Border Security
Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry Gao ID: GAO-08-329T January 3, 2008U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is responsible for keeping terrorists and other dangerous people from entering the country while also facilitating the cross-border movement of millions of travelers. CBP carries out this responsibility at 326 air, sea, and land ports of entry. In response to a congressional request, GAO examined CBP traveler inspection efforts, the progress made, and the challenges that remain in staffing and training at ports of entry, and the progress CBP has made in developing strategic plans and performance measures for its traveler inspection program. To conduct its work, GAO reviewed and analyzed CBP data and documents related to inspections, staffing, and training, interviewed managers and officers, observed inspections at eight major air and land ports of entry, and tested inspection controls at eight small land ports of entry. GAO's testimony is based on a report GAO issued November 5, 2007.
CBP has had some success in identifying inadmissible aliens and other violators, but weaknesses in its operations increase the potential that terrorists and inadmissible travelers could enter the country. In fiscal year 2006, CBP turned away over 200,000 inadmissible aliens and interdicted other violators. Although CBP's goal is to interdict all violators, CBP estimated that several thousand inadmissible aliens and other violators entered the country though ports of entry in fiscal year 2006. Weaknesses in 2006 inspection procedures, such as not verifying the citizenship and admissibility of each traveler, contribute to failed inspections. Although CBP took actions to address these weaknesses, subsequent follow-up work conducted by GAO months after CBP's actions found that weaknesses such as those described above still existed. In July 2007, CBP issued detailed procedures for conducting inspections including requiring field office managers to assess compliance with these procedures. However, CBP has not established an internal control to ensure field office managers share their assessments with CBP headquarters to help ensure that the new procedures are consistently implemented across all ports of entry and reduce the risk of failed traveler inspections. CBP developed a staffing model that estimates it needs up to several thousand more staff. Field office managers said that staffing shortages affected their ability to carry out anti-terrorism programs and created other vulnerabilities in the inspections process. CBP recognizes that officer attrition has impaired its ability to attain budgeted staffing levels and is in the process of developing a strategy to help curb attrition. CBP has made progress in developing training programs; however, it does not measure the extent to which it provides training to all who need it and whether new officers demonstrate proficiency in required skills. CBP issued a strategic plan for operations at its ports of entry and has collected performance data that can be used to measure its progress in achieving its strategic goals. However, current performance measures do not gauge CBP effectiveness in apprehending inadmissible aliens and other violators, a key strategic goal.
GAO-08-329T, Border Security: Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry
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Testimony before the Committee on Homeland Security, House of
Representatives:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 11:00 a.m. MST:
Saturday, December 15, 2007:
Border Security:
Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our
Nation's Ports of Entry:
Statement of Richard M. Stana, Director Homeland Security and Justice
Issues:
GAO-08-329T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-08-329T, a testimony before the Committee on Homeland
Security, House of Representatives.
Why GAO Did This Study:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is responsible for keeping
terrorists and other dangerous people from entering the country while
also facilitating the cross-border movement of millions of travelers.
CBP carries out this responsibility at 326 air, sea, and land ports of
entry. In response to a congressional request, GAO examined CBP
traveler inspection efforts, the progress made, and the challenges that
remain in staffing and training at ports of entry, and the progress CBP
has made in developing strategic plans and performance measures for its
traveler inspection program. To conduct its work, GAO reviewed and
analyzed CBP data and documents related to inspections, staffing, and
training, interviewed managers and officers, observed inspections at
eight major air and land ports of entry, and tested inspection controls
at eight small land ports of entry. GAO‘s testimony is based on a
report GAO issued November 5, 2007.
What GAO Found:
CBP has had some success in identifying inadmissible aliens and other
violators, but weaknesses in its operations increase the potential that
terrorists and inadmissible travelers could enter the country. In
fiscal year 2006, CBP turned away over 200,000 inadmissible aliens and
interdicted other violators. Although CBP‘s goal is to interdict all
violators, CBP estimated that several thousand inadmissible aliens and
other violators entered the country though ports of entry in fiscal
year 2006. Weaknesses in 2006 inspection procedures, such as not
verifying the citizenship and admissibility of each traveler,
contribute to failed inspections. Although CBP took actions to address
these weaknesses, subsequent follow-up work conducted by GAO months
after CBP‘s actions found that weaknesses such as those described above
still existed. In July 2007, CBP issued detailed procedures for
conducting inspections including requiring field office managers to
assess compliance with these procedures. However, CBP has not
established an internal control to ensure field office managers share
their assessments with CBP headquarters to help ensure that the new
procedures are consistently implemented across all ports of entry and
reduce the risk of failed traveler inspections.
CBP developed a staffing model that estimates it needs up to several
thousand more staff. Field office managers said that staffing shortages
affected their ability to carry out anti-terrorism programs and created
other vulnerabilities in the inspections process. CBP recognizes that
officer attrition has impaired its ability to attain budgeted staffing
levels and is in the process of developing a strategy to help curb
attrition. CBP has made progress in developing training programs;
however, it does not measure the extent to which it provides training
to all who need it and whether new officers demonstrate proficiency in
required skills.
