border. We have made five extensive visits to three areas along our Northern border (Detroit/Windsor/Pt.Huron, Buffalo/Ft. Erie/ Niagara, Seattle/Bellingham/Surrey/Vancouver) over the last five months. During these Northern border trips, we have visited nine different ports-of-entry. We have conducted well over 70 interviews in both countries with local government officials, business leaders, federal immigration and customs officials, bridge operators, community-based non-governmental organizations, researchers, and local residents. We will be happy to share additional information from this project with you in the fall, once we have received initial reports from the teams that are doing similar work along the other four international borders.
II. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
A. ''One Size Fits All'' Strategy Doesn't Fit Both Borders
Our overall impression from our own work is that a single policy and set of rules does not, and will not, work for managing both of our land-borders. The principle of treating our two NAFTA partners equally is crucial; our policies, however, must be sensitive to three factors that distinguish our relationship with Canada from that with Mexico: 1) The history of special bonds between the U.S. and Canada; 2) The reality that access to each other's countries has been a long established and accepted practice; and 3) The geography (and topography) of the Northern border.
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Let me give you some examples of what I mean by these. Regarding the special, historical links between the United States and Canada, these include a shared language (mostly) and historical tradition; similar emphases on the rule of law, democratic principles, etc.; a tradition of cooperation in matters large and small; and long-term alliances and partnerships in regional and global matters. It also includes virtually identical immigration traditions and similar levels of social and economic development, particularly in the border regions. Well before NAFTA, many industries along the Canadian border already related to both countries in a seamless manner (the auto industry became fundamentally a single industry with the Auto Pact of 1965) and viewed their proximity to the border as an advantage. The NAFTA simply accelerated the pace and added depth to the level of such seamlessness. Finally, the two countries have a number of unique agreements in place, such as the International Joint Commission which acts as an independent advisor to both governments, resolves disputes under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, and helps protect the transboundary environment.
On the issue of access between the two countries, the communities themselves frequently view themselves as one, with Windsor residents working in Detroit and fervently cheering for the Detroit Red Wings (rather than the Toronto Maple Leafs) and Detroit residents viewing Windsor as just another suburb and taking routine weekend trips to Windsor restaurants or Toronto theaters. Similarly, Buffalo residents frequent their summer cottages in Ft. Erie, Ontario, and Canadians fill up the parking lot at the Elliocottville, NY ski resort.
Despite many similarities, however, border traffic varies along the Northern border.
The Detroit ports-of-entry, for instance, receive many visitors from Asia and Europe because the Detroit airport is a major entry point for nonstop flights from Asia and Europe. As one might expect, commercial traffic there relates primarily to the auto industry and much of the other traffic consists of the region's residents.
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The Buffalo region sees an extremely large number of international tourists because of Niagara Falls, while from a commercial standpoint, it is located along a high tech, fiberoptics, and medical research and development corridor.
Crossings at Point Roberts, Washington (a peninsula below the 49th parallel that has 1,000 year round residents and is surrounded on three sides by water and on the fourth by Canada) consist almost exclusively of local residents (and summer tourists). As a result, the same few inspectors see the same cars and passengers numerous times each day, every day, every week, every month—crossing through Canada to get to Bellingham or to Blaine on the American side for work or for school or for shopping or for whatever else they may need that is not available on Point Roberts.
Regarding geography, the length of the Canadian border is at least double that of the Mexican border and approximately 90% of the Canadian population lives within 60 miles of the American border. This makes the border an extremely relevant issue for Canadians. (Only a small proportion of the U.S population lives close to a border.) In many of these areas, such as Detroit and Windsor, the crossing infrastructure (e.g. the Detroit-Windsor tunnel that runs underneath the Detroit River) cannot be enhanced without enormous investments of additional funds.
B. ''One Size Fits All'' Strategy Doesn't Fit Even One Border
Differences among ports-of-entry in terms of needs, challenges, priorities, etc., make it difficult to generalize even about the entire length of a single border, much less about both borders. Border policy must thus be sensitive to the ''facts-on-the-ground'' in each border area.
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For instance, in some ports-of-entry in the Eastern half of the U.S., the primary problems (e.g. long lines and long waits because only two out of ten booths may be staffed) can be alleviated with additional staffing. More inspectors can translate into greater facilitation and better enforcement while also addressing such collateral issues as the additional environmental pollution resulting from trucks awaiting inspection. In ports-of-entry in the Pacific Northwest, there is a sense that U.S. border inspectors must try to prevent the entry of high quality marijuana produced in British Columbia (and apparently valued highly among U.S. users), that Canadian inspectors must redouble their efforts to deter weapons smuggling, and that both countries must work harder to prevent the entry of goods that are fraudulently labeled so as to make them tariff free under NAFTA.
How, then, should we treat our borders? In our view, the idea would be to have a single national border policy that treats both borders equally, but allows different regions and ports-of-entry along both borders to set their own priorities and to develop and apply tools that respond to the challenges and opportunities that the region presents (by ''region'' we mean a space that may include both sides of a border). Of course, while local flexibility and innovation should be encouraged and rewarded, it must be accomplished in a manner that makes arbitrary actions or the arbitrary interpretation of fundamental rules unacceptable. We spoke with many people in our fieldwork who were extremely frustrated with inconsistent (and often seemingly improper) behavior by staff of the inspection agencies. Most people told us they would be happy to comply if they knew what the rules were and if the rules didn't seem to change all the time.
Another way of looking at the issue of how much uniformity we should insist upon—particularly when it comes to managing both of our borders—might be to think of Mexico and Canada as situated on a continuum whose two end points are sealed borders and no borders. Canada and Mexico, for the reasons we discussed in our listing of the similarities between Canada and ourselves, are at different points along that continuum—although we envision that eventually, they will be moving toward the direction of fewer, rather than more border formalities. Clearly, such progress is likely to occur at different speeds. By acknowledging that the ultimate aim of our policy will be the equal treatment of both countries, we give ourselves the flexibility to treat both of our NAFTA partners within a single framework while dealing in practical ways with the fact that they are located at different points on that continuum.
