Senator fears U.S. border is 'gateway' for terrorists

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein yesterday asked the top U.S. intelligence official whether the U.S. border had become a "major gateway" for terrorists, citing a threefold increase in the number of non-Mexicans apprehended while seeking to illegally enter the United States.

The California Democrat posed the question during a hearing with National Intelligence Director John D. Negroponte and other heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, called to present their annual threat assessments to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

"Last year, Admiral [James] Loy and I discussed border security, particularly the increasing problem of penetration of other-than-Mexicans across our borders ... and I said at that time I felt it was a major gateway for terrorists to access the United States," she said. The retired admiral was the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security at the time.

"Do you have ongoing intelligence efforts to prevent this from happening? And is there any evidence up to this point that it is, in fact, happening?" she asked, noting that the number of apprehended non-Mexican aliens rose from 49,545 in 2003 to 155,000 last year.

Mr. Negroponte said the increase was "an issue that we're sensitive to," noting that although the U.S. border with Canada "has to some degree been of a bit greater concern than that with Mexico," the intelligence community was intent on watching the border "very, very carefully."

Charles Allen, chief intelligence officer at the Department of Homeland Security, said that his agency is "very sensitive" to the growing number of non-Mexicans trying to illegally enter the U.S., and that newly established enforcement initiatives and a "catch-and-return or deport" program would affect the numbers.

Mr. Allen also said that terrorists are facing an increasingly challenging environment in their efforts to enter the United States by air and by sea and that the department was intent on better securing the border.

"We really do have to work this issue a lot harder and ... we're using significant new capabilities, including border patrolmen, but significant new advanced technologies to try to detect people entering our country, particularly in Texas and Arizona," Mr. Allen said.

More than 85 percent of the illegal aliens caught at the U.S. border each year are from Mexico, and most are escorted back across the border within 24 hours. The others are referred to as other-than-Mexican, or OTMs. When non-Mexicans are apprehended, they initially are detained, but because of a lack of beds, they have been released back onto U.S. streets pending a hearing.

About 15 percent show up for the hearings.

The Homeland Security Department has begun a program, known as expedited removal, to process OTMs through the system more quickly. Detained non-Mexicans are placed into streamlined proceedings, from which they are returned home in an average of 32 days.