Frozen River at the Northern Border

Frozen River at the Northern Border.



film about borders, both physical and psychological, "Frozen River" (Sony Classics) is the somber, understated but dramatically effective feature debut from writer-director Courtney Hunt.

It opens with the arresting image of a woman silently but passionately weeping, then gradually unfolds the reasons for her despair. Upstate New York working-class mom Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), we learn, has just been abandoned by her gambling-addicted husband, who's taken with him the down payment on the family's desperately needed new trailer home.

So, leaving her 5-year-old son, Ricky (James Reilly), in the care of his 15-year-old brother, T.J. (Charlie McDermott), Ray sets off to retrieve the funds. Her hunt leads instead to a violent confrontation with Lila (Misty Upham), a local Mohawk woman now in possession of the deadbeat's abandoned car.

A former cigarette smuggler, widowed Lila has more recently turned to transporting undocumented aliens across the ice-covered St. Lawrence River from Canada into the United States. Wielding a gun, she compels the normally timid Ray to make such a run, assuring her that, since she's white, the patrolling troopers will let her pass unchallenged.

Though shaken by the ordeal, Ray is drawn to the financial rewards of this human trafficking and volunteers to make another trip. As she and the reticent Lila slowly bond, their repeated border crossings become riskier and they become increasingly desensitized to the plight of the people they're ferrying.

Yet by the film's conclusion, a series of harrowing events breaks the cycle of victimization, pulling both women back from the moral margin across which they've strayed.

An unflinching study of hard times, racial divisions, the plight of migrants and the lure of fast money, "Frozen River" is also, ultimately, a celebration of barrier-transcending friendship, rediscovered decency and the quiet, self-sacrificing heroism that makes for a morally satisfying, if less than happy ending.

Leo and Upham give powerfully restrained performances, with Leo in particular presenting a fully rounded character whose flaws and limitations are as clearly delineated as her virtues. Every detail of the Rust Belt setting adds to the air of authenticity.

The film contains a human trafficking theme, some rough and crude language, and a brief strip-club scene without nudity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

LOU DOBBS NIGHTMARE. HIS PANICS SPECIALLY MEXICANS. WOULD THEIR PUNISHMENT FIT THEIR CRIME?. SINCE WHEN SEARCHING FOR A BETTER LIFE IS A CRIME?


U.S. Canada border is a security nightmare. When CNN ran the debate, the Lou Dobbs network made sure that the first half-hour was devoted to Undocumented immigration and Broken border not borders.
Why Mexico and Mexicans are treated worst than Terrorist? What crime Mexicans or Mexico committed to be treated this way?. They have been persecuted, scapegoating, blamed, demonized, stereotyping, diminished. We do have problems with Undocumented immigrants on the southern border, but we have problems with terrorists and smugglers, Drug Dealers on the northern border.” we found no terrorist presence in Mexico and a number of Canadian-based terrorists who have entered the United States.

The big difference between a Mexican and a Terrorist is that Mexicans will die for feeding their families rather than Terrorists who's will die and Kill innocent people for their belief and anger.

In Washington state’s Pasayten Wilderness Area, agents patrol the rough backcountry on horseback. The 12 mustangs roamed wild on federal lands before they were rounded up and broken.
South of Ottawa, along the St. Lawrence River in an area know as Thousand Islands, agents chase smugglers known as river rats — mom and pop operators running cigarettes, liquor and drugs across the border into New York.

In Derby Line, Vt., the Haskell Free Library and Opera House straddles the border. The front door is in the United States. The checkout desk is in Canada. That could come to an end. Earlier this year, two vans carrying 21 Undocumented immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere were stopped in Derby Line.

Residents of North Dakota and Minnesota fear their cold winters may have frozen the motion detectors along their border with Canada.

Along Montana’s Sweetgrass Hills and Milk River, the border, in some places, is separated by nothing more than a broken fence. In one incident, a rancher in Montana’s desolate prairie stopped two Jamaicans dressed in T-shirts and shorts.

“It would be difficult to secure the (northern) border with the assets we have there now,” said Greg Kutz, a Government Accountability Office investigator and author of a recent study that found terrorists carrying nuclear material could easily enter the United States from Canada.

