by Brady McCombs

Arizona Daily Star

Smugglers using ultralight aircraft to fly drugs over the border could face stiffer penalties if caught, under proposed legislation.

A bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Tucson Democrat, would amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to include ultralight aircraft under the aviation smuggling provisions.

That would allow prosecutors of such smugglers to seek the same penalties now reserved for people caught smuggling drugs on airplanes or in automobiles, Giffords said Saturday.

Under the proposed legislation, a drug smuggler caught using an ultralight would face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

“It’s time for the government to get ahead of this problem, and it’s time for action, and that is why we are introducing this bill,” Giffords said Saturday during a news conference at the Pima County sheriff’s air support hangar. “This will finally close the loophole.”

The bill’s co-sponsor is Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nevada.

Federal officials say ultralight drug smuggling has increased in recent years. There have been 193 suspected ultralight incursions and 135 confirmed incursions along the U.S.-Mexico border from Oct. 1 to April 15 of fiscal 2010, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operation Center in Riverside, Calif. Most have occurred in Arizona and California.

The small, single-seat aircraft are appealing to smugglers because they can take off and land almost anywhere, are relatively quiet and are difficult for law enforcement to spot.

Smugglers usually carry 200 pounds to nearly 400 pounds of marijuana in the ultralights, even though the aircraft aren’t designed to carry any cargo.

“It’s a tiny little craft. It’s very difficult for us to pick up on radar, and it has become a real problem over the last two or three years,” said Andrew Gordon, counselor to the general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security.

They can mimic a car by flying low above the freeway to evade radar, fly at night without lights, go as fast as 100 mph and go as high as 9,000 to 12,000 feet, said Sgt. Rick Pearson of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department’s air support unit.

The reported incursions are probably one-eighth of the number of ultralights actually coming across, Pearson estimated.

“It’s a huge problem,” Pearson said. “If they are bringing marijuana in, what else are they bringing? Cocaine? Methamphetamine? Explosives? It’s a possibility.”

The use of ultralights refreshed a smuggling tactic that was common in the early 1990s, said Juan Muñoz-Torres, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine, in August 2009. He said that in order to slow the trend in the 1990s, the government saturated the sky with aircraft focused solely on spotting ultralights. The increased surveillance was successful, and the ultralight smuggling attempts largely disappeared until recently.

Giffords and law-enforcement officials acknowledge that the legislation won’t help agents spot or catch ultralights, but the threat of more punishment could serve as a deterrent, they say.

“We need every tool we can possibly get in the arsenal to deal with what’s coming across,” Gordon said. “This is one more tool.”

Giffords said she’s optimistic the “common sense” legislation will gain approval in the House and Senate and become law.

“This is a basic bill – it’s not a complicated bill,” Giffords said. “Democrats and Republicans together want to secure the border.”