U.S. Border Patrol To Look For Terrorists In B.C.?

Based at Bellingham airport, the unit will be the first of five northern border branches that will be established between the states of Washington and New York during the next few years.

Bracken said the unit in Washington state will eventually include about 55 staff and will conduct surveillance in a 400-kilometre radius of Bellingham, which is about 25 kilometres south of the Canada-U.S. border.

Until it becomes fully operational and acquires its own equipment, Bracken said it will share a Black Hawk helicopter and some of its other equipment with similar units on the U.S. southern border. An official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said there is nothing in the plan for weapons on the Black Hawk, which is described by the U.S. Army as a utility tactical transport helicopter.

The air and marine unit will work closely with border patrol and other agencies to provide support and reinforcement, but will also act as an investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"We're kind of like an extra cop on the beat, if you will," Bracken said.

"We're providing support across a wide range of agencies and using our expertise that we've built on the southern border and we're bringing that capability to the northern border."

Bracken said the 400-kilometre radius from Bellingham is a rough guideline of how far the aircraft and boats might venture during a surveillance or investigative mission. A second northern border air and marine unit is scheduled to begin operations in October in Plattsburgh, New York and similar units will eventually be established on the border in Montana, North Dakota and Michigan.

Bracken said the Washington-B.C. border was chosen to be first for a variety of reasons, including the 1999 arrest of Ahmed Ressam, a terrorist and explosives smuggler who was caught crossing into the U.S. on a ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles.

Ressam was convicted in 2001 of nine charges connected to a bomb plot that caused the cancellation of Seattle's millenniumcelebrations and was possibly aimed at Los Angeles International Airport.

In addition to the Ressam case, Bracken said "activity with B.C. bud [marijuana]," illegal migrants, and the flow of money and weapons into Canada are indications of security threats.

Joe Giuliano, assistant chief of border patrol operations based in Blaine, noted there has been an air operations unit working in northern Washington for about 30 years, and the border patrol has two of its own boats in coastal waters.

Giuliano said he is not yet sure how the additional equipment and personnel will help his division, but he is optimistic the two agencies can work together.

"Exactly what an air and marine operation that's under someone else's auspices will bring to us remains to be seen, but we're hopeful there will be a meaningful interaction," he said.

"What they can bring us depends not only on what assets they have on the ground, but what sort of funding they'll have in place to operate those, what sort of staffing will come with that.

"Again, we're very hopeful, but it's just something we'll have to see how it fleshes out."

Giuliano's border patrol unit already includes a Cessna aircraft and a helicopter, but he said it differs from the new unit in a few ways.

Giuliano said the new unit will have more powerful equipment, which will be able to follow aircraft to investigate smuggling operations in the sky, rather than just focusing on the ground.

And, Giuliano said, the unit's equipment will not be as easy to identify as the border patrol's marked cars, boats, and aircraft.

"Of course, we have no way, as border patrol, of chasing an airplane, but they would be able to conduct a surveillance on that and be able to do covert operations, whereas we operate with highly visible marked aircraft and boats," Giuliano said.

"It's kind of like in a police department, we're the uniformed guys and they're the detectives."

In the past few years, the "uniformed guys" have had significant successes in apprehending and deterring illegal migrants, and catching southbound shipments of marijuana.

Giuliano said the patrol's increased presence and the addition of 32 cameras along the B.C.-Washington border in 2002 have helped deter illegal crossings, bringing the number of people apprehended down from more than 2,500 in 2000 to 1,402 last year.

Border guards and police have also been intercepting more marijuana each year, discovering a record 2,100 kilograms of the drug last year that was being smuggled between ports of entry from the coast to the Cascade Mountains, Giuliano said.

But whether drugs, people or weapons are intercepted at the border, Giuliano said all have to be treated on the same threat level.

"We don't see one as being more dangerous than the others," he said.

"It's the one guy with the right gear and the wrong attitude that's going to cause a problem."

Border watchers won't spy on Canada
Times Colonist (Victoria)
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Page: A3
Section: News
Byline: Amy O'Brian
Dateline: VANCOUVER
Source: CanWest News Service
[fair use only]

VANCOUVER -- The RCMP said Wednesday that a new U.S. air and marine border protection unit based in Bellingham will not have authority to conduct surveillance in Canada.

An American official with Air and Marine Operations said earlier this week that the new border-protection unit would conduct air surveillance within a 400-kilometre radius of Bellingham, but RCMP Sgt. John Ward said Wednesday that is not the case.

Ward, spokesman for the RCMP's "E" Division, said the new unit will not be "conducting operations on Canadian soil or violating Canadian sovereignty.

"That's not happening. That's not on," he said.

Ward said Canadian authorities have worked closely for years with American authorities on the issue of border protection, and any security intelligence relating to Canada is shared with the Canadian authorities.

"We've had ongoing dialogues with [American authorities] for years. So there's absolutely nothing new there," Ward said. "We've been having regular and ongoing dialogue and we do operations together."

Ward said the addition of new equipment and new personnel to existing border security efforts will be an "adjustment," but it is too soon to say what impacts the new unit will have on security.

Gary Bracken, communications director for the U.S. Office of Air and Marine Operations, said Tuesday that aircraft with the new unit would scan an area within a 400-kilometre radius of Bellingham.

Bracken clarified his statement Wednesday, and said that radius does not penetrate into Canadian territory, but reaches east along the border and west out to sea.

He also noted that the radius is a rough guideline, and the unit will respond to calls beyond the Bellingham jurisdiction if they're needed.

The Bellingham branch of U.S. Air and Marine Operations will officially open Friday.

Initially, the unit will share two helicopters with southern border units, but Bracken said helicopters will likely be stationed there permanently within a year.

Original article: Border watchers won't spy on Canada

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