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The World's Longest Undefended Border Damn Well Needs To Be!
By Martin Brass Soldier of Fortune Magazine
This is the third part of a five part series that looks at the escalating impact and threat of illegal immigration into the United States. Part I was an overview of the threat posed by unguarded borders. Part II focused on the multitude of problems on the Southern Border. Part III looks at the threat to U.S. national security that a largely unguarded Northern Border poses.
While raucous attention was paid to massive illegal immigration, human, and drug smuggling along the chaotic U.S.-Mexico border, illegal activities along the seemingly more civilized U.S.-Canadian border were exploding without much notice. Illegal immigration is increasing, drug and human smuggling is on the rise and the threat of terrorists hidden in the traffic is a terrifying reality.
Some paid attention. A 1998 House Subcommittee warned that smuggling and trafficking on the northern border pose enormous threats:
"One of the most dangerous threats to our national security is the risk of a terrorist crossing over our northern border undetected. The crackdown on illegal drugs and immigration along our southern border has caused illegal aliens to enter from the North -- Mexican nationals can enter Canada without visas, so it is cheaper for them to fly to Canada and walk across the northern border. The number of Asian nationals being smuggled into the U.S. also is increasing.
U.S.-Canada drug enforcement officials report that drug smugglers in the United States are exchanging British Columbia marijuana pound-per-pound for cocaine, which "has begun fueling a fledgling crack cocaine trade north of the border. Only one or two percent are getting caught, according to the committee report.
A fascinating yet grim two-month investigation by the Washington Times last December, including a month-long tour of ports of entry and Border Patrol stations from Washington state to Maine, paints a grim scenario.
Terrorists, WMD, Aliens, Drugs
"More than 45 million trucks and cars, will cross this year from Canada into the United States, any one of which could be carrying terrorists, concealing weapons of mass destruction, hiding illegal aliens or transporting illicit drugs. This flow -- along with 80 million people -- will be greeted by an undermanned force of customs and immigration inspectors at 150 ports of entry along the world's largest undefended boundary and a thinly stretched line of Border Patrol agents stationed in the often-remote regions between the ports.
I realized the enormity and almost hopelessness of ever controlling the northern border after several visits to Montreal, Canada and Alaska over a three-year period. The overwhelming panic and grief that Canadians showed after 9-11 has been replaced with a nagging, unsettling dread.
A fear of the potential repercussions of the Iraqi invasion lay like a dark cloud, as Canadians wonder what will happen next to their southern neighbor, and whether the next strike will be orchestrated from Canada.
Thriving and magnificent, Vancouver feels like an Asian settlement. Asian gangs are becoming more menacing, according to many residents. Smugglers charge enormous prices to smuggle illegal immigrants, including Korean and other Asian sex slaves, into the United States (AP).
French-speaking Montreal is a city with a large concentration of Middle Eastern and African immigrants, legal and illegal. Exotic Middle Eastern restaurants cater to Arabic speaking customers throughout the city. Middle Eastern-Canadians fear discrimination after 9-11.
Montreal residents speak of shadowy neighbors. One Canadian told me of a family that lived next door for several years. The men would disappear for weeks and months. The veiled women lived quietly, taking care of their children. Several months ago, officials raided the house and arrested two of the men. The Canadians could not provide detail other than that the men were suspected of terrorist-related activities, but the neighborhood was completely shaken.
I spoke with a former high-ranking military commander from the Middle East who found asylum in Canada decades ago, when his life was threatened after a failed coup.
"errorists blend in with Montreal citizens in the French-speaking province. Many Middle Easterners and North Africans speak French as well as Arabic. Canada is very lenient, for example, with Algerian or Libyan asylum seekers. What is terrifying and not very well-known, is that aliens, many illegal, have established schools for their children where they teach hatred of Western Infidels and indoctrinate them in Islamic Fundamentalism.
"That's the price we pay for freedom and democracy," he said.
The schools, he told me, are conducted in homes and basements, at night.
