BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- Security along Whatcom County's border with Canada is strained by a shortage of trained agents at area border crossings and a lack of funding for local prosecutors faced with border-related criminal cases, members of two U.S. House subcommittees were told Tuesday.

The nation's northern border deserves more manpower and equipment, the representatives - members of the House Committee on Homeland Security, agreed, but increased vigilance in areas such as Whatcom County will not come cheap.

As part of a series of field hearings around the country, the House members heard testimony from both law enforcement and academic experts on border security.

As security increases on the southern border with Mexico, the northern border could become a more tempting target.

"If the Congress and the president want to get serious about security, (they) need to get serious about the northern border," said U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif. "If we plug other places, people, terrorists and drugs will come through this border."

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Blaine sector, which includes the Peace Arch border crossing, remains 400 officers short, said Ronald Henley, the sector's chief patrol agent. While adding an unmanned aerial drone to patrol the border from the coast to Montana would help, Henley said technology could only do so much.

"It doesn't do any good to see anything at the top of the Cascades if I can't respond to it," he said.

U.S. Rep. Dan Lungren, who heads the House panel's economic security, infrastructure protection and cybersecurity subcommittee, noted that the border also needs new technology.

"There is no silver bullet," said Lungren, R-Calif. "You can't string enough border patrol agents along across the northern border by themselves to be effective."

The second subcommittee involved in the hearing, the emergency preparedness, science and technology panel, is headed by Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash.

Problems along the nation's borders persist, despite improvements made after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office told Congress that undercover investigators had entered the United States using fake documents repeatedly this year - including some cases in which Homeland Security Department agents didn't ask for identification.

At nine border crossings on the Mexico and Canadian borders, agents "never questioned the authenticity of the counterfeit documents," according to the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress,

Meanwhile, an increased focus on security puts more pressure on local court systems, said Republican state Sen. Dale Brandland, Whatcom County's former sheriff.

As federal prosecutors hand off more cases to Whatcom County, the costs are exceeding $2 million a year. The county received about $350,000 in federal grants to offset those costs.

"Our courts are clogged and our jails are running out of room," Brandland said. "We are quite frankly running out of options."

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, suggested Congress should roll back tax cuts or trim other programs to put homeland security back on "the political front-burner."

"This is a distinctive border," Jackson-Lee said. "It will require great political will to make the hard choices."