ORIENT, Wash. (AP)
Minutes after Capt. Gary Roman
slipped a set of spurs over his
boots, a rancher pulled up, hauling
a trailer full of the latest
weapons in the U.S. Border
Patrol’s lookout for drug smugglers,
illegal aliens and terrorists:
horses.
Since April, the Spokane sector
of the Border Patrol has been
using horse patrols along the 309-
mile stretch of border it oversees
between Montana’s Rocky
Mountains and the eastern slopes
of Washington’s Cascades a
thickly forested expanse that
includes some of the roughest
terrain in the country.
With help from horses, the
agency is now able to keep watch
on mountains and canyons once
inaccessible to pickups, all-terrain
vehicles and snowmobiles.
“You think horses and you
think that’s what we used 75
years ago,” Roman said, heaving
a leather saddle atop a gelding.
“For one thing, they’re quiet.
They’re also faster than an agent
on foot, and they’re going to let
you know somebody is out there
long before you would know it.”
All seven Border Patrol stations
in the Spokane sector now
deploy regular horse patrols,
making it the only sector along
the northern border that uses
horses at each of its stations,
said Lonnie Moore, an agency
spokesman.
Sector Chief Robert Harris
has also recently equipped each
of the stations with specially
trained human-tracking dogs.
Although the Border Patrol’s
top priority is to catch terrorists,
much of the Spokane sector’s
work
involves stopping the smuggling
of British Columbia-grown
marijuana and the northbound
trafficking of cocaine.
In fiscal year 2005, the U.S.
Border Patrol made 7,342 apprehensions
along the border with
Canada, compared with 1.2 million
apprehensions along the
Mexican border, said Lonnie
Moore, an agency spokesman.
However, many experts consider
the largely open northern
border to be a more likely point
of passage for suspected terrorists.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, the Border Patrol
has tripled the number of agents
posted in the Spokane sector,
Moore said. Although the agents
are sometimes seen working with
their drug dogs at highway border
stations, most of their work
involves policing the long
stretches of the 49th parallel
between stations.
The increase in agents has
made it tougher on smugglers,
who have had to find new methods
to carry their drugs over the
border, Roman said, leading the
patrol of agents on horses up a
steep, narrow path one recent
day. “We hit them hard with
vehicles, then with boats. Now
they’re using helicopters and
planes to get over us.”
The horse patrols in the area
haven’t yet resulted in any
arrests, but agents are learning
new trails and are able to keep a
better watch on possible routes,
agent Allen Foraker said. “We’re
turning in some good intel
because of the areas we’re now
accessing.”
Foraker spends most of his
time on patrol staring at the
ground, looking for footprints,
broken brush, cigarette butts or
tiny flecks of surveyor’s tape.
Agents follow even the
faintest of clues. If the trail is
hot and it leads across the border,
they use a shared radio frequency
to call for help from their
counterparts with the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police.
Border Patrol agents have
also begun handing out refrigerator
magnets with a telephone tip
hotline o people living near the
border. There’s already been at
least one drug seizure made from
a magnet call, Roman said.
Agents also chat with hikers
or hunters. “We talk to everybody,”
Foraker said. “Generally,
within two minutes we know if
they belong in this country.”
Backcountry drug trafficking
has slowed since the 9/11 buildup
of agents, Foraker said.
Smugglers have been forced
deeper into the backcountry and
onto lesser-used trails. One of the
benefits of the horse patrols,
Foraker said, is to help agents
learn every square foot of their
patrol area and keep up with the
smugglers.
President Bush is promoting a
plan to hire up to 6,000 new
agents in coming years. Before
any get a shot at riding horses
through the wilds of the Inland
Northwest, they’ll have to learn
Spanish and begin their careers
with a stint along the busy border
with Mexico.