In 1998, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Counter Terrorism task groups targeted fifty organizations and 350 individuals operating in our friendly northern neighborhood. The Canadian government, dreading potential disasters, warned in a 2002 CSIS (revised) Counter-Terrorism bulletin:
"With perhaps the single exception of the United States, there are more international terrorist groups active here than in any other country in the world. Almost every notorious terrorist group, including al Qaeda, flocked to the country that is considered to have the most lax immigration and asylum policies. The CSIS watch list included members of Hezbollah, Hamas, Sunni Islamic extremist organizations, the IRA, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the PKK, the Iranian Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) and Sikh terrorist groups, among others."
For several years before 9-11, the CSIS's Counter Terrorism program focused on Sunni Islamic extremism in Canada.
Some extremists and terrorist supporters operated visibly. Instigators and rioters, communicating with global webs, waited for or gave orders, preparing their offensives.
Hours after the Iranian Air Force bombed a base in Iraq on April 5, 1992, forty MEK supporters attacked the Iranian embassy in Ottawa with sticks, crowbars and mallets. In an orchestrated global plot, MEK operators simultaneously attacked Iranian embassies in thirteen other countries.
The day after the Kurdish PKK terrorist group ringleader, Abdullah Ocalan was arrested in Kenya in 1999, PKK supporters rioted in Montreal, and the next day a riot was staged in Ottawa. One policeman lost and eye and another was set on fire with a Molotov cocktail.
A Haven for Operators
Canada has become more than a staging ground for terrorists to launch loud and violent demonstrations, it has become a "haven for operators to "move from significant support roles, such as fundraising and procurement, to actually planning and preparing terrorist acts from Canadian territory, according to CSIS. These terrorists use any methods available, from intimidation and violence to the circumvention of immigration, passport and welfare regulations.
Inderjit Singh Reyat, A British Columbian Sikh affiliated with the Babbar Khalsa (BK) built a suitcase bomb that killed two when it exploded at Narita Airport in Tokyo in 1985. That same day an Air India flight originating in Vancouver exploded in mid-air, killing all 329 aboard. Sikh extremists were suspected.
In 1989, two IRA members from Toronto, along with two of their US-based co-conspirators, tried to purchase a Stinger anti-aircraft missile and grenade launchers. The four offered undercover FBI agents $20,000 for the munitions, and $10,000 for delivery to Ireland. A joint CSIS-FBI sting arrested all four.
Hani al Sayegh, a Saudi Hizballah, suspect in the murder of nineteen US solders in the 1996 truck bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, fled to Canada and remained there undetected for more than six months before he was deported to the US in 1997, and then to Saudi Arabia in 1999.
The CSIS list goes on.
The New Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of the Department of Homeland Security reports that illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Yemen, and from other terrorist sponsoring states, or states that harbor terrorists, are making their way into the United States from Canada.
Although none of the 9-11 terrorists came in through Canada, more than two-dozen known terrorists have been arrested attempting to infiltrate from Canada in the last decade, according to U.S. government sources.
The Millennium Bomber
The outrageous, highly publicized tale of convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam is emblematic of the chaos of the Canadian immigration and asylum system before 9-11.
On December 14, 1999, a few cars waited to board the M.V Coho ferry from Victoria, British Columbia, to Port Angeles, Washington. Benni Antoine Noris from Montreal, driving a green Chrysler 300M sedan, flashed his Canadian passport and driver's license to U.S. Immigration inspector Gary Roberts.
Noris gave a questionable explanation as to why he was taking such a circular route. Roberts logged Noris's name into a computer but found no record of warrants or immigration notices. Suspicious, Roberts searched a suitcase in the trunk. Finding nothing, he waved the driver on.
In Port Angeles WA, Customs inspector Diana Dean also became leery as the driver of the Chrysler 300M fidgeted, sweaty and flushed. He was acting "hinky, Dean said. Suspecting the Chrysler was a smuggler's "load vehicle, she sought help from colleagues.
