DETROIT — Capt. Fred Midgette, commander of the Detroit Coast Guard Sector, pointed outside his office window to a white pleasure boat that was speeding down the river.
“That guy could be in Canada before I could get a boat out of the slip if we were interested in stopping him,” he said.
Across the Detroit River is the city of Windsor, Ont. Between the two cities is an invisible line in the middle of the water marking the boundary between the two nations. At some points, only a few hundred yards separate the two river banks. It is a stark contrast to the U.S. southwest.
The southern border with Mexico is infamous for the thousands of economic migrants who illegally attempt to cross into the United States every month, murderous drug cartels that move contraband using automatic weapons and miles and miles of unforgiving desert that can claim the lives of those who don’t respect it.
There’s none of that here, of course. But the roughly 3,100-mile-long northern border comes with its own unique set of problems. Smuggling and illegal crossings occur here as well — the key difference is that it is bi-directional. People, drugs and money flow in both directions. And about 2,400 miles of the 3,100 are waterways.
“We can’t have a wall here. It just doesn’t work like that,” said Midgette.
Nevertheless, the Department of Homeland Security and the Obama administration have signaled their intent to send more resources to the vast northern border. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and her deputy Jane Holl Lute made trips to Canada to discuss border issues during their first few weeks in office. The funds spent here on sensor technology so far has been minuscule compared to the southwest.
Congress added $20 million to install cameras along a stretch of river north of here and near Buffalo, N.Y., in the last budget. Now the new administration has proposed the same amount for 2010. Customs and Border Protection recently opened the Great Lakes Air and Marine Branch north of Detroit — the first of five planned such facilities that will comprise its Northern Border Air Wing.
Construction on the first permanent emplacement of cameras in the Detroit region is due to begin late this summer along the St. Clair River, a body that connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Huron to the north.
Border Patrol Special Agent Kurstan Rosberg and two other agents cruised on a 25-foot boat on a weekday morning along a stretch of the river that will be monitored by the new cameras by the end of the year, if all goes well.
The shores are dotted by wilderness, small towns, private homes and parking lots for small businesses. Only a few hundred yards separates the two nations here. Smugglers can dart across the water, unload contraband, or human cargo, to waiting accomplices on the U.S. side and be gone in a few short minutes. Or visa versa.
“That’s the problem really. The places where they can unload are unlimited,” Rosberg said. “It doesn’t have to be a marina.”
Generally, smugglers move Canadian grown marijuana, called B.C. bud, into the United States. Cocaine tends to travel north. Migrants or criminals who wish to avoid legal ports of entry cross in both directions. Another complication is the climate. The area transforms in the winter, meaning some lakes and rivers are frozen. That makes it easier for smugglers or migrants to cross on foot and harder for law enforcement to move around.
While this weekday saw a few scattered recreational fishermen, a summer weekend on these waters is another matter. There can be thousands of pleasure craft on the nearby Great Lakes, along the St. Clair River, and the Detroit River that connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie. Smugglers often use these busy weekends as cover. They quietly slip in among the recreational boaters, then cross the international line. Rosberg said the new cameras maybe be able to detect this kind of activity.
Along with drugs, people cross illegally as well.
The Detroit Border Patrol sector, which runs from Michigan’s upper peninsula to Sandusky, Ohio, apprehended about 940 illegal migrants last year. Human smuggling networks with connections in New York City and Toronto have become adept at moving immigrants across the border. Those arrested last year came from about 40 nations, and have included “persons of interest” that showed up on terrorist watch list databases, he said. Rosberg could not provide details as these detainees are handed over to the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Taskforce.
The Border Patrol here seized 68 pounds of marijuana and 5.6 pounds of cocaine in fiscal year 2008. The number of detainees, and amount of narcotics seized are miniscule compared to the southern border — that might be a normal day in Arizona — but with such a porous border, it’s hard to know what is passing through undetected. Jayson Ahern, deputy commissioner at Customs and Border Protection, told the House Homeland Security Committee that the United States has “effective control” of approximately 100 miles of the northern border.
In Canada, Inspector Alex Mills, the Windsor detachment commander for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), also sat behind a picture window facing the Detroit River.
Small boats were his number one concern as well. The international border, which cuts right down the middle of the river, is not marked by any buoys.
Boaters “cross it and don’t even know it,” he said. “Are they doing it just by accident or is there a purpose behind it? Those who are involved in smuggling know exactly where that invisible line is. They know where to cross it and know what time of day to cross it.”
Mills said he didn’t know of any terrorist activity in the Windsor area, whether it be local cells or someone transiting in an effort to illegally enter the United States.
“We’re not seeing the border compromised for that purpose,” he said.
Both Canadian and U.S. officials agreed that cooperation on securing the border is excellent. While both sides lack infrastructure such as cameras to monitor the river, the sharing of information and the organizational structure to make that happen is in place.
Shortly after 9/11, Canada and the United States expanded a concept first used along the Washington-British Columbia border to stop the flow of Canadian-grown marijuana. The integrated border enforcement team (IBET) had members of the Canadian mounties and the Border Patrol. After 9/11 and the creation of DHS, the program expanded to 15 different sectors along the border and now includes newly formed agencies within DHS such as Customs and Border Protection and its Canadian counterpart, Canada Border Services Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, explained Staff Sgt. Robert Bergoine, IBET commander for the mounties in the Windsor division.