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With Canada, we can experiment with policies and test ideas that are specific to a locality and, if they prove successful, can then be ''exported'' to other localities along that border. And with regard to the Southern border, we can offer Mexico the prospect of importing those among those innovations that prove useful as soon as it can replicate the conditions that made them succeed in the Northern border. Such an open-ended, ''learning by doing'' approach, is likely to serve broad U.S. interests best while acknowledging both the different realities of each border (and port-of-entry) and the need to be sensitive to the optics of treating Canada and Mexico too differently.
Our research has also identified several good ideas and initiatives that already are taking place. We outline them here without much discussion because we believe that they should be widely publicized across the entire border and that the federal government should start taking them into account as its thinking evolves in these matters.
Private sector initiatives
The Canadian-American Border Trade Alliance is a borderwide public/private binational partnership that works to improve the efficient flow of goods and people across the U.S.-Canadian border.
The Canada-U.S. BorderNet Alliance is a cross-border regional network of business organizations focused on the development of trade, tourism, and investment in the Niagara Region.
Academic initiatives
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The University of Windsor offers a special NAFTA tuition rate for U.S. and Mexican students who want to study in Canada. That rate is almost the same as what Canadian students pay and only about one quarter of the tuition paid by other international students.
The Golden Horseshoe Educational Alliance is a coalition of academics at over twenty colleges and universities in the region ranging from Toronto to Rochester.
Tourism-related initiatives
The Convention and Visitors' Bureaus in Washington State and British Columbia are marketing the Two-Nation Vacation in Cascadia.
The Chambers of Commerce in Niagara, Ontario, and Niagara, New York, and the Greater Niagara Partnership are doing the same for Niagara Falls. In fact, the two chambers are thinking regionally in even more substantive ways by undertaking joint overseas trade missions and promoting the economic development of the region.
Government initiatives
The Pacific Northwest offices of the two principal border inspections agencies, Customs and INS, are experimenting with some innovative ideas with regard to staffing and technology that should be of interest to other regions. Among them are multi-agency international border enforcement teams working against organized crime, pre-clearance of certain types of cargo for particular companies, the use of transponders, the re-routing of late-night passenger traffic to truck lanes to permit staff from the lightly used car traffic lanes to reduce the long truck backups.
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Some local county governments and planning organizations are working together to secure funds for significant improvements to the infrastructure of trade corridors (such as I–94 in Detroit which connects to the 401/QEW in Ontario). In the Pacific Northwest, the Whatcom County Council of Governments has organized a binational regional planning group with stakeholders from both countries, including representatives of localities, federal government agencies, Chambers of Commerce, etc. The resulting International Mobility and Trade Corridor (IMTC) group meets monthly; it shares information, discusses challenges and solutions, and has made a joint proposal for funding for international border crossings from the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA–21).
These are only some of the many ideas we heard on our visits.
III. CHALLENGES
U.S. Customs and the INS do the work of over 20 federal and state government agencies as they inspect goods and people at the border. The challenge clearly is to balance effectively all the major interests and actors—facilitating access by the legal traffic, preventing entry of illegal goods and turning back all unauthorized traffic, appropriately responding to asylum claims, etc.
I would like to make three general points regarding the challenges that are intrinsic to performing this critical inspection function.
First, the growing trade and commercial relationship between the United States and Canada is so important that interfering with it is simply foolish. Canada is our number one trading partner with $329 billion in two-way trade in 1998, which means that almost $1 billion in goods and services crosses the border daily. Estimates are that 45 percent of U.S.-Canada trade goes through a Michigan/Ontario Port-of-Entry and that 30 percent goes through the Buffalo/Ft. Erie/Niagara region. The Ambassador Bridge in Detroit, in fact, accommodates the largest commercial exchange in the entire United States (almost 11 million vehicles in 1997, including over 2.5 million trucks).
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On the passenger side, traffic also has significantly increased. All indications are that it will continue to do so. In recent years, over 30 million people went through the Detroit ports-of-entry each year, followed by almost 30 million crossings in the Buffalo district, and over 20 million in the Seattle district. Considering the sheer size of these numbers, the Congress should be thinking of ways to encourage federal agencies and assist local agencies and private sector organizations to further enhance facilitation, rather than creating obstacles.
Second, the threats of illegal immigration, drugs, and terrorism, are indeed real in the following sense: every port-of-entry is vulnerable to penetration by undesirable elements. And, as experience has taught us, this vulnerability extends to the issuance of visas—making entry through the front gate perhaps the easiest route of entry by most intending criminals. The rest of them, and especially the more ''serious'' criminals, have ample space—and the resources—to bypass port-of-entry controls without much effort. Indeed, we all told that the evidence from a variety of ports-of-entry seems to indicate that entry attempts by criminals who are potential threats to our society are rather rare and isolated, particularly relative to the huge number of crossings. In fact, in town-hall and focus-group meetings in Detroit, Michigan and Point Roberts, Washington, both of which included both Americans and Canadians, not a single person put forward serious security concerns about the entry of Canadians or Americans into their respective countries or argued that a more open or differently managed border would lead to less security.
The lesson, we think, is obvious: we should not abandon common sense and overreact to occasional violations of our laws by inconveniencing the 98 or 99 percent of compliant traffic while trying to pursue the remaining one or two percent who are non-compliant. On the immigration side, many of those who are non-compliant seem to be neither deliberately nor meaningfully non-compliant. (Primarily, they are Canadians who are only in technical violation of the rules). On the drug side, some port-of-entry Customs officials acknowledge that most of those who are not compliant seemed to be ''mom-and-pop'' types carrying small amounts of marijuana—rather than serious drug smugglers.
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We do not mean to belittle the importance of the drug and people smuggling interdiction efforts. But, outside of the Washington State/British Columbia crossings, nobody even suggested to us that such smuggling was a serious problem. Furthermore, we have seen no evidence and have heard of no claim that, even in places where the anti-smuggling/drug effort is most dedicated, the inspection system currently in place at either border intercepts most would-be violators. A number of people even suggested to us that a random inspection method would probably be as effective as the current inspection methodologies. And under questioning, even those most committed to the anti-alien smuggling/ anti-drug effort acknowledged that most of their good ''busts'' occur as a result of tips and good, old-fashioned, human intelligence work, and through seamless on-the-ground cooperation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The recommendation that flows from this analysis is obvious: more attention and resources should be devoted to intelligence gathering and information sharing regarding third country nationals and drug, alien, or weapons smugglers (the serious threats), than on ''thickening'' the current system of inspections. (The inspector corps of both main inspection agencies should increase, however, if we hope to keep up even minimally with increased traffic.)
