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`Little bit of fencing' at border possible
U.S. security chief says long fence not needed

More aerial patrols, e-surveillance coming
Feb. 10, 2006. 01:00 AM
TIM HARPER
WASHINGTON BUREAU


WASHINGTON— U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff has suggested "a little bit of fencing'' at the Canada-U.S. border could be needed in heavily populated areas if there were a surge in illegal immigrants sneaking across the border.

But Chertoff distanced himself from calls by some U.S. legislators who are saying the feasibility of a fence on the 49th parallel should be studied to complement a fence they want built along their southern flank.

"It would depend on the particular landscape,'' Chertoff told a press conference here yesterday, "whether you're dealing with an area where we have a lot of people sneaking across the border in an urban area, a little bit of fencing might make sense.

"If we're dealing with an uninhabited area, fencing wouldn't make sense.''

But he said he was not aware of any such problem today and his officials say only 2 to 3 per cent of those who are arrested for trying to enter the country illegally — about 10,500 last year — are nabbed at the Canadian border.

They say they made 1.2 million arrests at the Mexican border.

Instead of fencing, Chertoff said, there will be an increase in electronic surveillance, aerial patrols and satellite surveillance of the Canada-U.S. border.

Some of those measures are already in place along the Washington-British Columbia border and the New York border with Ontario and Quebec.

Aerial surveillance is due to be in place over less populated crossings at the U.S. border with Alberta and Saskatchewan this summer.

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to erect a fence across the length of the U.S.-Mexico border, an issue that has not been addressed by the U.S. Senate.

The same bill recommended a feasibility study of a fence along the Canadian border and Colorado Republican Representative Tom Tancredo told the Star last week he expected the Canadian fence would cost a little more than $1 million (U.S.) per mile to build.

The subject of illegal immigration has become a hot-button issue here in a mid-term election year. And Chertoff spoke a day after 100 supporters of the U.S. Minuteman Project rallied for tougher immigration laws at Capitol Hill.

The Minuteman Project attracted national attention when members began their own civilian patrols of the Mexican border in an effort to frustrate those trying to enter the United States illegally. They also have sporadically massed at the Canadian border.

Violence has erupted at the Mexican border and yesterday officials played video of U.S. Border Control agents being attacked by rocks at that border. U.S. agents also shot and killed a young Mexican in December.

Officials said there has been a 108 per cent increase in the number of assaults against U.S. border agents on the southern border so far this fiscal year.

Last year, Homeland Security officials said there were 778 assaults against their officers at the Mexican border. Since October, there have been 192 assaults.

Despite this, the U.S. director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, told a Senate hearing last week he thought the Canadian border posed more of a threat for terrorist crossings than the Mexican border.