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Borders Wide Open: How Easy Would It Be For Terrorists To Enter U.S.?

By Scott Bates, Hartford Courant

April 2, 2006

In the spring of 2004, I was part of a team that studied our southern border for the House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee. What we found was profoundly disturbing.

Our borders are effectively wide open—although they are the last line of defense against the terrorists of al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda has pledged to inflict catastrophic attacks on our cities and to kill thousands of innocent civilians. Its terrorists are targeting our borders. Two important quotes make the threat of open borders clear.

The first is from Osama bin Laden, who in 1998 issued a fatwa calling for the murder of any American as "the individual duty of every Muslim who can do it in any country where it is possible to do it." Soon thereafter, bin Laden said that is was "a religious duty" for al-Qaeda to gain nuclear weapons.

The second is from an al-Qaeda website. It's author was Abu Ubayd al-Qurashi. In 2002, he wrote:

"American officials are very fearful when it comes to the opportunities that globalization provides those who want to bring nuclear and radiological weapons into America. In 1996, 254 million persons, 75 million automobiles and 3.5 million trucks entered America from Mexico. Only 5 percent of this huge total is inspected." He then ended with this statement: "These are figures that really call for contemplation."

Our investigation uncovered some very disturbing facts. While on patrol from the air, our investigators saw a half-dozen trucks driving across the U.S.-Mexico border dozens of miles from any official crossing. Four hours after our initial report on the presence of these trucks, the Border Patrol still had not deployed any agents to investigate because of lack of manpower.

We learned that for less than $2,000, so-called "coyotes" will smuggle anyone across the border into the United States.

We learned that there are growing connections between drug cartels and terrorist organizations such as FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in Colombia. Pathways developed to smuggle drugs can also be used to smuggle terrorists and weapons.

We learned that the Department of Homeland Security issued a hiring freeze for Customs inspectors and Border Patrol agents.

We learned that the easiest way for an al-Qaeda operative to enter into the United States would be to cross the Rio Grande - and get caught without papers. In 2004, more than 23,000 "other than Mexican" detainees who came from such countries as Iran and Algeria had done precisely this. Lacking space in detention facilities and manpower to keep watch, U.S. border control officials simply released these detainees on the promise that they would appear days later for a hearing to determine their status.

Recent headlines should cause even more concern. A team of U.S. government investigators testing border security brought highly radioactive cesium across our borders at two locations. Cesium is a lethal substance which, if strapped to a few sticks of dynamite, could create a "dirty bomb" capable of throwing an American city into chaos.

I believe an aggressive border security strategy should be implemented within two years to protect America.

First, we should double the number of Customs inspectors and Border Patrol agents on America's southern border. More inspectors and agents would allow for faster processing of friendly travelers, a freer flow of commerce and quicker investigations of illegal crossings.

Second, we should enhance databases and merge terrorist watch lists to make sure that border inspectors have real-time information on the potential terrorists trying to cross the border.

Third, we would deploy technology in the form of cameras, sensors and unmanned aerial vehicles to ensure 24/7 monitoring of the southern border. In these days of the al-Qaeda threat, unknown trucks with unknown cargo should never drive across our desert border.

A passionate and important debate is raging on what to do about 10 million illegal immigrants who live in the United States. It is important for all sides to agree that stronger border controls are required now. We cannot pretend that our homeland is secure if our border is not.

Scott Bates of Stonington is the former senior policy adviser of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee and a former Democratic Secretary of State of Virginia. He is now vice president of the Center for National Policy in Washington, a think tank.

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