Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-21

quota law in 1924. 1t is composed
largely of young Americans who saw
service in France during the World War,
and time and again their Army train
ing has aided them in warning ON the
smugglers along the border.
Their commanding officer Is George
j. Harris, who has the title of assist
ant commissioner general of immigra-
ton. Mr.. Harris is veteran of border
campaigns against smugglers. He has
spent more than 20 years on the Mexi-
can border
Most of the smuggled aliens cap
tured recently have been MexicanS,"
Mr.. Harris said There is no quota
are required to pay is $40 for a visa
and So head tax. That frequently is
too much money, SO they try to slip
across the border.
THE problems along the Canadian
border are very much like those on the
Mexican SIDE" he added Except, I
should say, that long stretches of
wooded mountains, lakes and streams.
bitterly cold in Winter, take the place
of stretches Of sand and desert waste. !"
He related that in the North his
guardsmen encounter fishing parties
composed Of men who speak little or no
English.
These fishing parties +" he said
have abSentmindedly left their fishing
tackle at home"
Airplane Smuggling.
One of the newest problems of the
patrol is combating smugglerS who
bring European and Asiatic undesirables
into the United States by airplane.
On January is these immigration
men reported they had broken up q
$500, 900 alien smuggling ring.
The ring had been charging Chinese
81 1000 apiece and transporting them by
airplane from q ranch near Mexicali
Mexico, to secret landing fields near
San Bernardino, Sacramento and San
Francisco.
After considerable detective work the
officers arrested five men and seized
two airplanes which they said had been
used in the border traffic.
More than $50 Chinese, who paid
| $3.50, 900 to get into the United States
were Smuggled from Mexico into Cali
fornia in the last quarter of 1928, the
Federal men declared, and added that
they had for time, at least, broken
up the largest of the airplane snug
glers' outfits.
Although the border patrol concen-
trates much of its energy in looking
| out for aliens, it pursues, too, the
smugglers of dope, liquor and mer-
| chandiSe
No frontier guards in other parts of
the world have the difficult task of
these American immigration men. For
| instance, they must watch 1000 miles
| of prairie. mountains and woods be-
tween Puget Sound and Lake Superior.
Exactly "a men watch this long
''RandMcNally fence" scouting night
and day for the smugglers who shun
the highways, who use modernized
technique developed by countrymen
who have learned many tricks on the
borders of the Balkans, italy and Port
ugal.
| For instance, the patrols broke UP a
conspiracy organization by Winnipeg,
| Manitoba, taxi driver. Aliens wishing
| to get into the United States were
forced to pay heavily to this organiza-
where American confederates were
waiting.
Sixty Stranded Aliens Caught.
Those aliens who refused to kick in
again-usually with what was left of
their Savings--were deserted on the in
ternational boundary Sixty of these
stranded aliens were overhauled by i'm
migration patrols before the ring was
put out of business
Handicapped by the fact that neither
Canadian nor Mexican laws make SNUG
Cling of aliens into the United States
an extraditable offense the border
sleuths are often required to use con-
siderable ingenuity in trapping the
smugglers.
4 The government once paid fees tc
persons who tipped off" alien SNUG
Cling activities, as it still does tipsters
aiding in the apprehension of diamond
smugglers, but now the border patrol
men must use their own means TO catch
the Syndicates, which have contracts in
many cities in Mexico, Canada and Eu-
rope and which, immigration men esti-
mate, collect $7,500,000 to $4,000 00O
annually from their alien customers.
The border patrol does what it can
on its 100000 annual appropriation
But vigilance hard work and personal
bravery do not compensate in the strug-
gle of 800 men on the first line of de-
Tense against the 100000 to ITS 00O
aliens sneaking surreptitiously into the
country every day.
Article III tomorrow tells of the alien