CBP issued a strategic plan for operations at its ports of entry and
has collected performance data that can be used to measure its progress
in achieving its strategic goals. However, current performance measures
do not gauge CBP effectiveness in apprehending inadmissible aliens and
other violators, a key strategic goal.
Figure:
This figure is a combination of two photographs. One shows the vehicle
lanes at the San Ysidro port of entry and passenger lines at JFK
International Airport.
[See PDF for image]
Source: GAO.
[End of figure]
What GAO Recommends:
GAO made recommendations aimed at enhancing internal controls in the
inspection process, mechanisms for measuring training provided and new
officer proficiency, and a performance measure for apprehending
inadmissible aliens and other violators. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) concurred with GAO‘s recommendations. DHS said that CBP
is taking steps to address the recommendations.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
[hyperlink, http://www.GAO-08-329T]. For more information, contact
Richard Stana at (202) 512-8777 or stanar@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Mr. Chairman and Members of the committee:
I appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's field hearing in
El Paso Texas, to discuss the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS)
efforts to inspect travelers at our nation's ports of entry.[Footnote
1] My statement today is based on our November 5, 2007, report[Footnote
2] that describes the progress made by CBP in inspecting travelers at
air and land ports of entry and the challenges that remain.[Footnote 3]
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)--a major component within
DHS--is the lead federal agency in charge of inspecting travelers
seeking to enter the United States at 326 air, land, and sea ports of
entry. CBP officers, who number about 17,600 at these ports of entry,
play a critical role in carrying out this responsibility. Since the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, their role has involved
increased emphasis on countering threats posed by terrorists and others
attempting to enter the country with fraudulent or altered travel
documents. Intelligence officials believe that the United States will
face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat and that the terrorist
group al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here.
In addition to its homeland security responsibilities, CBP is
responsible for preventing inadmissible aliens, criminals, and
inadmissible goods from entering the country. Doing so is a difficult
task given the high volume of travelers and goods that enter the
country. For example, officers frequently carry out their
responsibilities with little time to make decisions about admitting
individuals into the country because they also face pressure to
facilitate the cross-border movement of millions of legitimate
travelers and billions of dollars in international trade.
When CBP was created in March 2003, it represented a merger of
components from three departments--the U.S. Customs Service,[Footnote
4] the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service,[Footnote 5] and the
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.[Footnote 6] As part of the
merger, CBP moved forward with an approach that was to allow a CBP
officer, with the proper cross-training, to carry out homeland security
as well as traditional customs and immigration responsibilities. For
example, former customs inspectors would be trained and work on tasks
traditionally done by immigration inspectors and vice versa. The CBP
officer would also be capable of referring agricultural violations to
agricultural specialists. By training officers from legacy agencies to
perform both the customs and immigration functions, CBP aimed to have a
well-trained and well-integrated workforce to carry out the range of
the agency's missions.
In July 2003, we reported on vulnerabilities and inefficiencies in
traveler inspections.[Footnote 7] Given the critical role that CBP
plays in homeland security, you asked us to review the progress CBP has
made in strengthening its ability to inspect travelers arriving at the
nation's international airports and land borders. In response, on
November 5, 2007, we issued a report that addressed the following
questions:
* What success and challenges has CBP had in interdicting inadmissible
aliens and other violators[Footnote 8] at its ports of entry?
* What progress has CBP made in improving staffing and training at its
ports of entry and how successful has it been in carrying out these
workforce programs?
* What progress and problems has CBP encountered in setting goals and
performance measures for its traveler inspection program?
* To address the questions above, we analyzed information and data on
CBP's traveler inspections, staffing, and training at ports of entry.
We reviewed CBP policies and procedures for the traveler inspection
program as well as other documents related to traveler inspection
efforts. We interviewed CBP officials on the status of CBP efforts to
develop a staffing model, train staff, carry out traveler inspections,
and develop performance measures.[Footnote 9] For information that
would provide an overall picture of CBP's efforts, we reviewed and
analyzed several nationwide databases, including data on staffing,
training, attrition, resource requests from CBP's 20 field
offices[Footnote 10] and 1 pre-clearance headquarters office, and
apprehension of inadmissible aliens and other violators at major air
and land ports of entry. We assessed the reliability of CBP's data from
CBP's random selection program of travelers and staffing and training
data by, among other things, meeting with knowledgeable officials about
these data, reviewing relevant documentation, and performing electronic
testing. We concluded that data from CBP databases, with the exception
of the data on training as we discuss in our report, were sufficiently
reliable for the purposes of our review. Although we discussed the
staffing model and its results with CBP officials responsible for the
model, validating the model and its results was outside the scope of
our review.
To supplement our analyses of CBP's nationwide data, we visited eight
ports of entry. While we cannot generalize our work from our visits to
all ports of entry, we chose these ports of entry to provide examples
of operations at air and land ports of entry. At each site, we held
discussion groups with CBP officers and met with management to discuss,
among other things, staffing and training programs. In addition, GAO
investigators visited other small ports of entry to test the traveler
inspection process. Although we cannot generalize our investigators'
work at these locations to all ports of entry, we selected these ports
of entry to provide examples of traveler inspections. Our investigators
did their work in accordance with quality standards for investigations
as set forth by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency.
