Bomb Plot Suspect Draws Wary E To Border More Security Needed For Illegal Entry Between Canada And U.S. In Far West

The first time Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer crossed the world’s longest undefended border, he followed a typical pattern for illegal entrants at the far western edge of the boundary. He hiked into the Cascade Mountain woods from Canada last year and simply walked into the United States.

On his second illegal entry, Abu Mezer, one of two men arrested last week in a New York apartment and accused in a bombing plot, again strolled across the border, the 49th parallel. On the third attempt, he took a bus.

He was apprehended on all three occasions, then was allowed to stay in the United States while appealing for political asylum. But the wonder, say law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, is that he was caught at all.

For people trying to enter the United States illegally from the north, the corridor of choice is across the border in northwestern Washington. Much of it is wild, porous and largely unmanned.

Border Patrol figures indicate that there are more attempts at illegal entry in this far-western section than at anywhere else along the entire 3,500 miles of the U.S.-Canadian border. But the region is so short of Border Patrol agents that in a recent week, only a single agent was patrolling a stretch of about 100 miles of saltwater inlets, forest roads and mountain back country.

“We have a lot of wilderness here and you’re lucky if you can see 30 feet,” said Dale Brandland, the sheriff of Whatcom County. “From outside North America it’s easy to get into Canada, and from there it’s extremely easy to get into the United States in this section.”

Whether this gateway between the Vancouver area and Seattle has become an entry point for terrorists or organized criminals remains an open question, law-enforcement officials say. But because it is so easy to sneak across, it has developed into something of smuggler’s byway for people who have made their way to Canada from the Middle East, India and Mexico.

For the last five years, the arrest rate for illegal entry attempts in this corridor has averaged nearly 4,000 annually - about one-fourth of all arrests on the northern border of the United States. But instead of beefing up law enforcement along this section, the Border Patrol has reduced its staff here, sending agents to the southern border, where more than 1.5 million people a year are apprehended.

“Apparently it’s going to take a major disaster to get anyone to pay attention to this border,” Brandland said. Last year Brandland pleaded with Attorney General Janet Reno for help, telling her that the border had become chaotic. She told him she was sympathetic, said Justice Department aides, but asserted that more patrols were needed in the south.

Last weekend, the head of the Border Patrol station here complained publicly about the problem, saying he has repeatedly asked for more help. “It just makes me sick that I’m so short on people here,” said the official, Cary James.

On the Canadian side, the authorities have similar complaints. “It’s gotten to a point where it really scares me,” said Sgt. Glen Rockwell of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police border unit. “It is so easy to get into Canada. And once you’re in, we cannot keep track of people. It used to be our biggest problems were pimps and whores crossing the border. Now we get people with no documentation, and then we’re forced to accept them into the system.”

Rockwell said that Abu Mezer’s odyssey through North America was not untypical. He arrived in Canada in 1993, seeking refugee status and listing his nationality as Palestinian. From Toronto he went west to the Vancouver area, and from there made his numerous attempts to enter the United States.

“If you walk across, it’s pretty easy,” Rockwell said. “But even if you don’t make it today, you’ll get in tomorrow.”