POOR STRATEGY ON BORDER PATROLS

The U.S.-Canadian border is less secure today because the Immigration
and Naturalization Service has plucked Border Patrol agents from here
and scattered them along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Worse, the INS has taken the Border Patrol planes that monitor
Canada's border with the Northwest and is soon to yank the remaining
aircraft patrolling the rest of that border.

One can't dismiss the serious problems the INS is trying to solve
along the Mexican border, especially the terrible loss of lives among
would-be immigrants in the Tucson area -- 217 since October, mostly
from exposure. But there is risk along the northern border too.

"We saw how potentially tragic it could be a couple of months ago with
the Ressam case," said Lew Moore, chief of staff for Rep. Jack
Metcalf, R-Wash.

That's a reference to the December arrest of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian
detained at Port Angeles after crossing from Canada with explosives in
the trunk of his rented car. The transfer of a Blaine area agent also
has been linked to the shooting death of a Pasco police officer by a
thrice-deported felon.

The INS has apparently reneged on its promise last fall to the
Washington congressional delegation to quit poaching Northwest agents
for southern border duty. Deterrence of drug smuggling and terrorism
depends upon adequate security at both borders, and robbing Peter to
cover for Paul is a lousy strategy.

- -- The Seattle Post Intelligencer