Inspectors to move across border

[chewy]

This is an article from Buffalo. They are considering this for most of the northern border from what I hear. needless to say, we're not real big on giving up our weapons and stuff to work in Canada. I also heard (at least locally) that we would also have to pay our own bridge toll fees to get to work. This came up for some of our other officers already working in Canada. The Government refused to pay our toll for the bridge crossing (both ways) even though we wouldn't have any choice. Kinda sucks. I think they are going to lose a lot of people if they start pulling weapons from us. Oh, well, what can you do...well, update the OF612 I guess would be a good start Anyway, here you go. Feel free to add feedback or opinions.


http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial...14/1053276.asp


Firearms are unlikely for U.S. Customs agents

By DOUGLAS TURNER
News Washington Bureau Chief
2/14/2005

WASHINGTON - U.S. Customs agents should be working at booths on the Canadian side of the Peace Bridge within two years, but they are likely to be carrying pepper spray instead of firearms, authorities here and in Buffalo confirm.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said he learned of the decision during a meeting in his office with Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary of homeland security for border and transportation security.

Hutchinson said American inspectors will have "batons and mace and pepper(spray) but no firearms, which meets both sides' satisfaction," Schumer said.

Armed police backup - when necessary - will be provided by Canada.

However, Canadian officials maintained Friday the question about arming U.S. agents has not been completely settled. At the same time, they were not willing to say Canada's Liberal Party policy against U.S. agents wearing sidearms across the border has been abandoned.

The firearms issue has been a touchy one with the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents U.S. Customs personnel. The union's insistence on its agents carrying firearms into Canada has long been a stumbling block to full use of the big clearance yard built seven years ago in Fort Erie, Ont.

Customs officials who carry firearms are given hazardous-duty status and earn more in pay and benefits.

A probable settlement is that the U.S. agents assigned to Canada will be deemed by the Homeland Security Department to be on hazardous duty even though they have no firearms.

When opened, the inspection station in Fort Erie will be the first at the border where American agents operating on Canadian soil will be clearing vehicles bound for the United States.

Paul J. Koessler, chairman of the Peace Bridge Authority, said the move of the U.S. inspection station to Canada will be accomplished within two years regardless of how far along the Peace Bridge replacement process has moved.

The transfer of the inspection booths is expected to speed traffic on the bridge, which at times has resulted in miles of backups.

Schumer said the U.S. State Department will have the American share of the regulations written in a month.

Moving truck inspections from Buffalo to Fort Erie means the authority will need far less room for a plaza on the Buffalo side for the bridge expansion.

Schumer said because the operation will be on Canadian soil, the Canadian Parliament needs to take a legislative pathway and its work won't be done until June.

Koessler confirmed the arrangements during a meeting he said he had with Roger Marsham, Canadian consul general in Buffalo.

"We're delighted, of course," Koessler said, "and we'll be able to move as soon as the two governments complete" their paperwork.

Not wishing to comment on a U.S. labor dispute, Chris Kealy, a spokesman for the Canada Border Services Agency, said the firearms issue "has not been determined to the best of my knowledge at this point."

On the question of infrastructure, Koessler and other authority members are scheduled to meet next week to discuss how to build the proposed truck inspection facilities in Fort Erie.

One Canadian source said a starting point will be to take the plan for the truck inspection facility for the expansion project as once envisioned for the Buffalo side and try it out for size in Fort Erie.

Schumer said he also met with Michael Chertoff, secretary designate of homeland security, and secured Chertoff's assurance that he would move aggressively to complete the transfer of inspectors to Fort Erie once he is confirmed.

Hutchinson's visit with Schumer probably will be his last as undersecretary. He is resigning.

[JBT]

That totally sucks, they were talking about that three years ago when I was still there. Y'all gotta fight the gun issue, not having a sidearm is a safety issue.

[chewy]

That totally sucks, they were talking about that three years ago when I was still there. Y'all gotta fight the gun issue, not having a sidearm is a safety issue.