Controlling illegal immigration, drugs, and terrorism are of concern to all of us and a proper priority for the government. The method being proposed in IIRAIRA Section 110, however, seems unwarranted and unlikely to achieve additional results absent extraordinary new investments in human and physical infrastructure. Failing that—and many people in fact argue that even with that—we will find ourselves in the unenviable positions of shooting ourselves in the foot both economically and in terms of our relations with one of our closest partners—and all that while looking for the perfect solution to a near non-problem (or, more accurately, to a problem that can be handled more effectively and efficiently through other initiatives).
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We want to emphasize again that this does not mean that we propose that we should be doing nothing more. Violators and potential violators need to be targeted through other means, including intelligence and cooperation with the Canadians, who are not likely to be any less interested in keeping out of Canada the same types of terrorists, and organized drug and alien smugglers, who are of concern to us. In fact, one idea whose time seems to us to have arrived, is engaging in open-ended negotiations with Canada about increasing the level of harmonization between U.S. and Canadian policies on such matters as cargo and passenger pre-clearance programs, law enforcement programs of all types, and, in due course, even the issuance of visas.
Pre-clearance for regular commuters, for instance, could be harmonized so that Canadians and Americans who register with the program and who qualify for it could enter both countries from any port-of-entry in an expedited manner. Similarly, on cargo inspections and anti-alien and anti-drug smuggling efforts, why not start from the premise that both we and the Canadians want to keep out the same persons and goods? (We found little argument anywhere with that premise.) Then, why not work together more closely to agree on who can enter (and facilitate those entries), to share as much information as possible about matters of common interest, and to keep out those who should not be admissible to or welcome in either country? And although we cannot expect identity of views with Canada on all matters up front, enough agreement exists to make negotiations on the issues on which we disagree worth the effort.
Finally, we need to start thinking about the border as a system. With NAFTA pushing all three partners inexorably toward a fully integrated region, such practices as just-in-time production and the ability to move goods and people across all three countries (in an efficient if still regulated way) become critical elements of regional competitiveness. The prosperity of all of us relies on such competitiveness. Intelligent inspection strategies that are realistic and can inspect without unnecessary hassles of delays throughout the NAFTA space must thus be given priority.
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At present, our Southern border seems to be reeling under the weight of efforts that try to bring it under control while the U.S.-Canadian border may be suffering partly from the malady of inattention (reflected in large part in understaffing). The results, however, are in some ways similar. In neither border are the goals of facilitating all the commercial, commuter, and visitor traffic (while doing an effective enforcement job) being met satisfactorily.
Good enforcement and good facilitation go hand-in-hand; you can't do one without paying attention to the other. Absent concurrent and roughly equivalent efforts to do better along all borders, undesirable border crossers will indeed look for and exploit the weak links. Since we don't believe that any of us is thinking seriously about ''leak-proof'' borders, the changes in effectiveness and efficiency must come from thinking differently about the inspection function.
Thinking about the border as a system allows us to think prospectively about the greatest challenges an inspections-based border effort faces while addressing issues of smuggling before smugglers and their cargo reach the border—where they might or might not be intercepted. It also compels us to think differently about the infrastructure necessary to execute whatever inspection methodology is relied upon. Infrastructure—which includes not only the crossings themselves (be they land crossings, bridges, or tunnels), but also the inspection space for both countries, the immediately surrounding roads, and the highways leading into and away from them—is already bursting at the seams along the Northern border. Before we make massive new investments on building more of the same, why not think first about how we want to see borders operate in the future and then build the infrastructure that can take us there?
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IV. CONCLUDING PRINCIPLES
We leave you, then, with the following six general principles about how to handle the U.S.-Canadian border which summarize many of the items we have discussed above.
We should not inconvenience everyone and interfere with economic interests and local community dynamics in the hopes of catching a few additional violators. There are more effective and efficient ways to deal with the bad guys.
2. We should be working with our Canadian counterparts at every level, institutionalizing contacts, enhancing cooperation, and sharing information on matters small and large. Our respondents made clear to us time and again that inter-agency cooperation across the border is extremely effective and that it in fact is taking place quite routinely among officials in both countries—if only informally and intermittently because it is not yet formally sanctioned by the two central governments. Cooperation of this nature should be actively encouraged by the governments of both countries. In doing so, neither country should shy away from unconventional ways of solving problems. Among these might be the physical sharing of buildings and facilities, cross-training, and joint operations. In all U.S. sites that we visited along the border, we heard nothing but positive comments about the Canadian consulates and their effectiveness in pulling together a variety of interested parties on border issues and in being catalysts for change and forward thinking. Interestingly enough, the Mexican consulates play a similar role along our Southern border quite effectively, especially given the nature of the challenges they face. If indeed these are shared concerns, as we believe they are, our Consulates in Canada (and Mexico), where appropriate, should do no less.
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3. We should be making much greater investments in intelligence gathering and gradually focus ever larger part of that effort at initial entries into the North American continent. For those who are so inclined, a Fortress North America may be easier to create than a Fortress U.S.A.
4. We should be making far greater investments in infrastructure and in technology (both at ports-of-entry and the corridors leading to such ports). Both types of investments are critical components of any comprehensive effort at improving the management of the border. Such investments must proceed, we believe, from a reconceptualization of the current inspection methodology to rely much more on risk assessments and random inspections and less on inspecting every person. (Under the current methodology, an inspector must speak with every crosser). They must also focus more directly on targeting resources toward pre-clearance programs for both people and cargo.
5. We should work more closely with private sector interests whose thinking is often ahead of the curve. Whether these interests have a financial stake in making the border work more smoothly and predictably or are simply community-based organizations committed to better border management, better treatment by border officials, and more efficient travel, their ideas should be solicited and listened to systemically.
6. Most importantly, perhaps, the federal government should make a habit of working more closely with the communities that are affected by these issues on a daily basis. Their input (including soliciting ideas and providing feedback on others' ideas) should be incorporated at an early stage of the policy process.