SECURITY FALLS SHORT

While Colburn and others say there is no hard evidence showing illegal activity has increased on the northern border, Sheriff Elfo said there is mounting anecdotal evidence. He points to the discovery in August of two backpacks hidden in a ditch near the Black Mountain Boy Scout Camp north of Silver Lake, between Maple Falls and the Canadian border. The backpacks contained about 68 pounds of cocaine, with a street value of about $1.2 million.

Colburn is well aware of the problems.

“We are nowhere near where we think we should be,” he said in an interview about security along the northern border. “But we are getting there faster than ever before.”

Customs and Border Protection now has air wings in Bellingham, Great Falls, Mont., Grand Forks, N.D, and Plattsburg, N.Y. The air wings include Blackhawk helicopters, surveillance aircraft and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition to “boots on the ground,” Colburn said agents use all-terrain vehicles, Zodiac inflatable boats and snowmobiles. Motion detectors, radar and infrared technology also are deployed.
“Just because you don’t see us doesn’t mean we don’t see you,” Colburn said.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers from northern border states remain frustrated. Given the outrage over undocumented workers flooding in from Mexico, they remain skeptical the Border Patrol will ever pay enough attention to the northern border.

“They aren’t leaning forward on this,” said Rep. Norm Dicks, DWash., a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Congress wants to add as many as 600 additional agents to northern border patrols. But some say even that isn’t enough.

“There will still be a huge inequity,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “We do have problems with illegal immigrants on the southern border, but we have problems with terrorists on the northern border.”

CANADA’S TERRORISM RISK

Given Canada’s open immigration policies, terrorist organizations have established cells there seeking “safe havens, operational bases and attempting to gain access to the USA,” according to a 1998 report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The report said more than 50 terrorist groups may be present, including Hezbollah, Hamas and radical Islamic groups from Iran and Algeria.

A 2006 report from the Nixon Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank, quoted a senior FBI official as saying Canada is the most worrisome terrorist point of entry and al- Qaida training manuals advise terrorists to enter the United States from Canada.

The report concluded that “despite widespread alarms raised over terrorist infiltration from Mexico, we found no terrorist presence in Mexico and a number of Canadian-based terrorists who have entered the United States.”

Among them were Ahmed Ressam — the so-called Millennium Bomber who was stopped in 1999 by an alert agent at a border crossing in Port Angeles, before he could carry out a plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport — and Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian terrorist who was mistakenly released after being stopped near Bellingham in 1997. He then moved to Brooklyn where he was later convicted of plotting to bomb a New York City subway station.

“They have to be concerned about the Canadian border,” said Robert Leiken, one of the authors of the Nixon Center study. “If they aren’t, we are in a lot of trouble.”

Law enforcement officials say the presence of suspected terrorists in Canada is a worry, and they share intelligence on the threat daily.

“The fact that we have identified people connected with terrorism who have crossed the border shows we are paying attention,” said Mike Cabana, a chief superintendent with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who oversees border security.

Canadians are aware that the crackdown on the U.S.-Mexico border could affect them.

“If the U.S.-Mexico border is sealed, it is safe to assume criminality will be displaced and it is logical to assume it could affect the northern border,” said Cabana. “Of course we are concerned, but it is too early to tell whether it will make a difference.”

WHATCOM COUNTY VIEW

Back in Blaine, down the street from the Smuggler’s Inn, Shirley- Ann Leu says she and her husband, Herbert, have learned to live with Border Patrol agents sitting on their back retaining wall, the RCMP flashing lights in their yard at 3 a.m. and the helicopter patrols.
“The big cameras are going round and round all the time,” she said. “They know every car in the neighborhood. You get used to it.”

Despite the heightened security, Sheriff Elfo said he remains anxious about the terrorists, drug smugglers and illegal immigrants who view the Canadian border as an easy route into the United States.
“The help from the feds has improved dramatically,” he said. “But we know individuals and contraband continue to cross regularly.”

Slavery still exists today.

Over 27 million people are in slavery today—more than at any time in history according to the Amazing Change campaign, a global effort inspired by the film Amazing Grace to abolish modern-day slavery. It is the world’s fastest growing illegal crime, according to Stop The Traffick.

