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Eyes on the border

By Ashley Matthews
Free Press Staff Writer

June 25, 2006
SWANTON -- Robert Judd weaved his car slowly down deserted streets and dirt roads on a recent cool night, sweeping the roadside foliage with the spotlight mounted on the driver's side of his patrol car.

Judd, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, searched for anything unusual -- a quick movement, flash of color or even a place where the weeds bend to the side. Any of these could mean someone, possibly an illegal immigrant, was hiding in the area. He also looked for smugglers, watching carefully for vehicles with out-of-state license plates or erratic drivers.

Judd is on the front line of the country's defense against the entry of illegal immigrants, drug smugglers and terrorists. He diligently searches for people illicitly crossing the border, whether it's someone who came from an impoverished Chinese village or an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan.

Judd's job isn't as easy as he would like it to be. He is part of a system that recently has been called into question, where resources can be thin and illegal immigrants are often caught, processed, then released on American soil because there aren't enough facilities to house them. Politicians say changes are coming but, until then, Judd is resigned to doing the best he can with the tools he's been given.

Judd's 10-hour shift ended around midnight. He had caught no one. In fact, agents in Judd's station, which covers about 18 miles of border from the New York state line to Franklin, hadn't apprehended anyone trying to cross the border illegally in weeks.

This border isn't nearly as busy as the border with Mexico, where more than a million illegal immigrants cross each year. David Aguilar, chief of the Office of Border Patrol in Washington, D.C., said one of the reasons fewer people cross the Canadian border illegally is rooted in government cooperation. Canadians vigorously patrol their side of the border, too.

"Mexico doesn't do anything to stem the flow of people in the United States," Aguilar said. "Partnerships with Mexico are there, they're good, but they could be better. On the northern border, the working relationship with Canada is outstanding, with mutual interests of border security, mutual interests of working together and sharing as much info as we can. We don't have that level of collective effort on the southern border." Earning their keep

Judd began his career 20 years ago patrolling the Mexican border. For the past eight years, he has worked on the Canadian border in the Border Patrol's Swanton sector, which monitors 261 miles of international boundary between Canada and New York, New Hampshire and Vermont.

Beyond the border, the sector comprises 24,000 square miles that include Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware and part of New York. More than 200 Border Patrol employees work within the Swanton sector. Fourteen agents work in Judd's station.

Since October, the beginning of the Border Patrol's fiscal year, Judd and his colleagues have apprehended 785 illegal immigrants. Only 232 of those were crossing the border; the others were apprehended inside the eight-state sector.

The numbers don't approach those of the U.S.-Mexico border, but Judd said agents in the Swanton sector earn their pay.

"We're definitely not as busy, but what we get takes more work to process because we can't just throw them back across the border," Judd said. "They're not usually from Canada -- they're from all over."

Judd said he sees more types of illegal immigrants on this border than he encountered in the Southwest. Those who cross the northern border must have enough money to travel to Canada, so they're either wealthy or saved for many years to pay for transportation. The stakes are high for many from other continents, who often pay tens of thousands of dollars to smugglers promising safe transportation across the border.

"On our border, people are coming over to live. On the southern border, they're coming over to work," Judd said. "The people we catch here are making a real investment to be here." 'Catch and release'

Judd, 52, is a reserved man who enjoys the solitude and quiet of driving, waiting and watching. He doesn't make small talk, but he answers questions with direct, sincere answers.

He is a realist who enjoys his job but isn't afraid to acknowledge problems within the political system that controls it. Judd says lack of funds and personnel are problems for the Border Patrol. His biggest frustration is "knowing I'm not able to do the job as well as it can be done because we don't have the people or the political will to do the best job."

"I really like my job, and I'm proud of what I do. There's satisfaction in knowing that I'm protecting people," he said. "We're glad and proud to do it, and we each hope we'll be the one to stop that terrorist who's coming in to harm our citizens. We know people get through, but we do our best."

Judd joined the Border Patrol because he has a passion for Mexican people and culture, but said he now enjoys working on the northern border because of the beauty of the region. He also said jobs on this border are considered desirable within the Border Patrol, and the work is more interesting.

He feels compassion for most of the people he apprehends, and he recognizes many of them come from dire circumstances and make great sacrifices to journey to the border.

"Heavens, there are some sad stories," Judd said. "I could tell you sad stories all day, but they took the decision-making away from us. We're not here to make decisions about who can come or not. We're not the judges and we can't be. It would be too hard. A lot of people go through a lot of hardship to be here, and we recognize that."

Illegal immigrants who are not residents of Mexico (categorized as "other than Mexicans" or OTM by the Border Patrol) are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge before deportation. Mexicans are generally deported as quickly as possible.