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Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and Ms. Jackson Lee for inviting me here today.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Papademetriou.
Sheriff Brandland, let me direct my first question to you. You mentioned in your testimony, ''I must tell you I am troubled by the liberal immigration policies of Canada. Anyone that has a passport can enter Canada and there is very little to stop them from entering the United States once they get there.'' Does that contribute significantly to the problem in your judgment or is that something that could be remedied perhaps by some changes in the law? How do you feel we should address that problem?
Mr. BRANDLAND. I guess, Mr. Chairman, my own feeling seems to have been backed up today by the fact that it is just so easy to get into Canada that something needs to be done at that level, I feel. There is nothing to stop these people once they get into Canada. So if I am hearing you correctly, I would say my first response would be to deal with the issue at the Canadian level, if that is possible, and then more enforcement on the northern border to deal with those that do manage to get in.
Mr. SMITH. To go from immigration policy to crime policy, it is my understanding that Canada has relatively lenient criminal penalties for drug offenses, whether it be trafficking or possession. Is that the case and can you elaborate on that?
Mr. BRANDLAND. That is true. We have actually seen that. We do not have marijuana growing operations in my county. They have all moved north across the border. As I have said, it is all primarily being funded and sponsored by the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang. That is pretty well documented. So from that perspective, we feel, yes, their lenient drug policies have actually moved the problem out of my county and into theirs.
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Mr. SMITH. Lastly, you say in your testimony that ''The lack of a sufficient number of Border Patrol agents is courting disaster.'' What do you mean by ''courting disaster''?
Mr. BRANDLAND. I think that Mr. Abu Mezer is a classic example. I truly do believe that as important an issue as drugs are in our country, I believe that a stronger presence on our border to deter terrorists from entering our country is a very, very important issue. It will only take one incident like we saw in Oklahoma City to create the disaster that I am talking about.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Sheriff Brandland.
Mr. Hall, you used an acronym that I have actually heard before on the southern border and you tell me now that it is in common use on the northern border and that is CARP which stands for ''catch and release program.'' That is not, I do not think, a compliment to the procedures that are sometimes used in regard to illegal immigration or illegal drugs. Tell me what you mean by CARP and how bad you think the situation is and also, why does it come about? Where did the term come from and how did you arrive at that particular description of the procedures?
Mr. HALL. It is just frustrating for myself and the other agents. We are out in the field working and arresting these individuals. You may end up in a fight with one of them because a lot of times they do not want to be placed into custody. You take back these individuals only to have no money to detain them. Like I said, we are simply a bump in the road. We catch them, we process them and release them and they continue on their way, many times never to be seen again by the Immigration Service. We process them, serve them with documents that say they must report for Immigration Court and there is nothing there. They do not even have to post a bond. There is no incentive to make them come back for their immigration hearing and down the road they go. This is extremely frustrating for us.
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Just recently within the past 2 weeks, we were involved in an operation where there were five foreign nationals that robbed a jewelry store of $45,000 of precious gems. When these individuals came into our custody, we did not know and today we do not really know who they were. We processed their fingerprints, FedEx them off to the FBI, and two of them had prior criminal records. We are still not sure what countries they were from. They had photo-altered passports. We processed them with the best information we had and released them with not a penny of bond being posted. They are gone today to continue on in their criminal activities and to perpetrate them against our communities.
Mr. SMITH. You mentioned also two trends, and I am going to try to link them together, and you tell me if you think I am correct.
You mentioned the emerging trend of individuals particularly from Mexico choosing not to cross the southern border but to come around to the northern border, it being oftentimes less expensive in many ways. Tell me if this is really accurate, that you are literally being told by the INS to detain only two aggravated felons per week and when you do detain them, they can only be during the times that the office is open Monday through Friday during the day shift? Is that right?
Mr. HALL. As shocking as it sounds, yes, that is correct. These Mexican citizens that I detained freely admitted the fear of being arrested by me was almost a joke to them. They were laughing and joking as they were in custody in my station, and I had a candid conversation with them and there was no hesitation on their part whatsoever.
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Mr. SMITH. How do you account for an immigration policy, an INS policy, that puts a quota on the number of criminal aliens you can stop? Is that contrary to the national interest and to the safety of our citizens?
Mr. HALL. It is shocking. I cannot justify a policy of that nature at all. This information on the aggravated felons came to me from a fellow agent just as of Friday. He is involved in the high intensity drug trafficking task force and comes across criminal aliens and aggravated felons on a regular basis.
He says now he has to schedule his work day as to when he can arrest these individuals because the Border Patrol itself locally has no detention funds to speak of whatsoever and we have no local detention facility so we have to rely on individuals like the Sheriff here to house our prisoners at an expense to the Border Patrol. We have no money, we cannot detain them, so the Immigration Detention Section in Detroit has funding but we have to present those individuals for detention to them during the hours they operate which is Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Mr. SMITH. I like your one word description of ''shocking'' describing that policy.
Thank you, Mr. Hall.
Ms. Jackson Lee is recognized.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. Hall, I would like to follow up with that line of questioning. Can you articulate for me, other than the generic term more resources, how could we be more effective with respect to that particular problem of arresting and then having the place to incarcerate?
Mr. HALL. Ideally, if the INS was able to provide us with a local detention facility where INS could maintain it and run it, we would have the bed space available to house these individuals. That would be the most perfect world. Shy of that, just the money to apprehend and take these aliens that are criminals, that are a threat to society and at least detain them until they can have an immigration hearing to determine by a judge whether they should be released or whether they should be returned to their home country. That would be the minimum, just so we have the funding to take these people that are threats or perceived threats out of circulation until the case can be adjudicated.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. What is the facility that you use now?
Mr. HALL. We beg, borrow and steal.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. So you are taking beds where they are available?
Mr. HALL. Wherever we can get them.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. What about the opportunity to utilize space in the Federal Bureau of Prisons in a larger or more consistent manner?
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Mr. HALL. Wherever I can get a bed to put a person who is a criminal, I will take them there myself. I have no problem with that.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. If you had a consistent number of beds available to you by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and were knowledgeable that they existed, would that be helpful to you?
