-Caveat Lector-
Seal the borders, ground all flights, search all automobiles ...
But that sword cuts both ways. If no one can get IN, how can anyone get
OUT?
Tension Growing at Nation's Borders
By DAVID GRAM
.c The Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - If authorities are right, Lucia Garofalo had tried
repeatedly this month to enter the country at remote spots along Quebec's
border with New England. Once, she got in.
But on Sunday evening, bomb-sniffing dogs at the Beecher Falls border station
in northern Vermont indicated they had found something in her car. No bombs
were found, but Ms. Garofalo, 35, and Bouabide Chamchi, 20, were arrested
anyway and accused of conspiring to use a false passport and other
immigration violations.
It is the latest sign of growing tension along the nation's borders. As the
government warned Tuesday that Americans around the world may be the target
of terrorist attacks over the next two weeks, airport security was being
tightened at home and federal officials beefed up personnel at border
stations from Maine to the Pacific Northwest and south to the border with
Mexico.
The Vermont arrests came only a few days after another man, Ahmed Ressam, was
arrested in Port Angeles, Wash., on charges of carrying explosives.
Authorities are checking for any links. Chamchi and Ressam are Algerians.
As for Ms. Garofalo, authorities said she was allowed to cross into the
United States on Dec. 6. She returned to Canada on Dec. 12.
Noel Induni, agent in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in
St. Albans, said Ms. Garofalo also tried to cross from Canada into New
Hampshire on Dec. 15 with a different man. They were turned away because the
man did not have proper identification and their car held more luggage than
was consistent with the story they gave for visiting.
Along the normally open and porous northern border, the Border Patrol and
Customs Service are urging longer hours and higher alertness from their
officers.
``We have what's referred to as an open border with Canada,'' said Charles
Tetzlaff, U.S. attorney for Vermont. ``Many of us on the northern border have
been concerned with certain aspects of it for some time'' - particularly with
law officers spread thin.
``There are areas along the border that just aren't covered on a given
shift,'' added Keith Olson, president of the local Border Patrol officers'
union in Bellingham, Wash., about 25 miles south of the crossing at Blaine.
>From Blaine to Maine, as officers are fond of saying, there are only 289
border patrol officers guarding the areas outside official ports of entry.
Along the U.S.-Mexican border, there are 8,200 agents, according to the INS.
In Washington state, fewer than 50 officers patrol about 150 miles of border
from the tip of the Olympic Peninsula to the foothills of the Cascade
Mountains.
``We have three agents here in Port Angeles to cover the entire peninsula,''
said Mike Baker, patrol agent in charge of the Port Angeles office. ``We have
really good people, but we don't have the resources.''
There are similar stories elsewhere. Carol Jenifer, the INS district director
in Detroit, said the agency has 150 agents and Customs has 300 to do
inspections and patrol Michigan's 700-mile border with Canada.
During the last fiscal year, the INS did 45 million inspections in Michigan
and denied access to about 17,200 people.
In Detroit, where the Ambassador Bridge is the busiest U.S.-Canada border
crossing, an Arab family crossing from Windsor, Ontario, was stopped for 45
minutes Tuesday.
``They have the right to ask because some idiot, they do some bad things,''
said Freddy Zouki, who is from Algeria but works for a Montreal oil company.
``I absolutely agree with what they are doing. They are doing their job.''
But his wife's brother, Roger Malki, 24, a Syrian national who is a student
at the University of Montreal, was angry that agents asked them to pull over
at a secondary inspection point.
``Is this just because we are Arabs?'' he yelled at the agent.
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