Guard Troops Would Help Monitor Entry Ports From Canada

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

Hundreds of U.S. National Guard troops would help patrol the porous, 4,000-mile Canadian border as part of a $31.5 million emergency plan by the Justice
Department, which fears that potential terrorists can too easily cross into the United States.

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft also plans to ask Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this week to temporarily provide aircraft and intelligence agents to help
the Immigration and Naturalization Service strengthen security along the northern border, a Justice Department official said.

The proposals come amid rising concern among U.S. officials about the lax safeguards along one of the world's most loosely monitored political boundaries. Slightly
more than 300 immigration agents are assigned to the northern border, which includes more than 100 ports of entry and hundreds of other unguarded crossings. The
plan would more than double the number of border guards and agents.

Canadian intelligence officials estimate that about 50 terrorist groups operate from Canada, including al Qaeda, Hamas and the Irish Republican Army. And the
country was the key staging point for alleged associates of Osama bin Laden who had planned to bomb Los Angeles International Airport and other targets during
the 2000 millennium celebrations.

Extra immigration agents at the Mexican border were transferred to the northern border after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon, but Justice Department and INS officials say the boundary is dangerously understaffed.

Recent anti-terrorism legislation provides more money to strengthen border security, but it will take a year or more to hire and train personnel, officials said.

"We don't have enough manpower to sustain this level of security for very much longer," a senior Justice Department official said. "It's a great vulnerability that needs
to be dealt with immediately."

Ashcroft and INS Commissioner James W. Ziglar are scheduled to formally announce the security plan on Monday during meetings with top Canadian officials in
Detroit and Ottawa, a Justice Department official said. The two countries will also announce joint efforts to increase border security and strengthen anti-terrorism
strategies, officials said.

The U.S. security plan will proceed in two phases. First, more than 400 National Guard troops will be sent to a dozen border states, focused on several dozen ports
of entry of most concern. Second, the Defense Department would provide training and nearly 200 more personnel to improve intelligence and air patrols along the
northern border.

More than $27 million would pay for the helicopters and other expenses related to the air patrol, with the remainder paying for inspection agents and intelligence
analysts, a Justice Department official said. Bush administration officials are still debating where the money will come from, the official said.

The program would be phased out in 12 to 18 months as permanent funding and agents become available along the Canadian border.

Many states, including Michigan, California and Texas, have ordered extra National Guard troops to their borders since Sept. 11, and the U.S. Customs Service also
has requested troops at some crossings.

The measures are part of a broader crackdown along a border once so loose that a wave might be enough to get across. Now, travelers must show passports and
other identification while U.S. inspectors run license-plate checks and randomly search trunks. Delays commonly last hours at some checkpoints.

"The added personnel should help shorten those delays significantly," a U.S. official said.

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