Inspectors Mark Johnson and Mike Chapman searched the suitcase. Inspector Danny Clem unscrewed the fastener on the spare-tire compartment. Several green bags filled with white powder, four black boxes, two pill bottles and two jars of brown liquid were stashed in the cubicle.
Fireworks for the Millennium
Noris was bringing fireworks to the millennium celebrations-130 pounds of explosives. He was planning what would have been the most spectacular attack in U.S. history-blowing up the "politically and economically sensitive L.A. airport.
Noris fled. He headed for a car stopped at the light and grabbed the driver's door handle. The woman driver stepped on the gas and sent Noris spinning. He was captured. At trial, his saga unfolded. For five years Noris, alias Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian follower of Osama bin Laden, had eluded Canadian authorities before that fateful December trip to the United States.
He had come to Canada in 1994 on a fake passport. He pled for asylum, claiming he would be tortured in Algeria. Canada's Immigration Minister, Elinor Caplan said it was not a serious offense to present a false passport (PBS). Ressam was released. More than half of asylum seekers are approved and are free to go without follow-up monitoring.
In Canada, he lived as a thief and on welfare. He trafficked in stolen driver's license numbers, bankcards, Social Security cards, and Canadian passports that he and his Algerian accomplices provided worldwide. Asylum seekers in Canada who are convicted of crime can still be granted asylum, unless they are sentenced to more than ten years in prison.
Even after Ressam missed an asylum hearing, had his application denied, and had a warrant issued for his arrest, he eluded authorities and was never deported. He stole a baptismal certificate form and adopted the alias Benni Antoine Noris. With the forged certificate, he obtained a Canadian passport. (PBS)
The Roubaix Group
A French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, head of the French counter-espionage service, had been pursuing Ressam relentlessly since 1996. Ressam's name was found in Roubaix, France in the belongings of an Armed Islamic Group member who had been killed in a gun battle between police and terrorists suspected of plotting to bomb the G-7 minister's meeting in Lille, Belgium. The terrorist cell, the "Roubaix Group had assaulted a police station using AK-47 automatic rifles and RPG-7 rocket propelled grenades, according to Insight.
In 1998, Ressam left Canada for training in small arms, explosives, assassination techniques, sabotage and urban warfare in Afghanistan under Abu Zubaida, bin Laden's senior lieutenant. There he hatched the plot to bomb a U.S. target. He flew back to Montreal and on to Pakistan, to South Korea, and then to Los Angeles. He had found his target -- LAX.
Judge Bruguiere filed a formal 40-page arrest warrant with the Canadian government in 1999, warning them that Ressam was highly dangerous. The endless extradition process gave him plenty of time to maneuver. CSIS, claiming to be unaware of Ressam's alias, gave the United States no warning as Ressam began his journey to Los Angeles.
"The Canadians have been less than forthcoming, Judge Brugulier told Insight. He had paid a high profile visit to Ottawa two months before Ressam got arrested, but the Canadians refused to act. "He was arrested totally by chance. The Canadians knew about him two months earlier, but they let him slip through their fingers. If your Customs people hadn't been lucky, there would have been a major attack in America, with many dead.
But U.S. Customs had not just been lucky. They had been thoroughly professional and competent.
A growing number of drug smugglers arrive in the United States from Canada in trucks and cars, snowmobiles, airplanes and on foot, carrying a "mountain of illegal drugs, Jerry Seper of the Washington Times reported in December 2003, after a two month trek across borders, interviewing border agents, police and U.S. and Canadian officials.
The sophisticated smugglers, which include Vietnamese gangs and outlaw motorcycle clubs, use night vision optics and global positioning systems to navigate. Smugglers on foot carry 60-80 pound backpacks loaded with their merchandise.
