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New base will expand U.S. air patrols along Canadian border
Kerry Williamson (kwilliamson@theherald.canwest.com), CanWest News Service/Calgary Herald, 3 Sept 06
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=305d6403-928f-4529-a9a3-05942f6260bf&k=9833
CALGARY -- As Canadian border guards look forward to having guns on their hips within a year, the Americans will soon be patrolling the U.S.-Alberta border with two Black Hawk helicopters and planes equipped with radar units taken from F-16 fighter jets.
The Northern Border Air Wing a department of U.S. Homeland Security is setting up a new base in Great Falls, Mont., a post that will see security tightened along the America-Canada border like never before.
One Black Hawk helicopter, similar to that used by the U.S. military, is already stationed at the Great Falls International Airport, with another due to arrive within days.
The air wing will bolster the border guards based out of Havre, Mont., and patrol about 730 kilometres, from the North Dakota border to the Continental Divide.
The post, a direct result of the U.S.-led war on terror, is one of five that will eventually help patrol the entire 8,891 kilometres of the world's longest undefended border a claim that now seems to be a misnomer.
Mike Milne, a Seattle-based spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said officers stationed at the Great Falls post will chase down illegal aliens and drug-runners, but their priority will be preventing terror suspects from entering the U.S. from Canada.
"The first priority is terrorism," Milne said.
"They will fly missions along the border, to prevent terrorist and terror weapons from coming into the U.S., to target drug smuggling and illegal entry of people that are avoiding going through ports of entry."
Once operational, the air wing is expected to have a one-hour response time, anywhere along the border. Aircraft will be on the lookout for people crossing by air and by land.
Anyone crossing illegally will initially be considered a terror threat.
"You basically start with a matrix are they terrorists, or with terror weapons?" said Milne. "Then you go down from there."
Pilots and ground staff are currently undergoing training, flying out of the Great Falls airport. Homeland Security signed a multi-year lease for hangar and office space in June.
"The expansion of operations in Montana is another significant step forward toward a deliberate and strategic expansion of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) border security operations along the northern border," Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner for CBP air and marine, said at the time.
More than 50 personnel will work out of the new detachment, including 20 pilots, and about 25 maintenance crew. The post is expected to be fully operational within six weeks.
Dennis Lindsay, director of air operations at the Great Falls post, said the border detachment will replicate work already being done out of posts in Bellingham, Wash., and Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Two more posts will eventually be developed in North Dakota and Michigan next year.
"It's an effort to provide assistance to the border patrol section, to help them to better secure the border," said Lindsay, adding the town of Great Falls has embraced the new post. "This will have huge economic impact on Great Falls."
The impact of the aerial border posts was seen just two months ago, during the high-profile Operation Frozen Timber on the West Coast.
In late June, Canadian and U.S. authorities announced they had broken up a highly organized drug-smuggling ring that used helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to ferry drugs across the border, dropping their caches in remote woods in Washington and B.C.
Aerial support out of the Bellingham post proved crucial in the success of Operation Frozen Timber.
In one incident in May, CBP aircraft, acting on a tip from B.C.-based RCMP, tracked a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter to a landing site in Okanogan County, Wash.
Immigration and Enforcement agents watched as drugs were allegedly transferred from the helicopter to a waiting pickup truck. Officers on the ground stopped the vehicle and recovered 150 kilograms of marijuana.
When the helicopter landed back in B.C., the RCMP arrested its two Canadian pilots and charged them with trafficking. Kostelnik said CBP and RCMP aircraft played a "critical" role in the investigation.
The opening of the Great Falls post comes as the U.S. turns its attention to its northern border. Last week, a congressional hearing swept into Montana, as the U.S. House of Representatives gathers information for its own immigration bill.
During the hearing, chairman Tom Tancredo, the Republican congressman from Colorado, raised eyebrows by suggesting the Canada-U.S. border was so porous that a cleanly shaven Osama bin Laden could slip across, pretending to be a tent-maker, something Tancredo has repeated since 2002.
Tancredo who is mulling a presidential run added that "terrorists and drug smuggling" are the primary concerns on the border.
The Canadian side is also patrolled by helicopter the Rocky Mountain Integrated Border Enforcement Team uses an RCMP helicopter to monitor activity. The Alberta IBET team, which includes personnel from the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Customs Service, also does regular vehicle patrols.
Insp. Greg Shields of the Rocky Mountain IBET team said officers do their best to secure the country's southern border.
"What the U.S. does on their border is their sovereign right," he said. "In my opinion, it's reasonably well secured for the world's largest border. There are thousands of miles of border out there."
Officials hope the eventual arming of Canada's border guards will help make the land ports more secure.
The Harper government announced on Thursday that the country's border guards will be armed from next year; by March 2008, 150 guards will be given firearms, with another 4,400 guards armed within 10 years.
The federal government will also hire an additional 400 permanent border officers. However, the national vice-president of the Customs and Excise Union said Canada still has "a long ways to go" to match security efforts on the U.S. side of the border.
"The U.S. armed their officers three decades ago," said Steve Pellerin-Fowlie. "We have battled with several governments over 21 years on this issue."
