U.S. Tightens Borders After Attacks

By Mae M. Cheng | STAFF WRITER

September 16, 2001

Law enforcement officials clamped down on U.S. borders in an effort not to repeat the oversight after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, when terrorists escaped the country within hours after the attack.

Immigration and U.S. Customs officials are on heightened alert at borders, screening travelers coming into and leaving the United States. At New York's borders with Canada, state troopers are pulling trucks over before they leave the country, and Canadian border officials are scrutinizing checkpoints.

"Obviously there's some concern in this circumstance that there are people looking to leave the country," said a border official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Besides heightened monitoring at land borders shared with Canada and Mexico, thousands of customs and border patrol officials have been deputized by U.S. marshals to help secure major airports, said Jim Michie, a Customs Service spokesman.

The Federal Aviation Administration halted air traffic nationwide for nearly two days after Tuesday's terrorist attack, an unprecedented action to ensure that the hijackings would not continue. Law enforcement sources said the move also was taken so that any suspects would not escape the country.

Within 12 hours of the Feb. 26, 1993, bombing at the World Trade Center, one of the leading suspects in the case, Ramzi Yousef, flew to Pakistan. Another suspect, Abdul Yasin, left for Jordan the day after the bombing.

Raymond Kelly, the former Customs commissioner who was the city's police commissioner in 1993, said the airports weren't closed immediately after the World Trade Center bombing because initially it was unclear if that was a terrorist act. When it became evident that the bombing was the work of terrorists, border authorities were on heightened alert for about a month.

"We're so big and we're so open and it's part of our strength as a country," Kelly said. "Even so, it [the border] has to be tightened up."