Mr. HALL. That would be helpful as opposed to nothing right now, yes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. The facilities that you are using, are they mostly local governmental facilities or are you using any private prisons?
Mr. HALL. I do not believe there are any private ones to my knowledge that exist in the area.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Just the local governmental?
Mr. HALL. Yes, city, county.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Being a union representative, give me a guesstimate of how many more agents you think you could use along the northern border?
Mr. HALL. With the Partnership Council in Detroit, the Union Management Partnership Council, we sat down and we addressed this, management and myself with other members and we came up with five stations that we have now, for 800 miles of border, we felt 109 additional agents would give us sufficient manpower to cover our border 24 hours a day with minimal staffing.
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Mr. SMITH. Would the gentlewoman yield for just a minute?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would be happy to yield.
Mr. SMITH. Just to put that into perspective, is that about five times the number you have now?
Mr. HALL. We have 19 now, so yes, it would be about five times what we have now.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. What area are you speaking of?
Mr. HALL. The entire Detroit Sector, Sault Ste. Marie, Detroit, Port Huron, Trenton and Grand Rapids.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. And you would need 109, an extra 109 or total?
Mr. HALL. An additional 109 agents.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much for that.
Let me also acknowledge your service and I appreciate very much what you do for us.
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Let me direct my questions to Mr. Harris first and then I want to direct my questions to Mr. Papademetriou to answer some concerns.
Mr. Harris, I have both listened to your testimony and indicated I had a meeting. I believe you might have started as I came in, but in any event, I read it. What strikes me is that you seem to be quarreling with the foreign policy of Canada, which to my knowledge, my Constitution does not allow me to tamper with the foreign policy of Canada. You also seem to be dealing with the basic gentility, if you will, or gentleness of the Canadian people. To my knowledge, I do not have any authority to deal with that as well. Let me cite some of your testimony.
''At the bottom is the problem that Canadians lack an attitude appropriate to the severity of the threat and our responsibility for guarding against it. Having been beneficiaries of their peaceful history, Canada and Canadians are becoming victims of it.'' Then you note, ''Federally supported, that is funded multiculturalism has meant a lack of real integration of newcomers into Canadian society.'' You also make note of the fact that ''The new newcomers are African, African-based people of color.'' How am I to respond to that and what relevance does that have to what we are talking about today?
Mr. HARRIS. I have think we have to respond to it with rationality and reasonableness and these are extremely good and important questions that have to be asked and have not been asked in the past.
What I was talking about was a problem that we have attitudinally in Canada, the Canadian citizens and the political level in particular. We have a tremendous, almost fabulous level of immigration. For a country of 29 million people, we bring in about a quarter of a million people each year. That is a full 1 percent of the population increase.
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Some years ago, 40 years ago, most of these people came from relatively stable European environments. Now they are coming from areas that involve the Middle East, Africa and so on where we have trouble spots and it is the factor of the trouble spots that is relevant, not any real or imagined racial or other ethno-cultural aspect. That is a very key thing to recall.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. May I ask the chairman for an additional minute so that Mr. Harris may finish but my questions to the other witnesses complement his.
Mr. SMITH. We are going to have another round of questions.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I may not be able to stay. I would like to have him finish. Would you continue?
Mr. HARRIS. I guess the point is an attitudinal one.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me do this. I note the letter that John Conyers submitted into the record by the Ambassador from Canada which I appreciated focused more on collaboration between the United States and Canada along the borders, DEA, the Royal Mounties, and so forth. How is your testimony instructive on working along the border to alleviate some of the problems that we have?
Mr. HARRIS. I guess the basic point to make is that our two sides work with exceptional close cooperation and always have. While we are at it, I would just like to support what you said and what the Canadian Ambassador has said, that although we may need strong action at policy levels in dealing with our immigration law, this is not to say that Section 110 as currently proposed is appropriate to the challenge.
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If I may, just from the record of the Ambassador's statement, such controls, he says, would be of no use in preventing the movement of terrorists or drug smugglers because they would not add any screening value in terms either of improving the quality or quantity of intelligence available or applying it through lookouts at visa offices and border crossing points. So my large thrust in this is that we need to take some kind of real rational control of our immigration situation, give our immigrants a reasonable expectation that their allegiance is to be to Canada, that we are not to bring into Canada our homeland's problems and as a result, we are to then be the civil neighbors to the United States and other countries that would be expected of us in our tradition in the global community.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because I have so much for my last witness, I will wait for the second round and make some further comments.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you.
Mr. Harris, I think you made an excellent point which is you need to get to the root of the problem and the major cause.
Mr. Hall, in your testimony about drug smuggling, let me mention a couple of examples you talked about because I think detailed examples are helpful to highlight the problems that we are looking at.
You say, ''Intelligence indicates that the increasing Asian gangs in Toronto, Ontario are smuggling heroin into the United States across our northern border and smuggling back cocaine, again, a problem that involves both countries.'' You say, ''Confidential sources of information tell us that contraband smuggling across the waterways is rampant.'' We have heard testimony today that the waterways are basically unsecured. Then you said, ''This past year, we were so short of manpower, it was difficult to get two agents on duty at the same time to run the Detroit patrol boat.''
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All that points to a problem that has been a thread that has run through almost all the testimony today which is we need more Border Patrol agents, we need better security if Americans and also our Canadian friends are going to benefit.
Let me give you a slow ball over home plate. This goes to the issue of pay for Border Patrol agents. Do you think, compared to other similar professions, the Border Patrol agents are adequately paid and if not, why not, and if not, what should they be paid?
Mr. HALL. I feel the pay does need to be increased across the board for Border Patrol agents when we look at other law enforcement agencies of similar size and similar duties. The problem is there are a lot of people interested in the job of a Border Patrol agent, it is an exciting, rewarding career at times, but the lack of pay, of salary, forces a lot of people to go other places where maybe the job is not as exciting or rewarding but the pay is there. We have to pay our bills. I believe a GS–11 across the board for Border Patrol would help stem the attrition.
Mr. SMITH. What is the salary level of a GS–11?
Mr. HALL. It varies up to Step 10 somewhere in the neighborhood, base pay, I think about $55,000.
Mr. SMITH. What is it now?
