July 11, 2004
By CAROLYN THOMPSON, Associated Press
NIAGARA FALLS -- The small blowup raft held nine afloat on the cold Niagara River a scant mile from where the current begins its zealous rush over Niagara Falls at a place marked the "Point of No Return."
Into the predawn blackness sailed a Pakistani father, his pregnant wife and her 1- and 3-year-old children, another Pakistani, three adults from India and the Canadian man allegedly hired to deliver them to America, an inviting half mile across the river.
At 4:15 a.m. on June 5, the overburdened raft, its trolling motor working hard in the current and water sloshing at its passengers' feet, bobbed to the brushy banks of Grand Island, between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. The passengers climbed onto shore and crouched behind a bush to wait for their ride.
Border Patrol agents had watched it all and quickly had the group in custody.
"I have no allegiance to those people, and I'll tell you everything," the raft's pilot, identified as Nathaniel Richardson, told agents, according to court documents.
While the nation's southern boundary is the gateway for most illegal immigrants, who die by the hundreds each year in the desert's blistering heat, agents up north are kept busy as well by no less risky attempts.
The gray raft, with its 660-pound capacity and small motor wired to a car battery, was sturdier than what others have used to slip themselves into the country via the waters above and below the famous Falls. But, "I would never be on the Niagara River on it. Maybe my pool," said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Mike Przbyl.
On the 4,000-mile northern border, the enemy is not heat but often unforgiving cold. Here, it is also the scenic river's deceiving strength and its inviting bridges, with names like Peace and Rainbow, that can be most unwelcoming.
In recent years, a Peruvian woman died after falling under the wheels of the freight train she had ridden across a bridge. A South African woman inadvertently smothered her baby while crouching in the back of a car to avoid detection at an inspection booth. A 36-year-old man from Zimbabwe died after becoming entangled in the undercarriage of a bus he had sneaked aboard.
There have been broken backs from falls, lost limbs under trains and carbon monoxide poisonings from rides spent tucked up in the underside of trucks.
As of June 10, 5,285 people who crossed illegally were arrested at the northern border since the beginning of the fiscal year Oct. 1, compared with 6,380 in the same period a year before, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. During the same period, there were 813,000 arrests at the half-as-long Southwestern border, compared with 622,000 a year earlier, the agency said.
While the government has traditionally concentrated most of its border resources to the Southwest, where 10,000 Border Patrol agents are assigned, the northern boundary, with its vast stretches of rugged wilderness, has gotten increasing attention since the 2001 terrorist attacks. The number of agents has tripled to 1,000, and there has been an influx of boats, aircraft and surveillance technology.
U.S. and Canadian authorities have stepped up information sharing and the Integrated Border Enforcement Team made up of officers from more than a dozen agencies, including the Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Mounted Police, meets regularly. An 800 number that works on both sides of the border encourages residents to report suspicious activity.
Often, those trying to sneak into the country are not aware of the risks when they pay smugglers anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $60,000 for passage, said Ed Duda, deputy chief patrol agent at the Border Patrol in Buffalo. A few years back, a group of Chinese men and women paid as much as $40,000 each for the chance to crawl a quarter of a mile in the dark across the railroad deck of the two-tier Whirlpool Rapids Bridge 245 feet above the Niagara Gorge.
The Niagara River yields about two bodies a month. Many of them are suicides from Niagara Falls, but not all.
In April, the body of a man was found on the beach at Fort Niagara State Park, his head and shoulders driven into the sand by the current. His inflatable raft washed up alongside him.
While the border sees its share of attempted drug smuggling -- like the man videotaped balancing 50 pounds of hydroponic marijuana on his back while walking the supports of a bridge like a balance beam -- most are simply seeking the American dream.
"It's economic reasons more than anything else," said Rolando Velasquez, a Buffalo immigration attorney. "Just coming into the United States, for them, is a better opportunity."
Copyright 2004 Associated Press.
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