Recent Announcements on Security at the Northern Border

Attorney General John Ashcroft has announced that the U.S. Border Patrol will be assisted by the National Guard on the Northern Border. The measure is being used by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to assist its limited staff in maintaining the highest security at the Northern Border. The plan will include two phases which will assist the INS border Inspectors who have been operating at Threat Level One since September 11.

Phase one will incorporate 419 National Guard Bureau Soldiers who will assist INS Officers in ensuring that all applicants for admission, vehicles, luggage, and cargo are thoroughly inspected at the 43 ports-of-entry in the Northern Border. The second phase will ad aircraft, intelligence and additional personnel to assist the INS in its law enforcement mission at the Northern Border.

Both phases are expected to be temporary while the Border Patrol recruits new agents, and its mission will not be military but to assist the Border Patrol in its mission to secure U.S. Borders.

In a separate announcement, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Solicitor General of Canada Lawrence MacAulay, and Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Eleanor Caplan have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation that focuses on deterrence, prosecution of security threats, and disrupting illegal immigration along the Northern Border.

The memorandum addresses issues such as expanding the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBET); supplying the Royal Canadian Police with equipment and training to access the FBI fingerprint databank; developing joint visa requirements to control unlawful immigration; establishing joint passenger analysis units; increasing the number of Canadian and U.S. Immigration Control Officers overseas to intercept inadmissible passengers; and developing an agreement to allow for the free exchange of information and background of asylum seekers, amongst other issues.

  Joint US-Canada Statement on Northern Border Priorities (PDF/124 KB, 3 pages)