Mr. HALL. I am a GS–11. That is a promotion-type position. The regular field agent, which would be a Border Patrol agent, would be a GS–9. Do not quote me exactly on this but I think that is somewhere in the neighborhood of about $40,000 a year.
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Mr. SMITH. Is that starting salary?
Mr. HALL. No, that would be after reaching a journeyman level.
Mr. SMITH. What do they start at?
Mr. HALL. I think $22,000, $26,000 a year starting for a college graduate coming out of college with a 4-year degree coming into the profession.
Mr. SMITH. Which is less than 200 percent the poverty rate. You gave me my answer. I appreciate that.
Mr. Harris, your testimony was very credible, very candid. Just for the record, are you still a Canadian citizen?
Mr. HARRIS. Yes, sir. At least I was.
Mr. SMITH. You speak with both authority and credibility. Let me read a statement from your prepared testimony. You said, ''Canada and terrorism do go together. A failure to see this stems from a failure to realize that Canada is simply not the country it used to be.''
I will go to three points you made later on in your testimony and I do not think you got around to making them all a few minutes ago. I think they bear dwelling on for just a minute. You pointed to three different aspects of Canada's policies that you think contribute to the problems we have. These are new to me but I think they are instructive.
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You say, first of all, ''Under Canada's antiquated accountability regime for charitable organizations, tens of millions of dollars in tax-free donations are channeled to groups supporting international terrorism. Thus, Canadians, through their tax system, inadvertently subsidize terrorism and send abroad the message that Canada is a soft source for the soft money of terrorism.''
You also say, ''Secondly, nor has Canada any statutes comparable to the U.S. terrorism legislation that allows the government to declare certain countries and groups terrorist in nature with the triggering of derivative sanctions measures and intelligence gathering.'' That goes to the criminal laws.
Lastly, you say, ''Security and intelligence budgets have been cut at a very dangerous time.'' You point out they have been cut between a quarter and a third over the last 4 or 5 years.
That seems to me to be some suggestions for the Canadian Government to consider from at least your point of view. Is it fair to say that you think those three types of policies do contribute to terrorism and the flow of illegal drugs in both directions as well?
Mr. HARRIS. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think that is a reasonable conclusion. We have it on very detailed authority that Canada is in fact subsidizing world terrorism inadvertently through its income tax legislation and policy. We need to have action taken by the government on that, not just more of the talking shots with which we in Canada have been familiar on the subject.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Harris.
Ms. Jackson Lee is recognized.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
We are having this hearing somewhat in the backdrop of a very obvious and tragic situation in Kosovo. One of the things I have noted about America is our willingness, albeit that we have not been successful all the time, is to challenge and not accept levels of intolerance.
Mr. Harris, that is not anyway a suggestion that your comments are in any way a suggestion or reflection of your philosophy. It is for you to understand my questioning. I have had individuals suggest that I raise the points constantly about the treatment of minorities in particular, maybe African Americans and Hispanics, maybe the Portuguese, or that another group came in and argued against or maybe the Irish of long years back.
I make the point because I do that because I frankly that we should recognize that we are a country, particularly the United States—I do not know what Canada's philosophy is—of immigrants, but we are a country of laws. So it concerns me when a testimony is presented that reflects negatively on one particular ethnic or religious group.
I cite, for example, the immediate reaction of Americans at the time of the Oklahoma bombing. In fact, an Arab-looking individual was stopped. It happened to be an American that perpetrated the most heinous terrorism domestic act that we have ever seen.
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So for the record I will continue to be the agitator on not categorizing individuals because of their race, color or creed. I would hope Canada would continue to do that as well.
I want to go to my witness, and I do not want to call you that, but in any event.
Mr. HARRIS. May I have an opportunity to respond at some point?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Maybe the chairman will allow you to do so. I want to use my time to have Mr. Papademetriou answer my question.
For fear then for your testimony and maybe my concepts to be considered totally abandoning concern about terrorism and drug smuggling, would you help me answer how we could best respond to that because I am concerned about terrorism, drug smuggling, and alien smuggling and I would not want to have the impression that a representative from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace abandons all caring about the protection of the borders of the United States or of the United States. How can you help us wade through this problem? What kind of solutions should we be looking at?
Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU. I think the chairman and you and I are essentially on the same page as to the importance of doing all of the things, taking all of the necessary steps to try to manage better, and if we can, to prevent, terrorist, alien smugglers and anybody else from entering our territory.
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Where we begin to diverge, where we begin to have a disagreement is with the methods, the means, perhaps. I do not necessarily think that we disagree on the means but we are focusing on a different set of means than the ones the chairman is focusing on, although I do not necessarily disagree that we may need more resources in the places where you and the chairman actually are focusing.
We believe, this is the thrust of my testimony, that what we need is more cooperation of interagencies in the United States and intercountry cooperation, more investment in intelligence, more investment in technology and more investment in infrastructure. All of them are aiming for the same goals of allowing people who belong, who have a right or should have a right to come to the United States to do so in the simplest manner and trying to keep out those people who do not belong here.
I am suggesting that it is a better approach in tandem with the approach that you are suggesting here, such as additional resources to the Border Patrol, it is a better approach, a better overall approach to handling these issues. Let me give you some examples of what we heard from the same types of people that have testified today—INS senior officers as well as people who staff the booths, as well as Customs, and community leaders on both sides of the border.
Most of the credit for whatever drug or other hits they have had were the result of tips of human intelligence. It seems to me if we have a limited number of resources—I assume that you do not have unlimited resources to double or triple the Border Patrol even if you became persuaded that we should do extraordinary things in that regard.
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If we really want to invest strategically, I would invest in more cooperation with the Canadian authorities, on encouraging the formal structures of the two countries—our Foreign Affairs Ministry and their Foreign Affairs Ministry to begin conversations of how we can institutionalize these kinds of contacts.
The Mounties, everywhere we went, we were told they are extraordinarily helpful in terms of sharing their information and giving tips. People in the field, on the ground are already working quite effectively together. I would like to see that institutionalized. I would like to see some of the diplomatic resources of this country begin to focus on more cooperation.
