Dangerously Leaky Borders

"Yes, Canada is not Mexico. It doesn't have a drug war going on; it didn't have 6,000 homicides that were drug-related last year.
"Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there." April 2009

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano says the United States will not treat the Canadian border differently from the Mexican border. ((Joshua Roberts/Reuters))

Janet Napolitano, May 27. Let me say once again, we know and I know that 9/11 terrorists did not cross the Canadian border.  I regret that the Canadian media only seems to hear an early misstatement by me to that effect.  So let me be perfectly clear: we know that. 

That, of course was then, back when Janet Napolitano was newly appointed to the new Homeland Security file. Since then much has changed. The 9,000-kilometre boundary itself has changed, from the once-proudly-vaunted friendly border between two North American giants (geographically speaking) who shared so much in common with one another, to what it currently represents. What it currently represents is the description Ms. Napolitano made and later grumpily withdrew.

Since the attacks of 9/11, radiation detectors, hidden ground sensors, security cameras and Predator unmanned patrol planes have seen plenty of action in protecting the United States from the very REAL potential of dangerous terrorists infiltrating that country through Canada's porous borders. That there was one mere incident of a terrorist making an attempt to enter the U.S. from Canada when "millennium bomber" Ahmed Ressan made the unsuccessful try in 1999 is irrelevant.

His attempt, prior to the 2001 devastation, raised no alarms about the border. It was only with 9/11 when the well-planned and -executed attack on the World Trade buildings, the Pentagon and the failed attempt killing plane passengers in Pennsylvania took place that Canada took centre stage in blame. When it was, of course, the Americans who had issued visas to all the 9/11 attackers, politely allowing them entry to the States.

Border Patrol agent staffing on the border has increased since then from roughly 340 agents in 2001 to about 2,200 in July, with 120 land ports-of-entry staffed by over 3,600 CBP officers. CBP's Office of Air and Marine has 157 air and 111 marine interdiction agents along the border. Approximately six thousand arrests have taken place annually, and interdictions of some 40,000 pounds of illegal drugs yearly, along with minor immigration charges.

The Hearst Newspaper group conducted a 2009 analysis of arrests and court records, discovering the U.S. government has been apprehending ordinary illegal immigrants. There has been a distinct paucity approaching zero of suspected terrorists leaking from Canada into the United States. But urban legends and paranoia die hard deaths, clinging to life even though rational discussion may take place and experience and evidence argue otherwise.

"As far as I am aware, all recent threat assessments have pointed to the northern border as the most likely point of entry into our country for terrorists. 
"In the early to mid-1990s, San Diego and El Paso were ground zero for both illegal immigration and drug smuggling. In response, the border patrol threw all of its resources at those two areas without also strengthening the other areas of the border.
"Like Arizona, the northern border is ripe for the exploitation of not only alien and drug trafficking, but also for facilitating the illegal entrances of terrorists and those that would do this country harm.
"If we selectively limit manpower to current locations with high volumes of illegal crossings, all we have really achieved is shifting the point of illegal entry to a different location."
Brandon Judd, president, National Border Patrol Council 

Mr. Judd, who represents over 17,000 unionized Border Patrol agents was speaking before a House of Representatives subcommittee on national security. He spoke in sanguine terms about his confidence that terrorists infiltrate the border from Canada into the United States, and the need for increased security to ensure his country is protected from harm. 

The purpose of the subcommittee is to hear testimony respecting reforming the pay system for the agents.

America must not become complacent, he urged, about the dangers that lurk along the border with Canada. Uppermost in mind, always must be the memory of "the ongoing threat ... to the safety of the American public".

Has this man got an axe to grind other than for a commitment to growing the numbers of agents acting on the border, and increasing their salaries commensurate with the presumed danger of guarding America from Canada-based terrorists?