Since the election of President Donald Trump, the issue of border security between the United States and Mexico has been one of the main themes of the national debate. But the incessant focus on the southern US border is due to the media and politicians who ignore security concerns emanating from Canada.
In an interesting op-ed published in the English-language Emirati newspaper The National, Stephen Starr uses some statistics to argue that the influx of extremism from Canada to the United States could be a greater security concern for Washington than immigration flows. from Mexico.
According to US government sources, six foreigners whose names were present on the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) - the central terrorist checklist operated by the Federal Terrorist Screening Center of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - have attempted to enter the United States from Mexico in the first half of the 2018. Starr points out that over the same period, no less than 41 foreigners who were in the TSDB tried to enter the United States from Canada. In the last three and a half years, four Canadian residents have been accused of having carried out or conspired to carry out terrorist attacks on American soil.
They are a Palestinian living in Toronto and a Tunisian living in Montreal, who had planned to derail a passenger train for the trip from Ontario to New York. Both were arrested. Another Canadian, Abdulrahman el-Bahnasawy, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for attempting to plant New York City bombs in Times Square and on a New York subway train.
El-Bahnasawy, who had 20 years when he was sentenced, had been led directly by followers of the Islamic State in the Philippines and Pakistan. Starr notes that some 200 citizens and Canadian residents are believed to have traveled abroad to fight for the Islamic state and that about 60 of these have returned to Canada.
Despite this valuable information, the United States Customs and Border Control Agency (CBP), America's leading border control organization, operating under the Department of Homeland Security, appears to ignore the country's northern border. It is worth noting that the 5,525 mile long border is the longest in the world, but is monitored by no more than about 2.000 CBP agents. In contrast, over 16.000 CBP agents keep an eye on America's borders with Mexico. Responding to political pressure from the White House, CBP continues to send more agents to the southern border. Meanwhile, requests from CBP supervisors along the Canadian border to increase the strength of 200 agents remain unheard.