On intelligence, I mentioned that most of the things happen because of intelligence tips. There is an awful lot of technology out there and I do not mean smart cards. I am talking about technology that allows people, our inspection agencies, to find out who is coming to the border well before they even are within shouting distance of the border. That goes back to the issue of intelligence and goes back to the issue of cooperation, and of course, the investments in infrastructure.
It seems to me that if you have visited the Detroit area and the various ports of entry over there, you will realize the limitations that exist at the level of the local infrastructure in order to do many of the things we are talking about here. So that is the thrust of my testimony today.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much.
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I think the point I would like to leave with you is that we do not suggest that those who have a certain coloration or come from a certain area are in fact above the law and that they cannot be as well part of terroristic acts or other acts that may violate the law. However, someone from Saudi Arabia may have a different history than someone who may come from another country that is known for its terroristic activities.
So I would hope that as we look at this very severe problem, that we could look at some of the solutions you are talking about. Mr. Hall has spoken to the question and he needs more resources, how we can effectively assist him, but we can get away from and stay away from what I am concerned about always, the constant stereotyping of who it is and what.
You are suggesting that the human intelligence collaboration will help us mount an effective response to that along with the police resources that we have. I am committed, Mr. Hall, and I know the chairman is, to pushing INS on this issue. I think it is extremely important to emphasize we do a great disservice to continue to offer the stereotyping.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Harris, you would like to respond I think to the Ranking Member's comments a while ago?
Mr. HARRIS. One point that is quite clear to understand and is one I tried to make in the Canadian media and public and with politicians as well, is that among the biggest victims of network development are the very minorities who are so often at the mercy of these networks when it comes to pressure and intimidation for recruitment, for funding money, the disruption of houses of warship and other related places.
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We count among some of our greatest heroes in the counterterrorism struggle in Canada members of minorities who have come forward frankly, and begged the security and intelligence community and individuals in it for assistance.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Harris.
Mr. Papademetriou, given what Ms. Jackson Lee said about Mr. Harris' testimony a while ago, let me quote some of your testimony. You probably saw this coming.
You said, ''We should not have a single policy and a single set of rules to apply to both the northern and southern borders.'' You talk about the fact that Canada and Mexico are different. You mention with Canada we have a shared language mostly and historical traditions, similar emphasis on the rule of law, democratic priorities and similar levels of social and economic development.
I hope, and do not believe you are saying we should treat individuals differently because they do not speak English and because they are poorer than our neighbors from another part of the world. I thought I would give you an opportunity to clarify that part of your testimony.
Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU. Not only did I see it coming, maybe I put it there for you! But if you would read the subsequent paragraphs, I discussed that we should have a single policy in terms of the overall objectives and the eventual end points of our policy but in getting there, it would be legitimate to treat one border as being slightly ahead of the other in terms of what kind of experiments we might use.
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Later on in my testimony, I use the concept of a continuum. One the one end of the continuum, you have the sealed borders idea. On the other end, you have the open border idea. I suspect like every other border in the world, of the two countries, Mexico may be at this point of the continuum and we seem to be trying to go this way and Canada is at this point of the continuum, more toward the open borders as long as we have all of these other kinds of things in place.
What I wanted to suggest there is that one size fits all is not really a proper approach if you are going to take things the intelligent way.
Mr. SMITH. I understand that point of view. My point, and I do not know if you clarified it or not, is that you should not necessarily treat people differently just because they do or do not speak English or just because they do or do not have a high or lower socioeconomic development as you called it.
Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU. I am in full agreement with Ms. Jackson Lee and I believe fundamentally with you, sir.
Mr. SMITH. I think both you and Mr. Harris were saying the same thing and I am glad you clarified that.
One last question. I am looking at the clock because we have two votes coming up almost immediately. You mention in your testimony the ''inconvenience of sometimes having the 98 or 99 percent go through a process of border checks or whatever it might be just to try to apprehend the 1 or 2 percent that might be doing something wrong.''
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It seems to me that is an argument, for example, for doing away with airport security where we now check for bombs or guns because 99 or 98 percent of people are not carrying bombs or guns and yet we still go through this process because the 1 or 2 percent is important. So it is not just a question of percentages, I do not think. I think you also have to take into consideration the severity of the danger and the risk involved as well.
Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU. Precisely, Mr. Chairman, and you will notice that later in my testimony, I have talked about a different methodology, an enforcement methodology that focuses more on risk assessment and those kinds of things. I am talking about a more intelligent way of using our resources. It only takes one bomb to do whatever damage that bomb will do.
Mr. SMITH. As far as more intelligence goes, as far as greater cooperation, as you said earlier, we are on the same page and I could not agree more.
Do you have any other questions?
Ms. JACKSON LEE. No. I simply want to thank the members and thanking you for letting Mr. Harris conclude his remarks. I do not have any opposition to you making your point, Mr. Harris, at all and welcome your insight. I maintain my point that some of the comments you made were attributable more to Canadian foreign policy and I sort of respect that. I hope that you will take my remarks for what they are, which is my philosophy that we work well with collaboration and working to solve the problems.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.
Let me thank all the witnesses. Once again, this has been extremely informative. I think we have gotten good suggestions and I think we have gotten a handle on some solutions that we can point to both in the United States and Mr. Harris can point to in his country as well.
We thank you all and we will look forward to seeing you in the future.
[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THOMAS C. LEUPP, CHIEF PATROL AGENT, SWANTON BORDER PATROL SECTOR
Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on Swanton Sector operations. My name is Thomas C. Leupp, the Chief Patrol Agent of the Swanton Border Patrol Sector.
The Swanton Sector area of responsibility encompasses the six northern tier counties of the State of New York, all of Vermont and the northern half of New Hampshire. The Sector is bounded to the west by the Buffalo, New York Sector and to the east by the Houlton, Maine Sector. The area includes 261 miles of the international boundary with Canada and its provinces of Ontario and Quebec. One hundred seventy-three miles are land border and 88 miles are water, mainly the St. Lawrence River. Most of the topography is hilly, wooded, or divided into farms which in some locations straddle the border. There are unguarded open roadways and ports-of-entry that are open only part time. To the north is Montreal, with a population of 3.3 million, the third largest city in Canada and to the west is Toronto, with a population of 4.4 million, Canada's largest city. The percentage of foreign-born population in Montreal is 20% and for Toronto, 28%.
