As U.S. Watches Mexico, Traffickers Slip In From Canada
As U.S. Watches Mexico, Traffickers Slip In From Canada
By RON NIXON OCT. 16, 2016
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Video The Longest Border in the World
The Northern border of the United States is nearly three times the length of the Southern border, but the Border Patrol in the North makes do with about one-tenth the manpower. The federal agent Norman M. Lague showed us around.
By ERICA BERENSTEIN and RON NIXON on Publish DateOctober 16, 2016.Photo by Jacob Hannah for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »
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ALBURGH, Vt. — An hour before sunset, Miguel Ramos waited in his gray minivan for three Guatemalans to walk undetected across the Canadian border and make illicit entry into the United States.
They walked around a gate to a wooded area, trying to evade security cameras, then quickly piled into the back of the van, and Mr. Ramos tried to drive off. But federal agents who had been tipped off about a suspicious vehicle swooped in to arrest him and his passengers. Mr. Ramos, 32, of the Bronx, was the only one who could produce proper identification.
While the Southern border with Mexico, about 2,000 miles, attracts much more attention, the 5,500-mile Northern border with Canada offers more opportunity for illegal crossing. In many places, like this Vermont border town, there are few signs of where one nation ends and another begins. Some homes, farms and businesses even sit astride the two countries; in other areas, a small white obelisk is the only marker of a border. In the past year, agents made 3,000 apprehensions along the Northern border, compared with 100 times that many along the Southwestern border with Mexico. They also seized 700 pounds of marijuana and cocaine in the North compared with 1.6 million pounds along the heavily gated Southern border.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/us/northern-border-illicit-crossing.html
