Jobs change as a result of 9/11

International Falls Police Chief Mike Musich and Koochiching County Sheriff Brian Youso said the attacks made everyone more aware of the far-reaching effects of terrorism.

As a result, information sharing and dissemination between agencies improved and the federal government made grants available to local agencies along the border to purchase equipment and step up patrols.

Musich said he was just about to head uptown to get his hair cut by the late Jack Clarity on his day off as a sergeant with the department when he saw the attacks being played out on television.

“It’s pretty hard to describe,” he said of his feelings. “I was glued to the TV for a while, like when the war in Iraq started.”

Youso was at the Law Enforcement Center and saw reruns of the first plane hitting one of the towers on a television in then-Chief Chris Raboin’s office.

“I was thinking it was an accident, and then the second one hit and everyone knew it was no accident,” he said

Officers gathered in the basement of the Law Enforcement Center to watch the events together.

“I was in shock,” said Youso. “It made you sick to your stomach.”

Youso said it took some time for the potential impacts of those events to sink in.

“As American citizens, life changed and as it unfolded and as we found out what it was about, you felt a little insecure,” he said. “It was a sad day for America.”

In addition to changes in data collection and information dissemination, Musich said increased disaster training was established.

“We took a strong look at emergency management training,” he said. “The federal government came out mandating that we were going to have to start having systems to deal with a more structured approach.”

Federal Homeland Security grants, called Stonegarden grants, were provided to local law agencies along the northern U.S. border to allow officers to patrol with Border Patrol agents and supplement patrols, Youso and Musich noted.

In addition, the two top law officers said they and their officers became more aware of suspicious activities.

“It changed our lives and the way we looked at things,” Musich said.

Musich noted that just after 9/11, officers were receiving tips about suspicious people, often relating to people of a different nationality than most living in Borderland.

Youso said that even with the increased number of federal agents in the community and stepped up local patrols, officers must rely on citizens that live along the border to report suspicious activity.

“Without them, we’ve got a hard job,” he said. “We’re lucky to live up here... we’re sheltered from a lot of these horrific things.”

CBP

Brian King, port director with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Warroad, agreed that federal and local law enforcement agencies have strengthened their relationship since 9/11.

“The terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed the course of history of the Untied States,” he said. “It changed the lives of generations past, present and future and it also changed how travel and trade was processed at the border and it redefined homeland security.”

King, who served as a customs inspector in Warroad on 9/11, said he had planned to stay home with his sick child that day.

But when he got a call from a fellow inspector telling him of the terror attacks, he said he put on his uniform, brought his child to his mother, and went to work.

“We as a nation and we as an agency went to work,” he said. Rumors circulated that day that all U.S. borders would be closed at that time.

“We never did close and it was an instant change in culture,” he said. “Over the course of time since that day, our agencies have grown.”

Ten years later, CBP is the lead law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security in charge of protecting the borders from terrorists and terror weapons entering the U.S. while facilitating travel and trade.

The department was created after 9/11 and Customs and Border Patrol, as well as Immigration and Naturalization Service, were merged into one agency, he noted.

Locally, CBP agents at International Falls have doubled since the terror attacks, he said, adding security as well as population to the area.

“The border has changed, air travel has changed, boat travel has changed,” he said. “The country has changed. Threats persist and our nation is stronger than it was on 9/11 — we’re more prepared and we’re more resilient.”

The terror attacks also created a need to verify who entered the U.S., and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative was implemented requiring travelers to present passports, or other secure documents, to enter the U.S. The initiative came from a 9/11 Commission recommendation.

King acknowledged that the passport requirement has made it difficult for some U.S. citizens to visit Fort Frances. But he said CBP has offered other ways to facilitate legitimate travel, including the NEXUS program, a joint Canada-U.S. program based in Fort Frances.

“It’s all about border security,” he said. “We’re here to keep individuals safe and the country safe. We recognize what can happen and recognized what terrorists and terrorist weapons are capable of. We don’t want that to happen again and we will do what we need to do in order to prevent that from happening.”

CBP also wants to ensure the safety of international visitors on legitimate visits to the U.S., King said.

“Our officers are charged with enforcing not only immigration and customs law, but we enforce over 400 laws for 40 other agencies and we’ve stopped thousands of violators of U.S. law,” he said.

King said a key to CBP’s mission is to “trust, but verify. We trust individuals, but we need to verify that trust and that level of trust can go up and down depending on what's in front of us.”

For information on traveling to and from the United States, see the website at CBP.gov, King encouraged.