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January 30 - February 5, 2025 Community Newspaper of Blaine and Birch Bay HHHECRWSSHHH Postal Customer
IN THIS
ISSUE
School board asks state for funding, page 2
Border fence goes up in Point Roberts, page 5
Blaine girls bowling heads to state, page 6
PRSRT STD U. S. Postage PAID Permit NO. 87 Blaine, WA 98230
Borderites fall short against Lakewood Border Patrol assists with ICE arrests in Whatcom County By Grace McCarthy
(See ICE, page 2)
s Senior Brie Smith goes up for a contested layup in the first half of Blaine’s 53-46 loss to Lakewood on January 28. Read more about the game on pages 6-7. Photo by Nolan Baker
Experts weigh in on potential Canadian tariffs By Grace McCarthy Blaine businesses are in a waiting game to understand how they may be impacted if President Donald Trump follows through with a 25 percent tax on exports coming into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico, which could start as soon as Saturday, February 1. In just over a week since the President started his second term in office on January 20, he’s signed a barrage of executive orders and announced imposing tariffs with the U.S.’s two largest trading partners. Trump has previously said the tariffs are being used to get the countries to stop undocumented immigrants and fentanyl from entering the U.S. Dennis Wilson, co-owner of Edge Lo-
gistics and Transport, wrote in an email to The Northern Light that both he and his Canadian customers didn’t know what would happen and were operating business as normal in the interim. “Right now, our three warehouses are bulging at the seams with freight from our Canadian customers who want their goods into the states before the tariffs begin thus our warehouse people are extremely busy and our trucks are making double runs daily into Canada to meet the demand,” Wilson wrote. Kelle Hagen, co-owner of Hagen’s of Blaine, said she didn’t know yet if the tariffs would affect her shipping and mail service store, where 99 percent of the cli(See Tariffs, page 3)
INSIDE
The U.S. Border Patrol Blaine Sector announced on social media that its agents helped arrest six undocumented immigrants in Whatcom and Skagit counties on January 26. Border Patrol assisted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with the arrests, alongside Homeland Security Investigations and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The individuals were from Mexico, India and Guatemala and arrested in Ferndale, Everson, Maple Falls and Burlington. This was part of a nationwide operation in which nearly 1,000 people were arrested on January 26, less than a week after President Donald Trump took office, according to national media outlets. Trump ran on a platform promising mass deportations of people living without legal status in the U.S. The ICE Office of Public Affairs did not immediately respond to an email request for the number of undocumented immigrants in Whatcom County that the federal agency has arrested since the Trump administration began on January 20. CBP spokesperson Jason Givens told The Northern Light that there is no change in the Border Patrol Blaine Sector’s collaboration with ICE for arrests of undocumented immigrants. When asked if the Border Patrol Blaine Sector planned to increase its assistance in arresting undocumented immigrants, Givens said Border Patrol assists law enforcement partners when requested. “The illegal aliens we arrested were part of a targeted operation to locate and arrest illegal aliens who were deemed a public risk and were already ordered removed,” Givens wrote. “This is no different than what we have been doing.” The Border Patrol Blaine Sector has started publishing the full names and photos of those people without documentation being arrested. Previously, the Border Patrol Blaine Sector had not included names and had blurred faces or covered the eyes in photographs of people arrested. This strays from typical procedure of law enforcement agencies in Washington as Washington state law protects jail book-
Coming Up . . . . . 14 Classifieds . . 11, 12 Letters . . . . . . . . . 4 Police . . . . . . . . . 14 Sports . . . . . . . . 6, 7 Tides . . . . . . . . . . 14
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