I agree, not to mention once they get us over there without any weapons then they will suddenly go "hey, you don't have your weapons now...guess you don't need them" then there goes our LE status. I was reading the article and I laughed on the part that said the reason we don't want to give up our firearms was because we get "hazardous duty pay" if we wear them? WTF? I didn't even know that Customs HAD a hazardous duty pay. Where the heck do these reporters get their information? Just like the fact they keep calling us agents. How many agents do you know would give up their guns to go work in Canada? Not many I assure you. I get REAL ticked off by the fact that we seem to be the ones giving up everything. If this is such an issue with the Canadians about us carrying guns why the hell can't we do the same thing in reverse and have them on OUR side of the border? First of all, IF they CARRIED guns they would still be able to carry them on the U.S. side and we wouldn't make them give up all their gear to work here. Why we HAVE TO go to their side AND get all kinds of grief about our weapons is beyond my comprehension but I'm sure our management/government is just ALL TOO HAPPY to pull our authority and stick us over there. Sometimes I wonder why we even go through the motions. :mad:

[bdbaskar]

I'm sure our management/government is just ALL TOO HAPPY to pull our authority and stick us over there. Sometimes I wonder why we even go through the motions. :mad:

This reminds me of the issue, during the 1st Gulf War, of our military women going to the middle east as soldiers, then having to follow the local customary dress and wear a hijab so not to offend them. We were there to protect them and get Sadam out of Kuwait, but had to bow down to their stipulations for our military.

It seems that too many times our leaders weaken our national security and risk harm to those protecting us by being too politically pacifying. :mad:

This happened again in the incident now portrayed in the movie "Black Hawk Down." Our leaders need to forget about being political and give all men and women in military or LE uniforms the necessary means to protect the greatest nation in the world. IMHO. (Sorry to our friends in Canada, Australia, England, and B.C. if the last statement offends you.)

[chewy]

This reminds me of the issue, during the 1st Gulf War, of our military women going to the middle east as soldiers, then having to follow the local customary dress and wear a hijab so not to offend them. We were there to protect them and get Sadam out of Kuwait, but had to bow down to their stipulations for our military.

It seems that too many times our leaders weaken our national security and risk harm to those protecting us by being too politically pacifying. :mad:

This happened again in the incident now portrayed in the movie "Black Hawk Down." Our leaders need to forget about being political and give all men and women in military or LE uniforms the necessary means to protect the greatest nation in the world. IMHO. (Sorry to our friends in Canada, Australia, England, and B.C. if the last statement offends you.)

Amen. Quit the BS and let us do our F'ing job.

[Bryan]

Chewy

Our Federal Goverment is very very weird when it comes to The Canadian Border Enforcement Agency as I am sure you have heard from your Canadian Counterparts. To my knowledge the Canadian Border LEOs have yet to issued sidearms, but they have shotguns locked-up in the office for personal protection if needed. The Canadian Border agents have been trying for years to obtain the right to be equiped with sidearms to enforce Canadian laws and for protection. The Fed Goverment refuses to to concede that our Borders need to be manned with armed customs agents.

In fact it wasn't until 1999 or 2000 that Canadian Border officals could legally arrest a person coming through a port of entry, which was dumb. If they found someone committing an offence, that had to call the nearest police dept to come and arrest that person. '

The Federal Goverment however sees the need to equip our Department of Fisheries and Oceans Personal with S&W 9mm (same as RCMP issue) to inforce our enviroment laws and Fish laws..even dumber. that they get to go to RCMP training academy for the same training as us.

If the Federal goverment grants the US Border agents permisson to carry sidearms to the Canadian Side to assit Canadian Border agents enforce Canadian Laws there would be a huge Political shit storm. Simply because they don't think the Canadian Agents need guns to do thier job.

I know for a fact, that in manitoba we had an incident where one of our Border agents got into a serious situation called his US counterparts for immediate backup and the US guys came across the border and held the badguy at gunpoint until the RCMP arrived.

I for one think that the US Border units should keep the heaters if they come to ourside because it might help the Canadian guys win thier fight to be armed.

Here's another kick in the ass, The RCMP have the Pipeline/Convoy program where US LEOS come up and work for a month. They wear thier respective uniform right down to the sidearm and help RCMP enforce drugs laws.No questions asked..