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The Sector is manned with four stations in New York and four in Vermont, with the Sector Headquarters located in Swanton, Vermont. Of the 84 authorized Border Patrol Agent positions, approximately 2/3 are assigned to New York Stations. Additionally, there are seven anti-smuggling unit positions and 20 support positions.
Over the past two fiscal years, an average of 1,832 deportable aliens were apprehended by the Swanton Sector. Fifty percent of those we apprehend are from Canada and the other 50% originate from over 80 different countries. Last year the five leading source countries were China, Pakistan, India, Costa Rica, and Sri Lanka. An average of 25% of those apprehended are criminal aliens. Over the past 4 years there have been at least 9 encounters documented at this office of persons believed or known to be associated with terrorist groups or involved with terrorist activities, as identified by various offices along the U.S./Canada border. Some incidents date back to 1978, with a member of the German Beider-Meinhoff group, and 1987, with three Lebanese Nationals attempting to smuggle in a bomb, both of which were encountered within this Sector.
While our ability to control the border is limited by our authorized force, the effectiveness of those agents is enhanced through the use of a matrix of surveillance and sensor devices along the land boundary. Twelve slow-scan video cameras placed at ports-of-entry for activation during closed hours and at unguarded roadways are connected to sensors that activate the cameras. When tripped, an image is transmitted through the telephone lines to the Communications Center where the operator can identify the intrusion and relay the information to an officer on duty in the area. There are also four real time cameras permanently in place for surveillance of surreptitious attempts of aliens to circumvent the Champlain, NY port-of-entry. This visual identification of intrusions enables officers to avoid unnecessary response to the area and also to intercept vehicles at locations removed from the border area. Additionally, over 140 ground sensors are strategically placed at other land boundary locations. We are also engaged in a joint ground sensor operation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that enhances both our operations. We share weekly sensor reports showing entries into Canada, as well as having direct radio communications with their base stations and mobile units.
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The Swanton Sector Anti-Smuggling Unit focuses on commercial organizations that are involved in smuggling aliens into the United States. Last year, nine cases (21%) were joint investigations conducted by both the RCMP and Swanton ASU. In the past two years, three alien smuggling cases have been prosecuted in Canada under the Canadian Criminal Code, Conspiracy to Violate United States Law. This effectively shut down these three organizations on both sides of the border.
There is a unique opportunity to work on our northern border because of the shared culture and language we have with our northern neighbors. The Swanton Sector has not only established an outstanding rapport with the RCMP but with Canada Customs, Surete du Quebec, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), Toronto Metro Police and the Montreal Police as well.
A recently completed joint operation between the U.S. Border Patrol, RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Canada Customs resulted in the dismantling of a major Korean alien smuggling organization (U.S. vs. Han). This investigation resulted in 14 prosecutions and successfully dismantled the organization, which had been in operation since 1993. Prior to this joint effort, the organization had been successfully operating through the Detroit, Michigan and Buffalo, New York areas before setting up their operations in the Swanton Sector's area of responsibility.
Our rapport with other federal, state and local law enforcement authorities is also outstanding. In the last two fiscal years, Swanton Sector Border Patrol turned over to the U.S. Customs Service 159 separate cases of U.S. citizens or aliens who had failed to report for inspection, a violation under Customs law, for a total of $335,000 in penalties. This is also illustrated by Operation Over the Rainbow 11, an investigation into Chinese alien smuggling through the Akwesasne Indian Reserve and controlled by the Buffalo INS District, resulting in the indictment of 46 subjects.
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The unique boundary composition of the Akwesasne Territory, which straddles Ontario and Quebec Provinces and New York State, has presented many challenges to law enforcement personnel. In an effort to address these problems additional personnel have been assigned to the Massena, New York station. In consideration of sovereignty issues, traditional border control operations are limited on a reservation. Operations on the Reservation are conducted in concert with the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police Department. Various other operations are also pursued under control and direction of this office off the Reservation. With their recent ability to expand to 24 hours a day, seven days a week coverage, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police has been outstanding in assisting the U.S. Border Patrol by locating alien smugglers on the Akwesasne Territory.
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police have been recognized for their achievements and assistance by being awarded the INS Commissioner's Inter-Agency Cooperation Award. The United States Attorney in the Northern District of New York is a true partner and is aggressive in prosecuting all alien smugglers involved in smuggling through the Reservation. Under the guidance of the U.S. Attorney's Office there are also several task forces, OCDETF and strike force operations in affect. A report published by the U.S. Attorney's office ranked the Akwesasne Smuggling Group and Warrior Society as the largest organized crime threat in the Northern District of New York. From an immigration standpoint, it is the most significant source of alien smuggling across the northeast border.
The Canadian Border Intelligence Center (CBIC) is located at the U.S. Border Patrol Sector Headquarters in Swanton, Vermont, and is under the guidance and direction of this Sector. While the emphasis is on the Northern Border, intelligence is collected and processed from throughout the United States and Canada. CBIC analyzes raw intelligence data relating to alien smuggling activity, criminal aliens and suspected terrorists. CBIC assists numerous U.S. law enforcement agencies in identifying suspected criminal co-conspirators by obtaining subscriber information and linking telephone numbers common to the suspected conspirators. Telephone toll analyses have been completed by CBIC personnel for various INS offices throughout the United States in places such as Phoenix, AZ, Philadelphia, PA, New York City, NY and Newark, NJ. CBIC also processes record checks for both domestic and Canadian agencies.
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Last year, CBIC shared information with approximately 15 Canadian agencies at numerous locations across Canada, from Vancouver, British Columbia to St. Johns, Newfoundland. The majority of these requests concern the U.S. Immigration status and criminal history for individuals seeking either refugee status or resident alien status in Canada. Additionally, we have provided information to the Quebec Government regarding individuals who had entered the United States illegally and were receiving social assistance from Canada. This information saved the Quebec government approximately $78,000 last year.
A Northern Border Report, compiled annually by CBIC, consists of more than 250 pages of statistics, analysis and comparisons from both the United States and Canada. These reports are disseminated to all Sectors and Districts along the Northern Border and provide a working reference of activity at other border locations.
In closing, I would again like to thank you for the opportunity to provide information on the Northern Border to the committee.