By Tim Reid
HAVRE, Montana, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Standing two feet from
Canada on windswept Montana prairie land, U.S. Border Patrol
agent Andrew Herdina looks out over a line of crooked old fence
posts with no wire between them -- the international border.
"If somebody is set on doing it, there are plenty of
opportunities to cross this border," said Herdina, surrounded by
a vast expanse of prairie grass where there were no border
posts, or checkpoints, or any visible signs of security.
With U.S. security concerns heightened following the attacks
in Paris claimed by Islamic State, the relatively porous state
of America's northern border has attracted little attention as
politicians, mostly Republicans, have attacked President Barack
Obama's plans to allow in 10,000 Syrian refugees.
But in Montana, which shares a 500-mile (800-km) border with
Canada, border agents and some residents say they are concerned
about Ottawa's plan to bring in 25,000 Syrians by year-end, even
though the government there insists its screening will be
thorough and there are limited indications that militants may be
seeking to use refugee status to cross borders.
The world's longest shared land border attracts a fraction
of the U.S. attention and security resources taken up by the
much shorter southern border with Mexico, which is patrolled by
18,000 U.S. border agents compared to 2,200 in the north.
The National Border Patrol Council, the border patrol union,
says at least another 2,000 agents are needed on the Canadian
border, which runs 5,500 miles from Alaska to Washington State
and Maine. Herdina says the most effective tool in tracking
illegal border crossers is not the border agents or surveillance
airplanes; it's the roughly 100 ranchers who span Montana's
border with Canada.
"They are our best asset," said Herdina, who is
vice-president of the Montana branch of the union.
Last year, one rancher called the border patrol to report
two strangers on his land, Herdina said. They were two
Guatemalans who had crossed the border illegally.
Janas Strauser, owner of 66 Ranch on the border, said: "The
people up here will report people who cross the border. The
ranchers and farmers call them in."
While the border patrol union has a stake in securing more
jobs and funding, its view was supported by a 2011 report by the
Government Accountability Office, a non-partisan congressional
watchdog, which found that only 32 miles of the border was
properly secure and that the security risks were genuine.
"The terrorist threat on the northern border is higher (than
on the Mexican border), given the large expanse of area with
limited law enforcement coverage," the report said.
The White House referred questions about the security of the
northern border to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The DHS referred Reuters to its website, which notes that
the number of U.S. agents on the northern border has jumped from
just 340 in 2001 and that its technological capabilities have
"greatly improved." The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
says it now deploys fixed and rotary-wing aircraft equipped with
sensors, thermal camera systems, remote videos and drones to
help secure the border.
"There is no way you can make it totally secure," said
Andrew Finn, program associate with the Canada Institute at the
Wilson Center, a Washington DC-based think tank. "You always
have to think about the terrorist threat, although the vetting
process for refugees into Canada is quite thorough."
"HYSTERIA AND EXAGGERATION"
Obama has denounced the "hysteria and exaggeration of risk"
over Syrian refugees, who already face a rigorous U.S. vetting
process. Most of the attackers in Paris are believed to be have
been European residents rather than new immigrants, though
authorities are investigating if one travelled as a refugee.
Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is
standing by his pledge to allow 25,000 Syrian refugees into
Canada by Jan. 1. Current and former Canadian security sources
told Reuters last week that corners would have to be cut on
security screening due to the accelerated process.
Canada experienced two attacks by radical Muslims in 2014,
and reluctance in provinces such as Quebec to accept Syrian
refugees is raising concern of a growing social rift with Muslim
minorities.
In 1999, Algerian national Ahmed Ressam was apprehended
crossing from Canada into the United States and convicted in
2001 for plotting to bomb Los Angeles airport.
Alan Bersin, then head of the Customs and Border Protection
Commission, told a Senate committee in 2011 that more people
with ties to terrorist organizations have crossed into the U.S.
from Canada than from Mexico. He did not give any specific
details.
Herdina says he has apprehended Mexicans, Cubans,
Guatemalans and Canadians crossing remote parts of the border.
"We have no idea how these Syrians will be vetted by the
Canadians. We need a lot more agents here," he said.
Jonathan Perkins, a border patrol agent who is an advisor to
the national union and who used to work on the Canada border,
said: "It is a very porous border. We are greatly understaffed
there."
According to the CBP, 3,338 people were arrested trying to
cross the Canadian border in 2014. Of those, 1,673 were from
countries other than Mexico.
Last week, a bipartisan bill passed the U.S. House of
Representatives requiring an analysis of terrorism threats posed
by people trying to enter America through the Canadian border. A
similar bipartisan Senate bill awaits a vote.
Over 3,000 of the refugees entering Canada are slated to
settle in Alberta province, north of Montana.
In Havre, Montana, 40 miles south of Canada, Jenny Van
Cleve, a waitress, says she is scared about the arrival of the
Syrian refugees into Canada.
"The border is so easy to cross, pretty much anywhere. And
there are abandoned houses all over the place to hide out in. We
have farmer friends who find people in their buildings all the
time. It's scary."