SPIES, TERRORISTS & US BORDER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000201600003-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: March 24, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201600003-3
APPEPRED
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
24 March 1986
Spies, terrorists & US borer
By John DiUin
Staff water of The Christian Silence Monitor
Washington
A number of US officials are quietly
warning that America's porous borders
have become an open invitation to world
terrorists and spies.
Officials are particularly troubled by
the growing number of aliens filtering
illegally into the United States from
radical or communist nations, including
Iran, China, Cuba, and Poland.
" %ye are worried about the national-
securitX as particularly commu-
ist infiltration, a federal intelligence
specialist says .
Officials also warn that radical na-
tions that support terrorism could easily
slip saboteurs and assassins past ' tit."
thinly guarded borders with either
Mexico or Canada.
Not all intelligence experts share
these worries.
Wiliam E. Colby, former director of
the Central Intelligence Agency, says
America's very openness is a protection
and a strength against spies. As for ter-
rorism, he says, there is a basic rule: "If
it gets serious, it gets suppressed -
either decently, or indecently."
While terrorism could cause some dis-
ruption in the US, Mr. Colby says, he
doubts that it poses a basic threat to the
nature of American society.
Still, several developments have added to the anxiety being
expressed here by some government sources:
? "Thousands and thousands" of official American passports
have been stolen over a period of months from US embassies in
the Mideast Africa and East Asia b ly, most of t1
passports will be sold on the black market to people who wish to
work in the US. But many could be used to smuggle terrorists
and spies into this country. "It's frightening," a federal intelli-
gence official says.
? Illegal immigration from Mexico has surged by 50 percent in
the past few months. Resources of the US Border Patrol are
being severely strained.
? "Narco-terrorism" is increasing. The recent assassination of
a US drug informant in Baton Rouge, La., by a Colombian hit
squad that entered this ci !-Hit ry i!!eg . ~ycuiu si nail Stepped-up
- V i Itea T criminal terror. The killers slipped into the US at the Mexico-
California border.
? Document forgery has become more sophisticated. Re-
cently, two heroin smugglers arrested in Miami were found to
possess phony security badges, complete with photos and vali-
dation, for Miami International Airport.
Sen. Barry Goldwater (R) of Arizona, chairman of the Armed
Services Committee, says the evidence causes him "concerti."
Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R) of Wyoming says: "You could take a
crack outfit of 100 people, sprinkle them in through the borders
... and they could meet at some predetermined point. [They
could] pick up their equipment on this side of the border.... We
wouldn't even know what was going on."
Amitai Etzioni, director of the Center for Policy Research at
George Washington Univerity, says Americans seem asleep to
the threat that "able-bodied spies" can cross the Rio Grande as
easily as maids seeking work in Texas border towns.
"We still haven't adapted from the 18th-century notion that
we are safe, and nobody can lay a glove on us - that the oceans
will protect us," says Dr. Etzioni.
US Customs Commissioner William von Raab warns that
Mexican law-enforcement officials are being corrupted by drug
smugglers. He adds that Mexican "law enforcement ... can just
as easily be bought by terrorists." He calls the breakdown of law
enforcement a "serious national-security concern." And he ob-
serves: "This is a terrorist threat by every definition."
Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R) of Wyoming notes: "The border is
indefensible against deliberate peasants who simply want a
better life.... Think what happens when the PLO trains little
teams to come into this country, like they have in Israel, and
destroy a schoolbus full of children, or senior citizens on holi-
day, or blow up a bridge." He warns that eventually, terrorism
could undermine "the freedoms that we take for granted."
There are no easy answers to all of this, the experts say. Dr.
Etzioni says the immediate need is to educate the American
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201600003-3
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201600003-3 2 .
public to the threats of the late 20th century, when jet travel
and other modern devices shrink the time it takes to move
around the world.
Senator Simpson, at a breakfast meeting with reporters,
fretted that it may take some terrible terrorist attack to awaken
the US.
Patrick Burns, a researcher for the Federation for American
Immigration Reform, says the terrorist and spy problem defies
easily solution. Immigration reform will help, but it's not the
complete answer.
Alan Nelson, commissioner of the US Immigration and Natu-
ralization Service (INS), says there has been some talk about
"building a wall" along the 2,000-mile southern border with
Mexico to counter terrorism. "I don't think that's very wise, or
very, practical," he says. But he considers the situation serious.
intelligence agents re Dort that aliens from 82 nations have
JUS been detected crossing the Mexican border in the bast year.
"We have been working closely with the other agencies in
this.whoie antiterrorism campaign," Mr. Nelson says. "Clearly,
the ability of terrorists to get through the southern border is a
fact we have to be alert to."
I nigration officials say the Federal Bureau of Investiga-
tion a Central Intellience Agency, and Interpol issue alerts to
INS border guar when it is known that specific terrorists are
trying to slip into the country.
But a federal intelligence expert asks: "How many of them
come in under their own names, with their own legitimate
Passports. It obviously doesn't always work."
The issue of spies and terrorism is complicated by the mil-
lions of people who attempt to enter the US illegally for jobs
each year.
An immigration official in Los Angeles says federal agents
are so busy (1.8 million arrests are predicted this year along the
Mexican border) that "the chances of checking people out in any
detail is almost impossible." The problem appears to be worsen-
ing. The smuggling of people into the US has become a booming
business in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. For a charge of
$4,000 to $5,000, smugglers arrange illegal visas and other
documents necessary for entry.
A telegram sent last year from INS headquarters to its field
offices around the world illustrates the sophistication of the
smugglers. The telegram said a Philippine smuggling syndicate
had begun to move Filipinos through Europe, and then into East
Coast US cities, rather than the traditional West Coast entry
points. It explained that the syndicate "is using East Coast ports
of entry for its clients because INS on the East Coast, particu-
larly New York, is allegedly less vigilant against fraudulent
Philippine travel documents."
Gary Imhoff, who writes on immigration matters, cautions
that the US displays an "arrogant assumption of our own
invulnerability." He then adds: "Guarding a nation's border is a
single, seamless job. The borders cannot remain open to illegal
immigration and still be guarded against smuggling and
terrorists."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000201600003-3