New base will expand U.S. air patrols along Canadian border
Kerry Williamson (kwilliamson@theherald.canwest.com), CanWest News Service/Calgary Herald, 3 Sept 06
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=305d6403-928f-4529-a9a3-05942f6260bf&k=9833
CALGARY -- As Canadian border guards look forward to having guns on their hips within a year, the Americans will soon be patrolling the U.S.-Alberta border with two Black Hawk helicopters and planes equipped with radar units taken from F-16 fighter jets.
The Northern Border Air Wing a department of U.S. Homeland Security is setting up a new base in Great Falls, Mont., a post that will see security tightened along the America-Canada border like never before.
One Black Hawk helicopter, similar to that used by the U.S. military, is already stationed at the Great Falls International Airport, with another due to arrive within days.
The air wing will bolster the border guards based out of Havre, Mont., and patrol about 730 kilometres, from the North Dakota border to the Continental Divide.
The post, a direct result of the U.S.-led war on terror, is one of five that will eventually help patrol the entire 8,891 kilometres of the world's longest undefended border a claim that now seems to be a misnomer.
Mike Milne, a Seattle-based spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said officers stationed at the Great Falls post will chase down illegal aliens and drug-runners, but their priority will be preventing terror suspects from entering the U.S. from Canada.
"The first priority is terrorism," Milne said.
"They will fly missions along the border, to prevent terrorist and terror weapons from coming into the U.S., to target drug smuggling and illegal entry of people that are avoiding going through ports of entry."
Once operational, the air wing is expected to have a one-hour response time, anywhere along the border. Aircraft will be on the lookout for people crossing by air and by land.
Anyone crossing illegally will initially be considered a terror threat.
"You basically start with a matrix are they terrorists, or with terror weapons?" said Milne. "Then you go down from there."
Pilots and ground staff are currently undergoing training, flying out of the Great Falls airport. Homeland Security signed a multi-year lease for hangar and office space in June.
"The expansion of operations in Montana is another significant step forward toward a deliberate and strategic expansion of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) border security operations along the northern border," Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner for CBP air and marine, said at the time.
More than 50 personnel will work out of the new detachment, including 20 pilots, and about 25 maintenance crew. The post is expected to be fully operational within six weeks.
Dennis Lindsay, director of air operations at the Great Falls post, said the border detachment will replicate work already being done out of posts in Bellingham, Wash., and Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Two more posts will eventually be developed in North Dakota and Michigan next year.
"It's an effort to provide assistance to the border patrol section, to help them to better secure the border," said Lindsay, adding the town of Great Falls has embraced the new post. "This will have huge economic impact on Great Falls."
The impact of the aerial border posts was seen just two months ago, during the high-profile Operation Frozen Timber on the West Coast.
In late June, Canadian and U.S. authorities announced they had broken up a highly organized drug-smuggling ring that used helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to ferry drugs across the border, dropping their caches in remote woods in Washington and B.C.
Aerial support out of the Bellingham post proved crucial in the success of Operation Frozen Timber.
In one incident in May, CBP aircraft, acting on a tip from B.C.-based RCMP, tracked a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter to a landing site in Okanogan County, Wash.
Immigration and Enforcement agents watched as drugs were allegedly transferred from the helicopter to a waiting pickup truck. Officers on the ground stopped the vehicle and recovered 150 kilograms of marijuana.
When the helicopter landed back in B.C., the RCMP arrested its two Canadian pilots and charged them with trafficking. Kostelnik said CBP and RCMP aircraft played a "critical" role in the investigation.
The opening of the Great Falls post comes as the U.S. turns its attention to its northern border. Last week, a congressional hearing swept into Montana, as the U.S. House of Representatives gathers information for its own immigration bill.
During the hearing, chairman Tom Tancredo, the Republican congressman from Colorado, raised eyebrows by suggesting the Canada-U.S. border was so porous that a cleanly shaven Osama bin Laden could slip across, pretending to be a tent-maker, something Tancredo has repeated since 2002.
Tancredo who is mulling a presidential run added that "terrorists and drug smuggling" are the primary concerns on the border.
The Canadian side is also patrolled by helicopter the Rocky Mountain Integrated Border Enforcement Team uses an RCMP helicopter to monitor activity. The Alberta IBET team, which includes personnel from the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Customs Service, also does regular vehicle patrols.
Insp. Greg Shields of the Rocky Mountain IBET team said officers do their best to secure the country's southern border.
"What the U.S. does on their border is their sovereign right," he said. "In my opinion, it's reasonably well secured for the world's largest border. There are thousands of miles of border out there."
Officials hope the eventual arming of Canada's border guards will help make the land ports more secure.
The Harper government announced on Thursday that the country's border guards will be armed from next year; by March 2008, 150 guards will be given firearms, with another 4,400 guards armed within 10 years.
The federal government will also hire an additional 400 permanent border officers. However, the national vice-president of the Customs and Excise Union said Canada still has "a long ways to go" to match security efforts on the U.S. side of the border.
"The U.S. armed their officers three decades ago," said Steve Pellerin-Fowlie. "We have battled with several governments over 21 years on this issue."
