Border Patrol Expands Role In North

Increased Presence Of U.S. Agents Along Canadian Border Causes Flare-Ups With Locals

(AP)  The note from U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan to the U.S. Border Patrol was short and to the point: Stop sending petty marijuana cases to his office.

"It is our long-standing policy to use limited federal resources to pursue the sophisticated criminal organizations who smuggle millions of dollars of drugs, guns and other contraband across our borders," Sullivan wrote in November.

Sullivan's note is one in a string of flare-ups as the Border Patrol has expanded its influence and manpower on the Canadian border in recent months. The marijuana busts had come from inland road blocks on state highways.

Sheriff's offices, farmers, and a U.S. Congressman have all made their opinion about the patrol's increased presence known, and not all of it has been friendly.

The clashes cast light on the expanded power of the agency along the country's northern border.

More than 1,100 agents have been added to the Canadian border since Sept. 11, 2001, four times its presence before the terrorist attacks. Hundreds more agents are to be hired next year.

Agents can set up road blocks up to 100 miles from the border, board passenger buses, and patrol transportation hubs that are not near the border. Elsewhere, the Border Patrol, which is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has set up road blocks in other northern states, including Vermont, New York and Maine.

This authority, relatively new to the people of Washington, has stirred controversy.

"It's the newness and the heightened presence of the Border Patrol that has brought this issue to the forefront," said John Bates, the patrol's chief for the western half of Washington. "We've been utilizing checkpoints for more than 75 years. Obviously when you use a new tactic in the border, people are going to have questions, and rightfully so."

Bates wants people to speak out if agents are rude at the checkpoints, one of the complaints he has heard. But the checkpoints aren't going away, said Bates, who calls them an integral part of the agency's security strategy.

Advocates say intrusive operations - such as boarding passenger buses - are threatening civil liberties.

The American Civil Liberties Union has led the challenge of the Border Patrol's powers. They call the patrol's 100-mile belt of jurisdiction a "Constitution-Free Zone" occupied by two-thirds of the country's population.

"Our concern is not just what they're doing now. But what this expanded interpretation of what they can do, can expand into," said Shankar Narayan, legislative director for Washington State's ACLU chapter. "They can eventually claim a range of authority away from the border, who can say where that stops?"

Narayan said the ACLU expects to file a lawsuit challenging the road blocks when it finds the right case.

There are no checkpoints in largely rural eastern Washington and none is planned, though spokeswoman Danielle Suarez said the patrol reserves the right to set them up. Suarez said that eastern Washington's rugged terrain calls for different tactics.

The last checkpoint operated in western Washington happened in October, although border agents are now patrolling bus terminals.

In Vermont, the Border Patrol reinstated a traffic checkpoint 97 miles from the Canadian border on an interstate in 2007.

In Washington, small protests have also taken place in the towns of Port Angeles and Forks, two towns on the Olympic Peninsula that have seen an increased presence of border agents. The peninsula can only be reached from Canada by ferry.

In 1999, Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian national who was convicted on multiple counts for plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport around Jan. 1, 2000, was caught by custom agents with explosives in the trunk of his car when he drove off a ferry.

"Canada does have lax polices, there are dangerous people who have gotten into Canada," said Ira Mehlman of the Washington, D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform. "They have these checkpoints in close proximity to the southern border, and there's no reason why they can't have them in the northern border."

[frankinaz]

They need to send those agents to the southern border with Mexico, and stop pestering the locals up north.

Don''''t these people know we have a immigration problem?

Immigration problem? No, not according to HackerPC:
Speak out against illegal immigration, and he calls
you a whiner or a Nazi. There''s not enough people here to pick his tomatoes, or scrub his toilets.

[evian_ycnan]

Papers! Your papers please. Anyvone not co-operating vill be shot.

Go ACLU! STop these thugs!

[mrmeatspin]

Posted by lochlan at 12:56 PM : Dec 22, 2008
+ report abuse


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maybe you have not noticed but the ACLU is pretty much now a "Anti=American Civil Liberties Union..

I find it appaling that this liberal orgnization would CONSIDER HELPING illegal aliens,CRIMINALS AND foreign TERRORISTS before they would help an AMERICAN CITIZEN

[mrmeatspin]

Hey Americans, keep sitting on your hands. Your childrens children are going to be prisoners from birth.


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Posted by lochlan at 12:53 PM : Dec 22, 2008
+ report abuse


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then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT..dam*nnnnnn!! you fu(kers do a lot of whinning and "raising awareness bullsh*t" but not much action

[mrmeatspin]

Do canadians actually do any law enforcement duties??

[mrmeatspin]

America is like a prison in some ways thanks to bush.


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Posted by BarbaraM99 at 02:14 PM : Dec 22, 2008
+ report abuse


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there is always someone whinning about everything and anything.

[barbaram99]

America is like a prison in some ways thanks to bush.

[lochlan-2009]

Lochlan: The ACLU hates the U.S. I just want them to spend the holidays with their friends.

Posted by downsteamjim

Sure they do, and I''m the Pope. Hey, if we''re making shiit up.

[downsteamjim]

Lochlan: The ACLU hates the U.S. I just want them to spend the holidays with their friends.

[lochlan-2009]

hamboneh and downsteamjim hate the American Civil Liberties Union. Does anything more need to be said about their opinion on anything?

[lochlan-2009]

Hey Americans, keep sitting on your hands. Your childrens children are going to be prisoners from birth.

[hambonehd]

We need to air drop the ACLU into the tribal regions of Pakistan. There they could assist terrorist in how to enter the U.S.


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Posted by downsteamjim at 11:41 AM : Dec 22, 2008


ROFLMAO !!!

AMEN!

[slim1h2o]

They need to send those agents to the southern border with Mexico, and stop pestering the locals up north.

Don''t these people know we have a immigration problem?

[downsteamjim]

We need to air drop the ACLU into the tribal regions of Pakistan. There they could assist terrorist in how to enter the U.S.