After Judd apprehends people crossing the border, he runs a variety of background checks and scans their fingerprints through a digital database. Then, he contacts the Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an investigative branch of the Department of Homeland Security.

ICE is responsible for determining whether illegal immigrants will be detained until their hearings, or whether they will be issued a "notice to appear" -- a citation that orders them to appear in immigration court at a later date -- and released on American soil.

This system, often called "catch and release," has come under scrutiny because many do not appear for their court dates. Michael Gilhooly, director of communications for ICE in the Northeast, said his agency has standards that determine who can and cannot be released.

"We, like any other federal agency, like any other law enforcement agency, make a decision on whether a person will be detained or issued a charging document and released, whereby it becomes their responsibility to go to court and face the charges," Gilhooly said. "We base the decision on whether the person is a threat to national security, a threat to public safety, whether they fall into our mandatory detention cases or whether the person can be positively identified."

Since October, 504 -- about 40 percent -- of the non-Mexicans apprehended by the Swanton sector of Border Patrol have been issued a notice to appear and released. In 2005, 32 percent of the 1,542 non-Mexican apprehensions were released. These numbers do not include apprehensions by ICE or the Customs and Border Protection agents at ports of entry along the border.

Even so, the Swanton sector's "catch and release" numbers are consistently lower than the national average. About 50 percent of the 85,381 non-Mexican illegal immigrants apprehended this year nationwide have been released. Last year, 70 percent of the 165,175 non-Mexicans were released. Policy in place

Judd spends long hours searching for illegal immigrants and processing their paperwork, but he realizes much of his work might be for naught. Often, the people he caught are released and disappear into Vermont, where illegal immigrants often find work on dairy farms and in orchards, at restaurants and construction sites. Others continue farther into the country, looking for relatives or job opportunities. Many will never appear in court.

"It's very frustrating, but we understand it's a fiscal thing," Judd said. "We don't really dwell on it too much because it's just not our job. Our job is to catch them and enforce the law. What the politicians want to do is their business."

The illegal immigrants who disappear into the United States become fugitives, sought by ICE fugitive operations teams. Since the teams were instituted in March 2003, 42,000 fugitives have been captured, Gilhooly said, but that constitutes only a small portion of the hundreds of thousands of fugitives believed to be in the United States.

"There are more than 500,000 aliens in the country who are fugitives -- people who have been ordered deported by a judge but have failed to leave, someone who has been ordered to report to our facilities but failed to show up, or people who have been ordered into immigration court and failed to show," Gilhooly said.

In a speech delivered in May, President Bush targeted the catch-and-release system, vowing to eliminate it on the southern border by increasing the number of beds in detention centers. He proposed changes to the country's temporary worker program and employer sanctions.

While additional resources are welcome, Aguilar said policy changes aren't necessarily the answer for better border protection.

"I don't think it's a matter of policy. Policy is in place," Aguilar said. "I think what we need to do as executives within the Department of Homeland Security is tighten up policy that already exists. We have to bear in mind that, since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, there has been a melding of a tremendous number of agencies coming together."

Judd, like many of his colleagues, has also been following recent news of proposed changes, and he agrees with Aguilar.

"Every one of us thinks we know the answer," he said with a laugh. "I think we need to enforce the laws we already have. We already have a guest worker program -- we don't need a new one. We already have employer sanctions -- we don't need new ones. We just need to enforce the rules we already have." 'They'll find a way'

Another Bush initiative began this month when National Guard troops started assisting the Border Patrol on the southern border. The president also vowed to increase the number of Border Patrol officers and provide them with more equipment, such as unmanned aerial vehicles and high-tech fences. Aguilar said most of the new officers will be focused on the southern border, but the northern Border Patrol should receive new technology.

Judd already uses a number of tools to monitor the border, including night-vision goggles, infrared sensors, cameras and motion detectors hidden near roads and in fields and wooded areas along the border. In the sector's headquarters in Swanton, dispatchers constantly monitor computer and television screens, studying images from cameras that transmit from parts of the sector's hundreds of miles of border. They use joysticks to pan from side to side and zoom in and out.

On a recent sunny afternoon, one screen showed vehicles rumbling across a busy bridge while another displayed simple lines of text, each one representing a motion detector that was triggered somewhere along the border.

The information gleaned in the control center is transmitted by radio to agents in the field and can also be used later, as court evidence. One tape, recorded at night, showed ghostly images of two men sneaking through a field, unaware their movements were being recorded. They stopped near a tree to change their clothes, not realizing that Border Patrol agents had quietly parked nearby and were waiting for them to reach the road.

This pair was apprehended, but Judd believes determination pays off for people who want to sneak into the United States.

"If they're persistent and keep trying, they will find a way," he said. "It's just part of the way the system is." Contact Ashley Matthews at 651-4811 or amatthews@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com.