Washington, DC – The U.S. Senate today approved a measure by Senator Mark Dayton to put an additional 236 patrol agents along the U.S.-Canada border. The Dayton amendment, part of the Homeland Security Appropriations bill (H.R. 5441), provides $44 million for the hiring of additional agents. Dayton offered the legislation in response to concerns by rural northern Minnesota communities.

“They say they can’t rely on our federal border patrol agents, because there aren’t any there,” Dayton said. “So, these five or six-person local law enforcement departments are nearly entirely on their own.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is required, by the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, to increase the number of border patrol agents along the northern border by 20 percent each year until 2010. Yet, today there are 44 fewer agents there than in 2004, and there are few, if any, signs that will change.

Dayton’s amendment aims to close the gap.

“My amendment will increase the number of northern border patrol agents across the northern country by 24 percent, while taking nothing from our southern border,” Dayton said.

Since last year, an additional 2,000 border patrol agents have been funded, but there has been no indication that any of them will be sent to the north, especially with National Guard troops, including those from Minnesota, being sent for duty along the southern border.

The northern U.S. border, which stretches across 13 states and 5,525 miles, currently has 950 patrol agents – with only some 250 guarding the border at any one time. By contrast, the southern U.S. border currently has approximately 10,000 agents.

That is a troubling statistic, considering Canadian intelligence agencies have identified 50 terrorist groups in their country, and illegal drug smuggling across the northern border is as strong as ever.

The Dayton amendment is offset by DHS administrative travel and printing costs.

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