The Canadian coast guard carries out search-and-rescue missions and doesn’t have law enforcement duties. The RCMP is responsible for security between legal ports of entry.
Each IBET region has a joint management team and a joint intelligence team. They are required to meet every 90 days, but in the Detroit-Windsor area they meet more often than that, Bergoine said. Once a month is more common.
On the lower levels, relations are also good, explained Boatswain’s Mate Patrick Blakeley during a patrol of the Detroit River. He took out a PDA with a secure connection and showed the scheduled patrols that week from a myriad of agencies. Beside the national agencies, there is a patchwork of local jurisdictions that keep an eye on the river: Detroit and Wayne County police and sheriff’s departments and their counterparts in Windsor and Ontario.
While cruising down the river that day, the Coast Guard passed Border Patrol and Wayne County Sheriff’s Department boats that were also monitoring the border.
Blakeley, who previously served in San Diego, echoed the sentiments of other Border Patrol and Coast Guard officers who served in the Southwest: There is a marked difference in the cooperation between nations. Joint operations with Mexican counterparts are rare.
“I’ll see the Canadians just as much as I see our guys,” said Blakeley, who now works at the Belle Isle Station facing the Detroit River. “They cruise in, have lunch. They call us for help, we call them for help.”
Said Rosberg: “It would be extremely difficult for us to operate here without good intel, and good relationships with both our local and state partnerships and especially our Canadian partnerships,” he said.
“It’s definitely a better relationship than with our counterparts down south,” he added.
In one case, the Coast Guard spotted a suspicious boat, but it darted back to the other side of the border, Blakeley said. The U.S. Coast Guard called a Canadian dispatcher and the law enforcement on the Canadian side caught the suspects with 86 pounds of marijuana.
When it comes to search and rescue, there are no borders. The Coast Guard and its Canadian counterparts respond to incidents without regard to international lines. But as far as the agency’s law enforcement mission, there are strict rules.
Blakeley and his crew aboard a 25-foot response boat came across a section of the river between two islands informally known as the Hole in the Wall. The Detroit River differs greatly from the St. Clair River to the north because the area is more industrial. The Hole in the Wall area doesn’t have any rusting factories. It is, however, a hotspot for smuggling because of the proximity of the two riverbanks.
Blakeley and his crew carried out routine checks on pleasure boaters on the Monday after the Independence Day weekend. They made sure their licenses were in order and their boats complied with safety regulations. His PDA connected to a State of Michigan database that could verify photos.
“You keep doing these boardings, eventually you’re going to run into some bad people,” he said.
The boat Blakeley was on had all the necessary software to accommodate night vision cameras such as a forward looking infrared radar, but didn’t have one.
There is a powerful camera at the Belle Isle station that can look out from its vantage point. The private company that owns the Ambassador Bridge spanning the river has cameras and will share imagery if requested. The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy — a nonprofit group that is developing a riverwalk area in the downtown area — will also share images from its security cameras.
“For us, it’s ad hoc,” Blakeley said of the Coast Guard’s efforts to monitor the border with cameras.
Currently, the RCMP has one mobile camera system it uses for special operations. The Border Patrol also has one.
“Finding the resources to cover such a large area is a major challenge,” Bergoine said. The RCMP doesn’t currently have any plans to “blanket the border with technology,” he said. A camera system such as the one that will soon be installed on the St. Clair River would be nice, but he doubts he would have the manpower to monitor it.
“They’re actually more cash strapped than we are,” Cmdr. David Beck, Coast Guard Detroit Sector response chief said of the RCMP.
Bergoine, though, said he has received whatever he has requested from Ottawa in terms of technology.
Not so for the Detroit Sector Coast Guard, Beck said.
“It comes down to old technology, officer on the beat kind of stuff ... We are trying to improve our intel, but we are strapped by lack of personnel. We do the best we can.”
Midgette said the Coast Guard and DHS has requested more funds for intelligence analysts for the Detroit sector, but they have been denied. He wanted seven of the speedy special purpose craft such as the one Blakeley used to patrol the Detroit River, but has only received four. Most of all, he is concerned about a lack of 800 megahertz radios. They are the standard for the Border Patrol and all the local police jurisdictions. But they are not in the Coast Guard inventory. When there is a special event or operation, he has to borrow them from the local police. But what if there were a real emergency?
“In an emergency, I think we would have trouble,” he said.
As for the Border Patrol, Rosberg said, its numbers have swelled since an initiative to double the number of agents. Ahern said at the hearing that there were 1,845 agents assigned to the northern border compared to 18,000 in the south. The Detroit region had 45 agents before 9/11 to keep watch on a sector that stretches about 863 miles. Today, there are 250 officers, and the sector’s ranks are growing.
That might sound like a lot, he said, but the 863 mile figure measures the sector in a straight line. In fact, there are 3,800 miles of bays, rivers and shorelines. The 250 agents need to cover three shifts and then there’s annual leave, training and illnesses.
“When you divide it by the amount of miles, it’s still tough to watch everything,” he said.