[cjcrew022000]

IMHO Canadian Customs officers should carry sidearms. You can't bring a knife to a gun fight, pepper spray and batons are only so effective. I am sure a conservative majority would arm customs officers. In the words of Liberal MP Elinor Caplan "Giving customs officers guns is like giving 3,000 accidents an opportunity to happen". When Alliance MP Rahim Jaffer slamed her on this comment in the House of Commons she responded with "for a moment I thought I heard the voice of Charlton Heston". Give the Canadians guns, proper training, and allow the Americans to carry theirs here.

[chewy]

If the Federal government grants the US Border agents permission to carry side arms to the Canadian Side to assist Canadian Border agents enforce Canadian Laws there would be a huge Political shit storm. Simply because they don't think the Canadian Agents need guns to do their job.

Well, I can understand my Canadian partners getting upset because they can't have guns but we wouldn't be "assisting" them. We would be enforcing U.S. laws just the same as if we were on the other side. The reason to combine to one location (and why Canada gets to be the location is beyond me) is to have only one stop and hopefully eliminate backups. We still would have no authority to enforce Canadian laws and we would be doing our same job (as the Canadians wouldn't be able to enforce our laws either) but a couple hundred yards to the north. I personally think the whole thing is crap and is just going to ultimately lead to an unarmed over smiling happy and polite border crossing "agency" made up of Canadians and U.S. that will make you feel very good about your self but not actually do anything about enforcing the laws. As it is now we are pushed more towards smiling and being polite and nice than we are to actually look for any violations. To quote one of our more recent training classes from headquarters "smile and say something like 'welcome home' or welcome to America' " and I also believe that "when completed with your question say 'thank you for your time' " was also tossed at us. We were essentially told that our new priority was to put on a happy face and look good. Our new policies are strictly being enforced about having sharp looking uniforms, being polite to travelers, and keeping primary truck inquiries down to under two minutes. I believe the push at our airport is that we have to have a flight cleared out in 45min. from the time the plane stops at the gate until the time the last passenger is out the door. If any of you have any idea of the time it takes to get the passengers off loaded and the luggage off the plane and down to the claim belts you will realize that factoring in a primary and possible secondary stop to answer questions (at a minimum) the 45min. thing is a little unrealistic. Our whole day is about pushing things through to the point that a very small percentage actually gets looked at. For example at our cargo dock, we have at or over 7,000 trucks in a 24hour period, more than anywhere else in the country including any southern border port, and we have TWO people actually doing intensive exams of the cargo and conveyance at our dock on each shift while we have 22 to 26 Officers working primary clearing trucks down the road. You would think that with the current status of our "situation" in the world that we would want to check more cargo, not less. On average, out of the 7,000 trucks a day, we do intensive searches of approx. 60 a day and the majority of those are barely tailgate checks of the freight for trade issues. We do, maybe 10 good enforcement searches involving K-9 and devanning a day. That means less than one percent of the trucks crossing Detroit get sent for intensive exam and about one fifth or less of those actually get a 100% enforcement exam. We do have the Gamma scanner that scans the whole truck but that is anything but effective and on a busy day they don't do one percent of the trucks through that. Things need to change and I would have thought that a terrorist attack in our own F'ing country would definatly change that but unfortunately all it's done is give us more people to facilitate traffic faster than before with no more exams that we did with a third of the people we had before 9-11. :mad:

Sorry I am going on and on but as I am typing this my wife is on the phone with another co-worker who took two days sick for her kid and a third day because she apparently caught what her kid had. She had documents from the hospital to prove her kid was seen by the doctor both days. She went to work and got threatened with a letter of reprimand for abuse of sick leave. She was asked for paperwork (yes, we need a note from our mommies to prove we were sick. Apparently being an adult and carrying a gun and badge and credentials that state on them "This Officer is worthy of trust and confidence" doesn't actually mean our management thinks we are) proving she was sick and she gave them the papers. Then they said they needed papers for the third day. Wouldn't the fact that you went to the doctor two days in a row and got meds etc for your kids flu reasonably lead you to the conclusion you COULD ACTUALLY BE SICK A THIRD DAY? Un-Fing believable. We earn so many sick leave hours a pay as part of our pay and contract. You would think they would be there for you to use if you were sick.? WRONG. The thing that Pisses me off, more than the fact that this is apparently the biggest thing they have to worry about...and believe me it isn't, is the fact that I don't understand when it became necessary for you to be sick enough to have to get a doctors note to actually use sick leave for two or three days. I certainly have been to the point that I didn't feel well and didn't feel like coming to work, standing at the airport for eight hours constantly questioning passengers. Some times you don't feel like talking to everyone and just want to stay home and have some soup and hot coco. Now, apparently, we need to have an organ transplant or something to use more than two sick days. The other thing that upsets me about this situation is that the days she called in sick weren't in conjunction with off days or holidays or vacation so it wasn't like she was scamming and, on top of that they threatened to write her up for this alleged abuse of leave and she has never even been counseled about ANYTHING before. She is, in all practical terms, and excellent employee. And they wonder why we lose more people than we hire every year.