Hydroponic Homegrown
Hydroponically homegrown Canadian marijuana, "BC bud, is a new, popular import. This potent pot sells for up to $6,000 a pound-ten times the price of the Mexican variety. A billion-dollar and growing industry in BC bud has sprung up for the Canadian smugglers. Seizures of pot along the Canadian border rose 300 percent from 2001 to 2003 according to the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Other imported drugs include high-purity heroin and precursor chemicals used to produce methamphetamine and other synthetic drugs.
"Canada has increasingly become a source country for drugs to the United States; there's no question of that, Carl A. Eklund, head of the Colville WA border patrol station told the Times.
Immigration lawyer Jose Latour in Seattle, former member of U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Offices in Mexico and Africa, told the Times that, "The production of high-potency marijuana (small amounts) in Canada has no criminal penalties. Latour equates Canadian marijuana growers with Peruvian coca producers and Asian poppy growers.
Enhanced Technology
When CBP added Border Patrol agents and enhanced technology, including seismic meters, infrared devices, magnetic sensors and remote cameras on the Washington State border, the smugglers moved eastward. Drugs are carried on foot in 60 to 80 pound backpack loads, on commercial and private planes, trucks and cars.
The drug smuggling routes along the western edge of Washington state through and near the Blaine port of entry are so busy they have been called the "Ho Chi Minh trails. "While carrying out our top priority of stopping terrorists and the weapons of terror, we continue to make significant arrests for drug smuggling Margaret R. Fearon, Canadian Border Patrol Port Director told the Times.
Drug smuggling has increased since the borders have been tightened for smuggling of illegal aliens. The number of illegal border crossings is down and drug seizures and arrests were up in six months. "One can make ten times the money in half the time. A hockey bag full of marijuana can't testify against you in court and you can't get charged with manslaughter for tossing it overboard, Dick Aslay Head U.S. Border Patrol in the Massenna, N.Y. sector said.
Mohawk Smugglers
Over the past few years, upstate New York has seen a surge in illegal alien and drug smuggling traffic. Members of the St Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation have forged a highway for traffickers. Illegal aliens cross the St. Lawrence River through the reservation at Akwesasne, NY.
The reservation, conservative columnist Michelle Malkin writes, has been a "hotspot for criminal alien smugglers assisted by tribal members. Immigration officials estimate that between 300 and 500 illegal aliens a month have entered the United States through the reservation in recent years. One Mohawk, Charlie Little Tree, estimated that 1000 and 8,000 tribal members are involved in the alien smuggling trade.
From the reservation, the illegal aliens are driven through the Adirondack Mountains to Manhattan. There is no comprehensive or accurate information or estimate by U.S. officials as to how many illegal aliens enter the United States from Canada, but the numbers are growing, the Washington Times concluded.
The 300,000 immigrants a year that enter Canada still include terrorists looking for refuge. Canada still does not detain refugee claimants, even those with questionable backgrounds, according to the Washington Times. Ten thousand of these refugees a year disappear into Canada's ethnic communities.
Terrorists continue to come in from Canada and hide among the millions of illegal aliens already here from Afghanistan, Pakistan Yemen, Algeria and sixty other countries that annually sneak across the Canadian border. From 2,000 to 5,000 terrorists are said to be in the United States although a true figure is impossible to assess, according to the Washington Times.
Not all the blame lies with Canada, according to former Republican Congressman Jack Metcalf. "A country with no borders is no country at all." The Clinton administration didn't do its job in protecting our borders, particularly here in the north. The Bush administration has been lax on its stewardship of the southern border because of its close relationship with Mexican President Vicente Fox.
The challenge in the North is to protect daily shipment of $1.4 billion in trade. "Our top priority is to stop terrorists and weapons of mass destruction from entering the country, but we can't choke off trade in doing so," Kevin Weeks, CBP director of field operations in Detroit told the Washington Times.
Whatever the political and economic agenda, most sources conclude that terrorists, illegal aliens and drug smugglers continue to pour into the United States over the mostly unguarded Canadian border.
Dr. Martin Brass is an International Lawyer and longtime
contributor to SOF.
