Coast Guard, Border Patrol works to keep Great Lakes safe
Story by Aileen Heiman
Times are changing. Almost everywhere we go there are precautions and security measures to follow in the event of a terrorist attack. However, what most of us fail to realize is that there are people working together every day on the water to keep illegal aliens and materials from entering the United States.
Prior to 9-11, there was only talk of a much-needed collaboration between Border Patrol and the United States Coast Guard. The attacks produced an instant reaction to the problem of patrolling the border. Border Patrol, the Coast Guard, and many other agencies cooperated to reduce smuggling on the North American borders.
The Integrated Borer Enforcement Team (IBET) is a Canadian and United States law enforcement coalition that, with a variety of agencies, conducts monthly meetings and carries out operations. Included in this team are six core agencies, three United States agencies and three Canadian agencies. Other agencies almost always participate in local operations.
One may wonder why this partnership is needed, especially in the Great Lakes. Smuggling is an enormous problem on the waters that border the United States and Canada.
“Since 2003, the Great Lakes District alone has seized 50,837 pounds of marijuana, 182,993 marijuana plants, 606 weapons, 80 sticks of dynamite, and 82 boats, totaling more than $17 million and resulting in 2,036 arrests. Additionally, there have been 3,034 migrants and 242 smugglers caught,” said Coast Guard Intelligence Operations Specialist First Class Petty Officer Mike McKeen of the Ninth Coast Guard District.
According to McKeen, “Neither Border Patrol nor the Coast Guard has the assets or intelligence to sufficiently patrol the borders on their own.”
The relationship brings the agencies to share assets; each agency providing a different “piece of the puzzle” that when together makes the completion of missions easier and more effective.
Border Patrol and the Coast Guard patrol the borders together. Both have boats; two or three people from each agency patrol with the crew on the opposite agency’s boat.
“There is no typical day in the Coast Guard or Border Patrol,” said (BM1) First Class Petty Officer Brandon Liesen of Coast Guard Station Alexandria Bay, N.Y. “We get the crews in, the gear ready, and the boats prepared. Border Patrol and the Coast Guard launch at the same time. We do a risk assessment of weather, where we’re going, and what we’re doing,” said Liesen.
With the enhancement of supplies and manpower since the partnership began, there has been a significant increase in seizures and arrests along the borders.
“We have encountered large amounts of marijuana. Each seizure is an accomplishment,” said Liesen. “We create a net that filters out the bad and lets in the good.”
The teams use small boats, personal defense weapons, night vision, lights, helmet microphones, GPS’s, and radars to watch the waters.
The Coast Guard hopes to increase its involvement in IBET operations to accomplish the similar goals it has with the other agencies.
“The IBET teams are huge and the information shared with them greatly increases our success,” McKeen said.
The Coast Guard has increased its many roles in its post 9-11 movement from the Department of Transportation to the newly developed Department of Homeland Security.
“The Coast Guard, that has many missions including Search and Rescue, Law Enforcement, and border patrol, has always been a reactive service,” McKeen said.
He hopes it will become more proactive by increasing intelligence and relations. “My ultimate goal is that when something happens, everyone that needs to know about it finds out.”
When agencies share intelligence with each other, they can evaluate incidents according to their own knowledge plus information from other agencies. This gives situations different angles, making smuggling easier to detect.
“Groups both on land and on sea are important. If there is a bust on a bridge, the Coast Guard needs to know about it. If smugglers are taking chances on bridges, where they will definitely get stopped, who knows what kind of smuggling is going on under the bridges on the water where they may or may not get stopped,” said McKeen.
There are many sources of intelligence, creating a push for standardized Field Intelligence Reports among the agencies. In a standard format, these reports will make it easier for Homeland Security to evaluate incidents reported by different agencies and determine the level of threat that is imposed to the United States.
“We get intelligence reports and keep an eye out for suspicious activity,” Liesen said. “If we watch a boat go to Canada and five minutes later come back across the border, we’ll check it out. We stop boats with no lights, no registration, and we do random stops as well,” he stated.
“In some past cases, suspicious looking people were investigated and found to be smugglers. Those on duty may have had no prior knowledge of these illegal operations and luckily came across them. Through cooperation, the agencies will decrease random luck by increasing knowledge of substance trafficking to more effectively catch smugglers, who have faster boats and are now more funded and equipped with better technology than ever before,” said McKeen.
When boats are stopped, the Coast Guard and Border Patrol check to see that everything is in compliance with the law, such as the presence of life jackets and flares.
“If we see a boat and want to check it out, like a police car, we turn on the blue lights and stop the vessel. We get information, run names, and check their status and citizenship. If people are illegally trying to get across the border, we run their names and stop them. If there’s probable cause, we’ll search,” Liesen said. “People smuggle anything across the border from cattle, to cigarettes, to drugs, or money.”
The Great Lakes and surrounding waterways are also patrolled by Coast Guard airplanes and other aircraft guarding the air about twenty hours each day. People are encouraged to report suspicious activity so it can be checked out by the proper officials. With a wide assortment of boats conducting business throughout the Great Lakes, it is hard to keep close supervision over every single one. This is why combined knowledge and experience benefits the overall safety of Great Lakes. Teamwork has increased results and greatly reduced the threats of terrorism.
There is an idea that if prior to 9-11, everyone had shared information with each other, the pieces potentially could have been put together to increase awareness of the attacks. Without the relationship that now exists between the Coast Guard and Border Patrol, many of the seizures and arrests that have occurred may not have been possible, making terrorist threats a greater likelihood. The Coast Guard conducts various operations in effort to help patrol the border and hopes to utilize assets and share missions to make the Border Patrol union more successful.
“Our immediate goal is to build strong relationships with our Homeland Security partners,” said Liesen “Our ultimate goal is to stop as much illegal activity as possible.”
Both the Coast Guard and Border Patrol work continuously to keep the borders and citizens of United States safe. As the concern for terrorism continues, daily, these agencies will be out on the borders of the water, their partnership helping block the threats of illegal substances in order to secure the nation.
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