**EDIT** I should say that the regulations set forth by OPM do state that leave "in excess of 3 days, or for a lesser period when determined necessary by the agency, an agency may require a medical certificate or other administratively acceptable evidence." At what time does this become unreasonable? I just heard also that the three days in question weren't connected. Two days one week and the third the next week.



**steam blows out of the ears** :Mad:

I'm sorry to hijack this thread but this is all building up in me and I need to vent. Thanks for listening and if you're considering going into CBP...STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM DETROIT.

[coucousis]

Canadian Border should have Armed Customs officer.... So should USA and both shall be working togheter for everyone safety....

This is ridiculous... I still don't get why the Canadian GVT don't provide sidearm to our Customs officers!

A whole lot of political BS in my mind!

[cjcrew022000]

The commission that investigated whether CBSA officials should carry sidearms found that their job wasn't hazardous enough. That may be true but now that Customs officers can enforce criminal code statutes (such as DUI) and can arrest on warrants makes for a greater potential for danger.

[chewy]

The commission that investigated whether CBSA officials should carry sidearms found that their job wasn't hazardous enough. That may be true but now that Customs officers can enforce criminal code statutes (such as DUI) and can arrest on warrants makes for a greater potential for danger.

We certainly don't shoot people every day but we have physicall confrontations at least once a week or one every week and a half. Detroit averages shootings every four to five years (although the last one involving one of our passengers with a gun the supervisor locked all of us in side and forbid us to go out and help then called DPD who arrived twienty min. later and killed the guy.?). It certainly isn't as dangerous as patrol duty, mainly because we have several officers in a smaller area so that keeps people mellow but we still get the ones that want to come out swinging...they always loose but they do try.

[Strijder]

Last time I crossed the border, the Canadian customs officer wore body armor (external, at least lvl III, maybe IV... it was huge) and stood behind bulletproof glass... yet they don't see the need for arming them? Helloooo politics.

[Bryan]

The commission that investigated whether CBSA officials should carry sidearms found that their job wasn't hazardous enough. That may be true but now that Customs officers can enforce criminal code statutes (such as DUI) and can arrest on warrants makes for a greater potential for danger.

I have always thought they should be armed, I are in harms way often enough. I know we get an awfull lot of BOLF for fugitves from the US wanting to hide up here..

[chewy]

Last time I crossed the border, the Canadian customs officer wore body armor (external, at least lvl III, maybe IV... it was huge) and stood behind bulletproof glass... yet they don't see the need for arming them? Helloooo politics.

Ya, they get nice external carriers that are marked and everything. We get issued body armor (mine was several years ago...apparently they don't feel the need to reissue that often. My wife got issued her's fourteen years ago and just got re-issued new stuff four years ago!) but it has to be worn under the uniform. I know this is standard for most departments but for us I would love to see external as sometimes you get put in an office with no access to the public and it would be nice to be able to take it off for that hour or so then put it back on when your out with the public. Well, at least we get it. several years ago they quit issuing armor and we had a six or seven year period where they didn't issue any armor at all. Then, about a two years into my career here, they started to issue Second Chance armor again. Now they went to US Armour although a lot of us still have five year old Second Chance. Personally I agree, if you feel the need to issue body armor then you should also give them guns.

[sorrel]

Question for those that know.

Why are we sending ppl to Canada ?
We do handle this side of the boarder don't we ?
Do we not trust Canada to handle thier side ?

I mean I could see Mexico, not unarmed mind you, but do we need to reinforce the boarder between the US and Canada and Canada did not agree ????