9781422285022

Border Security

Bomb Squad Technician Border Security Dogs on Patrol FBI Agent Fighter Pilot Firefighter Paramedic Search and Rescue Team Secret Service Agent Special Forces SWAT Team Undercover Police Officer

By John Perritano Border Security

Mason Crest 450 Parkway Drive, Suite D Broomall, PA 19008 www.masoncrest.com

© 2016 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-3391-7 Hardback ISBN: 978-1-4222-3393-1 EBook ISBN: 978-1-4222-8502-2

First printing 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Produced by Shoreline Publishing Group LLC Santa Barbara, California Editorial Director: James Buckley Jr. Designer: Bill Madrid Production: Sandy Gordon www.shorelinepublishing.com Cover image: Newscom/MCT/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Tom Pennington Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perritano, John. Border security / by John Perritano. pages cm. -- (On a mission!) Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4222-3393-1 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-1-4222-3391-7 (series) -- ISBN 978-1-4222-8502-2 (ebook) 1. Border security--United States--Juvenile literature. 2. Border patrols--United States--Juvenile literature. 3. U.S. Border Patrol--Juvenile literature. 4. National security--United States--Juvenile literature. I. Title. JV6483.P47 2016 363.28’502373--dc23 2015004838

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Emergency! …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 6 Mission Prep …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 12 Training Mind and Body …….…….…….…….…….…….……. 20 Tools and Technology …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 30 Mission Accomplished! …….…….…….…….…….…….……. 40 Find Out More …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 46 Series Glossary …….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….……. 47 Index/About the Author… .…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…… 48 Contents

Key Icons to Look For

Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text, while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowl- edge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry con- nected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis.

Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented here.

Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains termi- nology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

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Emergency!

A ferry crossing like this one posed a unique challenge for a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

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A few more minutes.

That’s all Ahmed Ressam needs. His is the last car in line. Be calm. Be smart. Then you’re good to go. Home free, as the Americans say. It’s 5:30 p . m . on December 14, 1999, and the last ferry of the day has just docked. Ressam had a lot of time to think during the two-hour crossing. He had driven aboard the ferry at Victoria, a town just south of Vancouver, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The ride across the Strait of Juan de Fuca was uneventful. Now he was here in Port An- geles, Washington, waiting to cross into the United States. Like all the passengers getting off the ferry, Ressam expects to answer a few questions from U.S. Border Patrol inspectors. Afterwards, he’ll be on his way. You can do it. Stay cool. Stay calm. It’ll be okay. Ressam waits in his rental car—the last car in Lane 2, the center lane—Diane Dean’s lane.

Words to Understand asylum protection by a government to someone who has fled another country emblazoned decorated with a symbol, writing, or picture passport official government document that allows a person to travel from country to country warrant official document that allows the police to do something such as arrest a person

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Inspection Most of the inspections at the Port Angeles cross- ing take place outdoors where the wind and the salt air skip off the water. The inspectors stand next to gray tables bolted together from scrap lumber. They question those coming off the ferry. What’s your name? Where are you coming from? Why are you going? How long will you stay? If an inspector needs to make a phone call or check the computer, they walk to a ramshackle trailer, where wayward sparrows and seagulls nest in the rafters. The inspectors feed the birds. One by one, the bor-

Border security agents around the world make sure that the people coming into their countries are who they say they are.

der agents ask their ques- tions. One by one, they wave travelers through. One by one, the cars move up Lane 2. The longer Ressam waits, the more nervous he becomes. He carries a Canadian passport and

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a Costco card, each emblazoned with the fake name, Benni Antoine Noris. Stay calm. You’ll be fine. He starts to sweat. They’ll never find the explosives. I’ve hidden them well. Terrorist in Waiting Born in 1967 in a poor town in Algeria, a coun- try in North Africa, Ressam moved to Canada in 1994 using a fake French passport in which he crudely glued his photo. The passport was easy for Canadian customs officials to spot. Suspecting the document to be fake, Canadian immigration officials peppered Ressam with questions. Ressam eventually admitted the passport wasn’t real and asked for political asylum . He claimed that he had been tortured in Algeria. To go back would mean his death. The Canadians allowed Ressam to stay in their country. Soon, however, using fake documents, he created a new identity and vanished like a puff of smoke. He was

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now Benni Antoine Noris, and no one in Canada was the wiser. For five years, Ressam lived in Canada as Noris. However, Ressam wanted to be a terrorist, too. In 1998, he flew from Montreal to Afghani- stan to train in one of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist camps. He returned to Canada in 1999, armed with the knowledge of how to make a bomb. By August, Ressam had hatched a plan to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport. By the fall, he had built the timing devices needed to set off the explosives. By mid-November, Ressam was in Vancouver gathering all the other materials to complete the plan. He and an associate later rented a motel room and set up a bomb-making factory. The plan was to rent a car, cross the bor- der with the explosives, drive to Los Angeles, and plant the bombs. Crossing Over The rental car inches closer up Lane 2. Inspector Diane Dean cheerfully goes about her job.

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“When I’m working a car, I’m always glancing at the next one behind,” Dean later told the Seattle Times . “If it looks like grandma and grandpa…it probably is. You’re going to ask different questions depending on whether they have U.S. or Canadian plates. You eyeball that person and see if what they look like matches with who they say they are.” To Dean, everyone seems like “regular, nor- mal people.” Everyone, that is, except the man with a fake name in a car he doesn’t own that is crammed with explosives. Later, in the final chapter “Mission Accomplished,” find out how this potentially deadly enemy was prevented from entering the United States. First, read more about how border security experts do their work.

Anyone driving into the United States can be stopped and questioned. Agents check that they have the right papers and identification.

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12 Chapter 1

A link to the past: Some of today’s Border Patrol agents still ride horseback, as the first agents did more than a century ago.

Mission Prep

The United States shares 6,000 miles (9,656 km) of land border with Canada and Mexico. In addition, there are more than 2,000 miles (3,218 km) of coastal waters surrounding Florida and the territory of Puerto Rico. Who protects such a vast area? Who makes sure that weapons, criminals, terrorists, and others don’t enter the country illegally? That job falls to the 21,000 Border Patrol agents of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—also known as the U.S. Border Patrol. The CBP is the largest police force in the United States. Storied History The U.S. Border Patrol has a long and storied history. Although it was first formed in 1924, its origins date back to 1904, when inspectors

Words to Understand cantinas Spanish word for bars or saloons consumption to eat or drink gangsters members of a criminal gang importation to bring something into one country from another country smugglers people who carries goods illegally into a country storied celebrated

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from the U.S. Immigration Service patrolled the Canadian and Mexican borders on horseback. Many of those working for the patrol in the 1920s were former Texas Rangers, local sheriffs, and deputies. Each had to provide his own horse and saddle, although the government furnished food for the horses. The government also gave the inspectors a badge and a gun. The government paid the in-

Modern moves: Vehicles such as this ATV are able to reach just about anywhere in search of trouble at a border.

spectors $1,680 a year (still only about $20,000 in today’s dollars). At the time, only a few people took the job. As a result, the army was often called to patrol the border. In the early 1920s, the need to secure the borders increased greatly after the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was passed. That amendment out- lawed the importation , transporta- tion, and consumption of alcohol. Because of the law, known as Prohibi- tion, smugglers and gangsters did a

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