Most people believe “human trafficking” occurs in far away countries with impoverished governments, but 17 million boys, girls, men and women are in forced labor or sexual services in the United States today, says Shared Hope International (SHI). They have found that many American citizens — children at the average age of 12 — are trafficked locally between American cities and across state lines daily. Founder of SHI, Congresswoman (l994-1999) Linda Smith, has launched assessments in ten U.S. cities to examine America’s trafficked youth and is launching a nationwide awareness campaign. Groups like hers inspired our U.S. Senate on June 22, 2007, to pass a resolution to forever mark Jan. 11 as a day of awareness and vigilance for the countless victims of Human Trafficking.

We need some more William Wilberforces, MLKs, Harriet Stowes and underground railroads to arise

Why in the World we continue diminishing, stereotyping, criticizing, provoking, instigating, and making derogatory statements against Mexicans and Mexico because they can not control the Border? Why we are not criticized our Norther Border?
Border Patrol acknowledged that the number of people caught are still relatively small but the border is twice larger than our Southern Border. Why Mexicans?


Border Patrol catches group, smuggler crossing from B.C. into Washington state

SPOKANE, Wash. - The Border Patrol in the past two months has already intercepted more people trying to sneak into the United States at a remote crossing northwest of Spokane than in all of the previous 12 months.

Agents have intercepted 11 people crossing into the United States near the Danville crossing since the government's new fiscal year started Oct. 1, the Border Patrol said. That's one more than they captured in all of the past fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Eight of the people were a group of South Koreans intercepted late last week after they crossed the border, said Steve Garrett, an assistant Border Patrol supervisor in Spokane.

"It's an ongoing criminal smuggling organization," Garrett said.

The organization brings South Koreans legally into Canada, then arranges to sneak them across the border, he said.

Garrett acknowledged that the number of people caught are still relatively small, but the agency is worried the number being smuggled will increase.

After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. border security was tightened, with more agents assigned at busy crossings west of the Cascade Range, near Blaine.

Garrett said that has smugglers moving east, looking for easier places to cross into the country.

In last week's bust, Border Patrol agents were tipped by a local farmer. They intercepted the eight South Koreans, including two children, walking through a field in the United States.

The South Koreans were allegedly being led by Harry Harrison, a Canadian citizen, who was arrested on federal smuggling charges. He is in jail in Spokane after an initial appearance Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.

The South Koreans acknowledged they had illegally entered the United States, and told Border Patrol agents they had been driven from Vancouver, to a site north of Danville, in Canada. They likely will be deported.

Harrison told Border Patrol agents he is a heroin addict and was staying at a halfway house in Surrey, B.C., when he was approached by a man who offered him $500 "to guide a group of people into the United States on foot," court documents said.

Harrison and the Koreans were dropped off Thursday on a Canadian highway near the U.S. Port of Entry at Danville, the documents said.

The group planned to walk across the border and be picked up at a prearranged location on the U.S. side.

"This occurred in broad daylight," said Lonnie Moore, supervisor of the Spokane Sector of the Border Patrol. "There are paved roads on both sides of the border, and access is relatively easy."

Feds: Human smuggling spiking in WA region.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.

SPOKANE, Wash. - Federal authorities in Spokane say the smuggling of humans across the U.S. border near Danville, northwest of Spokane, is spiking.

The special operations supervisor with the Spokane Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol told The Spokesman-Review that during the last two months, Border Patrol agents grabbed 11 undocumented immigrants.

Lonnie Moore says that total is more than the total for the previous fiscal year. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Border Patrol arrested 10 undocumented immigrants in the Danville area.

Moore says the latest arrests came late last week when Border Patrol agents, tipped by a local farmer, spotted eight Korean citizens, including two children, walking through a field in the United States. The Border Patrol says the Koreans couldn't speak English.

The Border Patrol says the Koreans were being led by Harry Edward John Harrison, a Canadian citizen, who was arrested on federal smuggling charges.

Harrison was ordered held in jail after an initial appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.

The Korean citizens likely will be deported after being processed through U.S. immigration proceedings, unless they are repeat offenders. The juveniles, a 12-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, also face likely deportation