Posted on 08/23/2002 11:37:53 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
A GOP lawmaker is advocating the extensive use of high-tech military surveillance tools to secure the borders with Canada and Mexico after witnessing the technology in action first-hand.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., just returned from a three-day fact-finding trip near Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, where he observed a border-control exercise involving the use of about 100 Marines and "first-generation" aerial surveillance technology used by the United States during the 1991 Gulf War.
"We were using the military to conduct border surveillance," Tancredo said, describing the activity that involved the Marines working in tandem with Forest Service, Border Patrol and U.S. Customs Service personnel.
The "relatively high-tech" surveillance equipment included UAVs – unmanned aerial vehicles – along with radars, which were set up on mountaintops "to determine to what extent we could actually apply technology and human resources" to enhance border security.
"I saw it, and it works," Tancredo insisted. "It's a very good way to do it. There is no excuse now for not employing the military in support of our border security forces."
Tancredo told WorldNetDaily that the "most common theme" regarding security along the nation's southern and northern borders "is the real frustration and low morale" of Border Patrol, Immigration and Naturalization Service and U.S. Forest Service personnel.
"They're there, and they know the job they have to do is important," he said, "but they also know that they are being overrun by drug smugglers, people smugglers, gun smugglers – you name it."
Tancredo, an advocate of using U.S. troops to augment federal border-control personnel, says increased manpower and use of technology is the only way to "get serious" about securing the nation's boundaries in the new post-Sept. 11 terror environment.
The Bush administration, however, is opposed to deploying the military along the border.
Tancredo says "Vietnam syndrome" is preventing Congress from adequately protecting the nation's borders, which, he says, are just as porous in the north as in the south.
"We send people to fight, but we really don't have the will to win," said Tancredo, head of the House Immigration Reform Caucus.
In terms of public-policy debate, border-control issues generally elicit visions of mass mobs of illegal immigrant being led across the desert plains or drug smugglers and Mexican soldiers firing upon Border Patrol agents in the American southwest.
But Tancredo said many of the same problems associated with the southwest border also plague the U.S.-Canada border. And neither Ottawa nor Mexico City seems eager to help Washington curb the problems.
"We have no friends on either end of our borders," Tancredo told WND.
The Colorado lawmaker mentioned Canada's large and growing Muslim population, some of which he says is raising money for terror groups by running drugs across the border into the U.S.
"I don't know if many people really realize this, but this group is involved in a lot of the drug trafficking," he said, citing Canadian sources. He added, however, that Canadian law enforcement does not adequately monitor the activities of some of these groups.
"They couldn't care less," he said. "Canada looks the other way when it comes to drug possession and manufacture."
Reform opponents, however, counter that America was founded as a nation of immigrants. Critics of Tancredo and his backers say reform efforts smack of discrimination – mostly against Hispanic and Muslim immigrants in the same way Irish Catholics were discriminated against in the late 1800s to early 1920s, a tide that was stemmed by law in 1924.
They also say three-quarters of all immigrants enter the United States legally, and that they are, on average, better-educated and more highly skilled than the average citizens of the countries they leave. And they say many immigrants – legal or otherwise – fill menial labor and other jobs unwanted by Americans.
But Tancredo says his immigration-reform caucus is not about shutting down legal immigration. He says it's mostly about protecting all Americans from threats that endanger citizens only because illegals are able to get into the country so easily – a feat that runs counterproductive to calls by Congress and the administration for tighter security after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Technology works
To accomplish that goal, Tancredo said technology coupled with manpower are the answers. The operation in Idaho proved that "we can keep the border under surveillance using high-tech gadgetry and relatively few people," he said.
"What you need is something that actually keeps the border under surveillance, identifies the intruder, and personnel available to move rapidly to pick them up," he said, adding that "miles and miles" of southwest border could be put under surveillance with much less technology.
"We're fighting a war on our borders," he said. "We're fighting against people coming in here with narcotics, people coming in with illegal immigrants, and – for all we know – weapons of mass destruction, or at least the components thereof."
And the war's getting more dangerous, too, he said, citing the killing of a 28-year-old U.S. Park Service ranger by two Mexican gunmen in Arizona last week.
The ranger, Kris Eggle, was gunned down in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Tucson by a man suspected of having ties to Mexican drug lords – something Tancredo has been warning for months would happen.
"I went down to the funeral, the only member of Congress to do so," Tancredo said. "Besides WorldNetDaily, we couldn't get anyone else interested in the story, even though he died for his country."
He said the "face" of immigration on the border is different than that of Middle America.
"It's murder, drugs, it's infiltration into the country for the purpose of doing us great harm," he said. "And yet, we do not have the will or intestinal fortitude to actually commit to defending the border."
After the Idaho trip, Tancredo says he knows the U.S. has the technology to get the job done.
"Maybe we can't make it completely secure, but we can make it at least 90 percent, and I'll take that," he said.
"I went down to the funeral, the only member of Congress to do so," Tancredo said. "Besides WorldNetDaily, we couldn't get anyone else interested in the story, even though he died for his country."
This is digusting. I guess the rest of our so called leaders were too busy during their summer recesss to go down and pay respects to this mans family. Maybe this mans family should sue the Mexican government and Vincente Fox for failing to keep these murderers at home in Mexico.
He was taking the last load of his move to Sierra Vista, Arizona.
Quote from his mail out:
WORKING WITH RANCHERS. This video is great instead of using talking points to show friends and neigbors and those in denial, that this is a dangerous and growing issue and needs to addressed in the upcoming elections.
As has American Patrol for years, ABP will work with ranchers as Robert Barnett of Douglas, Arizona (featured in Time Magazine), to focus on how, when, and where illegal aliens are crossing out border. We will use video cameras and infrared technology to show, on a regular basis, how illegal aliens are violating our SOVEREIGNTY. (What would Americans think of a Webcam mounted on popular invasion ruotes? How many would log on to try to catch aliens invading their nation? Plenty.)BORDER PATROL TACTICS
Under the direction of Bill King, Ron Sanders,and other former Border Patrol officials, we will explain to the American people, on a blow-by-blow basis, how the battle for our borders is going. we ill tell them why illegal aliens are dying in the deesert and what we can do to stop it. We will tell them why illegal aliens continue to cross the border, even after they have been arrested up to fifteen time. We will show the American people how terrorits can cross our borders, undetected and undeterred. And, if they want to help their country, we will show Americans how to do it.
Please give it a look-see!
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