FEDS CALL CANADIAN BORDER A RISK

SEATTLE A federal government report leaked to the media warns that
the Canadian border is so lightly guarded that there is little to
prevent smugglers from easily transporting drugs and weapons into the
United States.

The Seattle Times said that while the lion's share of Border Patrol
resources are deployed along the Mexican border, the contingent of
agents on the 4,000-mile northern border is too small and too
overworked to prevent smugglers from easily entering the country from
Canada.

"Shifts with no Border Patrol coverage leave the northern border wide
open to criminal activity," said the report by acting Justice
Department Inspector General Robert Asbaugh. "These criminals know the
times when the fewest [agents] are on duty, and they plan their
illegal operations accordingly."

The report said that during the late 1990s, agents in the north were
far more likely to encounter drug or weapons smugglers while on patrol
than were agents stationed along the Mexican border.

Much of the cocaine and Asian heroin smuggled into western Canada
winds up in the United States, the report said, and marijuana grown in
British Columbia also seamlessly enters the U.S. with little, if any,
interference from border agents.

The Pacific Northwest was also where alleged Algerian terrorist Ahmed
Ressam was arrested in December by customs agents while trying to
enter the U.S. from Canada with a load of explosives in the trunk of
his car.

The report was issued in February, but the Times said Asbaugh has
restricted official access to it as a safety precaution. It was leaked
to media outlets and published Saturday, however, after the INS
transferred two Border Patrol aircraft to Arizona for the summer as
part of an agency move to be on the watch for illegal aliens who may
have gotten lost during the perilous crossing through the desert along
the border.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service ordered the transfers
despite a pledge made in December by INS Commissioner Doris Meissner
to cease moving agents from the northern to the southern border.

An INS spokesman told the newspaper that the need for more agents to
cut down on the death toll among aliens crossing from Mexico was an
extreme emergency.

Such transfers, however, have long been a sore point with Border
Patrol agents in the north, the Times said.

"We thought this was over with. We want to stay here and keep the
'Ressams' of the world out," said Keith Olson, president of the Border
Patrol agents' union in Blaine, Washington.