generalspeaking

Monday, January 08, 2018

Defending American Borders

"We face shared threats from drug smugglers, terrorists and human traffickers, and we could do things over the phone."
"But there are real advantages to being able to meet and talk to people face to face."
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, Canada

"You have to be on the ground and have the relationships with local law enforcement for this kind of case."
"You can't just parachute in."
Steve R. Martin, special agent, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Pretoria

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations were part of a 2015 extradition in South Africa of suspects in a Nigerian fraud ring that is accused of cheating Americans out of $52 million. Credit Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations.

Tanzanian drug smuggler Ali Khatib Haji Hassan operated a wide-ranging drug smuggling organization, moving quantities of heroin from Pakistan and Iran, and cocaine from suppliers in South America to the United States and elsewhere. One of his operatives was arrested at a Houston, Texas airport. Special agents stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria have been actively involved in apprehending drug smugglers, wildlife traffickers and Nigerian scammers.

In Mr. Hassan's case, they were instrumental in the recent operation that saw Mr. Hassan and two of his associates arrested by authorities in Tanzania, then extradited to stand trial for drug trafficking in the United States. A new, proactive role has been advanced across the globe for the Department of Homeland Security, with an estimated 300 investigators in 50 African countries, representing a portion of the estimated 2,000 Homeland Security employees deployed worldwide in over 70 countries.

Their presence has elicited both praise and cooperation from some of the countries they are engaged with, and resentment and resistance in others, perhaps in direct proportion to those governments' own engagements with illegal activities. And their presence abroad doesn't stop there, with hundreds more personnel deployed either at sea aboard Coast Guard ships or in operations which see surveillance planes above the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

The P-3 Orion surveillance planes patrol more than 42 million square miles in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean — an area almost 14 times the size of the continental United States. Credit Customs and Border Protection, Air and Marine Operations

While some European countries claim the U.S. is busy exporting its own immigration laws to their sovereign territory, others, as allies, are in full agreement with its longer reach helping international security preventing terrorist attacks, drug shipping, or human smuggling rings kept at bay from reaching the United States. As an example, in December a Homeland Security surveillance mission saw agents in drug transit zones close to South America in the push to extend the border.

Taking off from a Costa Rican airfield, agents aboard a Customs and Border Protection surveillance plan tracked a low-flying aircraft heading south toward Ecuador, with no flight plan, flying a hundred meters above the ocean in an obvious attempt to avoid detection by radar. "When they are flying that low, they're probably up to no good", stated senior detection agent Timothy Flynn, observing the plane on a radar screen.

Taking cover in a cloud out of sight, the American P-3 surveillance plane pulled up behind the suspect plane while an agent with a long-lens digital camera snapped photos of the plane's tail number and allied identifying details. That information was radioed back to authorities in Ecuador, waiting when the plane landed, to arrest seven people aboard; in the process taking possession of over 350 kilos of cocaine.

Suspected members of the “Yahoo Boys,” a Nigerian criminal ring, were arrested by Homeland Security Investigations agents and the South African Police Service in Pretoria in 2014. Credit Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations

In Germany, on the other hand, lawmakers question the U.S. department's counterterrorism Immigration Advisory Program investigating and sometimes interviewing travelers at foreign airports by plainclothes Customs and Border Protection officers before travelers are permitted to board flights headed to the United States. Over 8,100 people were detained from travelling to the U.S. in 2015, according to the most recent U.S. data. A member of Germany's Left Party claims the actions amount to extrajudicial travel bans, accusing the US. of moving its "immigration controls to European countries".

In Canada, people were encouraged to flood the prime minister's office with letters and emails to protest legislation permitting American customs officers stationed at Canadian airports and train stations to question, search and detain Canadian citizens, a measure that passed in December. There is no reciprocating agreement where Canadian Customs agents are permitted to examine and question Americans. Over 400 Homeland Security employees are now stationed in Canada, representing the most numerous U.S. agents stationed in any foreign country.