Home for the holidays, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., praised members of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection this week after touring the agency's air command center in Great Falls.

Tester hoped to fly Montana's international border with Canada and take his observations back to Washington, D.C., where he's working to draw more attention to the northern border and its security needs.

While Monday's winter storm grounded the observation flight, Tester still called the meeting "revealing." He plans to make the flight early next year.

"We looked at the equipment and aircraft and their facility overall," said Tester, who sits on the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "We talked about their challenges on the border, and the successes they've had in catching folks -- the bad guys coming across. I think, overall, we had a pretty good meeting."

Tester praised the diligence and hard work of border agents and customs officers, calling them hardworking and dedicated. However, he also noted the agency's struggles, largely due to lacking equipment and personnel.

In October, the U.S. Senate, led by Tester and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., approved an amendment placing $3 billion into strengthening the nation's borders.

The money will be used to hire, train and deploy more federal agents and officers to the border. The funding also would be invested into new border technology, such as unmanned aerial drones, remote sensors and radar.

After the amendment was passed, Tester said it was up to the Department of Homeland Security on where and how the money was spent.

But after his Great Falls tour, Tester said he'd like to see radar capable of covering both Montana and North Dakota placed on the northern border soon.

Not doing so, he said, would be an oversight.

"It's very difficult to catch these guys (illegal aerial crossings) because they don't have radar on the border to do it," Tester said. "Before we even start shipping people up there, we need to get this done. They don't know who's flying in. It's not just Montana, but North Dakota as well."

On a flight along the northern border in late September, a pilot with the Montana National Guard's Reconnaissance and Interdiction Detachment, flying a reporter and photographer for the Independent Record, said luck often comes in handy when trying to catch illegal crossings, whether they moved on the ground or through the air.

"There's a lot of terrain out there, but there's only a few of us," the pilot said. "The border is wide open for all known purposes. The challenge for us is being in the right place at the right time."

For Tester and a growing number of U.S. senators, the hope of being in the right place at the right time may not be good enough, especially where national security is concerned.

Along with his peers in Washington, Tester has said that employing technology to the northern border could accomplish what otherwise would take thousands of agents, strung out over nearly 3,995 miles, to achieve.

Montana's border alone stretches 545 miles from North Dakota to Idaho. It's a mix of rugged prairie, mountain peaks -- the highest on the border, in fact -- and thick forests.

But while Montana shares more international border with Canada than any other contiguous state, aside from Michigan, agents and officers based north of the Hi-Line are poorly equipped when compared to their peers down south.

Agents in New Mexico, for example, are aided by infrared, remote sensors, radar, balloons, fencing, aircraft and military lookouts.

Agents in Montana have little, if any, of that.

The air command center in Great Falls must also send its aviation equipment to Arizona and New Mexico for repair, even though Malmstrom Air Force Base sits 10 miles east of the airport.

Tester said he would like to see that change.

"We've got opportunities in Malmstrom to service these guys," he said. "We'd like to bring the airplanes from the northern tier here to Great Falls. There's some real opportunity for the state of Montana and for national security as whole."

Tester also said that both manned aircraft and unmanned aerial drones could be based and deployed from Malmstrom, keeping them away from commercial jet traffic at the city airport.

He also said the Montana Air and Army National Guard, the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and local law enforcement agencies should be able to communicate across channels with interfaced equipment.

"There's room for improvement," Tester said in summary. "I think we need to be sure the northern border doesn't get forgotten in this process."