Pubdate: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 Source: Houston Chronicle (TX) Copyright: 1999 Houston Chronicle Contact: http://www.chron.com/ Forum: http://www.chron.com/content/hcitalk/index.html Author: Susan Gilmore, The Seattle Times U.S. BORDER BECOMES AS POROUS ON ITS NORTH FACE AS ON ITS SOUTH (Seattle) -- The man walking through the darkened berry fields hugging the Canadian border east of Blaine, Wash., stopped and whistled, acting so fishy Border Patrol agents, surreptitiously watching, immediately tagged him as suspicious. Moments later, a Korean woman, with her 6-year-old child in tow, emerged into the open on the U.S. side of the berry patch. The pair was quickly apprehended, along with the man who was waiting for them. This is what happens when everything goes right on the U.S.- Canadian border. People who try to sneak across, like this mother and child recently, are caught by U.S. Border Patrol agents and either detained or returned to Canada. The reality is that this often doesn't happen. More likely than not, the smugglers succeed. And one reason, say those who patrol the border, is that their force is being depleted to bolster the southern border with Mexico. As a result, a leaky border is getting leakier. Foreigners sneaking in, criminals sneaking out, terrorists, drug couriers, even baby sellers -- all have chapters in recent border lore. Many, without visas, are desperate to enter the United States while others recognize the border as an easy way to bring in valuable baggage: lucrative, high-grade Canadian-grown marijuana known as B.C. bud. They slip in across a vast border that slices through berry fields, forests, mountains and ocean. At night, much of the border is unprotected. Border Patrol officials, who defend the border beyond the established crossings, estimate that agents catch about one-third of the smugglers who try to cross near Blaine, and they freely concede that figure may be optimistic. Most of the smuggling occurs between Blaine and Ross Lake, Eugene Davis, deputy chief Border Patrol agent, told a congressional committee earlier this year. "It is very easy to simply jump or drive across the small ditch which separates the two countries," he said. It's known as Boundary Road on the American side, Zero Avenue in Canada. Narrow country roads, just a ditch apart, but a virtual freeway for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. Yet only about 36 Border Patrol agents are assigned to this border, and no one works the night shift. "If I was (going across), I'd wait until midnight," said Ramon Nunez, assistant chief patrol agent in Blaine. He said the patrol has sophisticated sensors planted along the border, but they often go off with no response. Nunez said he did a study last May and found the patrol was unable to respond to 60 percent of the sensors that were activated. Sometimes the sensors signal the sacks of marijuana that are thrown, often in hockey bags, across the border for pickup on the other side. Just last week, U.S. Customs agents found 100 pounds of marijuana in a bag that had been tossed into the United States from Zero Avenue. Agents arrived before the courier did. Agents said the drugs would have fetched $300,000 in Whatcom County, and more than twice that had they made it to the likely destination, California. The area is so remote there's small likelihood of smugglers ever getting caught, conceded Patrick Guimond, a veteran U.S. Customs officer. Just last week, a California attorney went to court on charges she conspired to sneak pregnant Hungarian women across the border at Blaine. U.S. officials estimated as many as 40 Hungarian women came across illegally in a two-year period during the mid-1990s, and none was caught. Customs officials who staff the official ports of entry say they've seen a huge increase in the amount of marijuana seized at the border stations between Blaine and Lynden. "B.C. bud is a continuing problem at the border," said Roy Hoffman, the resident agent for U.S. Customs in Blaine. "People are always coming up with another ingenious way to smuggle." Just a week ago, two Canadian kayakers were arrested on Lopez Island when a San Juan County sheriff's deputy found 94 pounds of marijuana in their kayak. The pair allegedly had paddled from Vancouver Island with the contraband. What angers many of those who patrol the border is that despite the huge increase in smuggling from Canada, agents are being plucked from the Canadian border for assignments on the southern border. After a summer hiatus, this month three agents from Blaine, taken from a force of 49, were sent to Arizona on one-month assignments. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials say agents are desperately needed to patrol the busy southern border. In a 1998 report to the Department of Justice, the Border Patrol reported that apprehensions in the Blaine area dropped from 4,473 in 1993 to 2,684 in 1997. The agency blamed the drop on the number of agents detached from Blaine to the Mexican border. "We need to do the jobs we were hired to do and protect the Pacific Northwest border," said Keith Olson, a Border Patrol agent and president of the local National Border Patrol Council. "We have no graveyard shift. It's been like that for years. All the terrorists of the world can march right through." He said agents joke, "We only catch the stupid ones." What also angers Olson is that the Border Patrol now has no boat, though its jurisdiction covers 120 miles of ocean. The smuggling of B.C. bud is considered so serious that the U.S. National Drug Policy Council has designated the Interstate 5 corridor as a "high-intensity" drug-trafficking area. According to the council, drug-related emergency-room visits in Washington state are running 50 percent higher than the national average. The council names five main import routes into the United States: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the ports of Seattle and Tacoma, the Interstate 5 corridor, the Yakima Valley and the Canadian border. "Poly-drug organizations with longstanding family ties to Michoacan, Mexico, are currently utilizing the I-5 corridor to bring drugs to the Northwest," the drug-policy council reports in its Web page. "The purity of heroin has increased significantly, resulting in record level heroin-related overdose deaths in the Seattle area. Domestic indoor-grown British Columbian and Mexican marijuana is readily available." Nunez, with the Border Patrol, said his agency confiscated 74 pounds of marijuana in 1996. In the fiscal year that ended last month, that number soared to 1,166 pounds. And that, officials have said, is just a fraction -- perhaps 10 percent -- of what comes across. Reports have pegged the value of the British Columbia marijuana crop at over $1 billion a year. - --- MAP posted-by: manemez j lovitto