U.S. border chief testifies that more potential terrorists exploit Canadian system
A U.S. security official says there is a greater threat of terrorism coming from across the Canadian border than from Mexico. During his testimony to the U.S. Senate this week, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin expressed concern potential terrorists are exploiting Canadian immigration loopholes in order to gain entry into the U.S., saying “we have more cases where people who are suspected of alliances with terrorist organizations, or have had a terrorist suspicion in their background—we see more people crossing over from Canada than we have from Mexico.” In 2010, U.S. border officials arrested 450,000 migrants who crossed the Mexican border, and 7,500 people crossing from Canada. But Bersin said that despite the numbers, the more significant threat comes from Canada, where there are more people who are flagged as terrorist threats. But memos from the State Department released by Wikileaks on Wednesday show that some of the practices being used to flag terrorist threats are being called into question, such as the criteria used to place people on U.S. blacklists or the lack of cooperation between the two countries on “No Fly” lists.