Unless we specify that the work was done by our investigators, all
referrals to our visits to ports of entry pertain to the eight air and
land ports of entry we visited. In addition, we analyzed the 2004 and
2006 Office of Personnel Management Federal Human Capital Surveys of
staff at 36 federal agencies, including the results from CBP, that
dealt with the views of federal employees on training and staffing in
the workplace. We reviewed standards for internal control in the
federal government[Footnote 11] and compared the standards for
information and communications and monitoring with CBP's policies and
procedures for traveler inspections. Finally, we reviewed prior GAO
reports on best practices for developing strategic plans and
performance measures and compared the best practices with CBP's plans
and measures for its operations at its ports of entry. We did our work
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards
from August 2006 through September 2007.
Summary:
CBP has had some success in interdicting inadmissible aliens and other
violators, but weaknesses in its traveler inspection procedures and
related physical infrastructure increase the potential that dangerous
people and illegal goods could enter the country. In 2006, CBP officers
turned away over 200,000 aliens who attempted to enter the country
illegally, and seized over 600,000 pounds of illegal drugs and more
than 40,000 fraudulent documents, according to CBP. To help officers
identify potential violators, CBP has installed additional technology
to inspect vehicles for smuggled aliens and illicit cargo and to check
traveler documents against law enforcement databases. While CBP has had
some success in apprehending inadmissible aliens and other violators,
its analyses indicate that several thousand inadmissible aliens and
other violators entered the country at air and land ports of entry in
fiscal year 2006.[Footnote 12] When CBP does not apprehend a
potentially dangerous person, this increases the potential that
national security may be compromised. Weaknesses that contributed to
failed inspections relate both to procedures and to infrastructure:
Weaknesses in traveler inspection procedures. In mid-2006, CBP reviewed
videotapes from about 150 large and small ports of entry and, according
to CBP officials, determined that while CBP officers carried out
thorough traveler inspections in many instances, they also identified
numerous examples where traveler inspections at land ports of entry
were weak in that they did not determine the citizenship and
admissibility of travelers entering the country as required by law. The
following were examples that were on the videotape:
* In one instance, officers waved vehicles into the United States
without stopping the vehicle or interviewing the driver or its
passengers as required. In another instance, motorcycles passed through
inspection lanes without stopping and making any contact with an
officer. In a third instance, during "lane switches" when CBP officers
were relieved of their duty and replaced by other officers, officers
waved traffic through the lane while the officer logged into the
computer. The proper procedure is for traffic to be stopped until the
officer is logged into the system and is available to perform proper
inspections.
* In another instance, while the CBP officer was reviewing information
on his computer screen, he waved pedestrians through the lane without
looking at them, making verbal contact, or inspecting travel documents.
In another instance, travelers would simply hold up their
identification cards and officers would view them without stepping out
of the booth before waving the vehicle through. In these cases, the
officers did not appear to make verbal contact with the passengers and
did not interview any passengers sitting in the back seat of the
vehicle. As a final example, officers did not board recreational
vehicles to determine whether additional traveler inspections should be
carried out.
Without checking the identity, citizenship, and admissibility of
travelers, there is an increased potential that dangerous people and
inadmissible goods may enter the country and cause harm to American
citizens and the economy. According to CBP interviews with apprehended
alien smugglers, alien smuggling organizations have been aware of
weaknesses in CBP's inspection procedures and they have trained
operatives to take advantage of these weaknesses. This awareness
heightens the potential that failed inspections will occur at ports of
entry when such procedural weaknesses exist.
According to CBP senior management, the factors that may have
contributed to these weaknesses included the following:
* Failure to engage, lack of focus, and complacency. According to CBP
senior management, emphasis is not being placed on all missions, and
there is a failure by some of its officers to recognize the threat
associated with dangerous people and goods entering the country.
* Insufficient staffing. According to CBP senior management, they are
unable to staff ports of entry to sufficiently accommodate the
workload. Lack of sufficient staff contributes to officers working
double shifts, sometimes resulting in fatigue that can affect
decisions.[Footnote 13]
* Lack of supervisory presence in primary inspections. CBP senior
management noted that lack of supervisory presence at primary
inspection booths can contribute to less than optimal inspections.
* Lack of training. CBP senior management acknowledged that, in some
cases, periodic and on-the-job training is not being delivered.
In the summer of 2006, CBP management took actions to place greater
management emphasis on traveler inspections by holding meetings with
senior management to reinforce the importance of carrying out effective
inspections and by providing training to all supervisors and officers
on the importance of interviewing travelers, checking travel documents,
and having adequate supervisory presence. However, tests our
investigators conducted in October 2006 and January 2007--as many as 5
months after CBP issued management guidance and conducted the training-
-showed similar weaknesses as those on the videotape were still
occurring in traveler inspections at ports of entry. At two ports, our
investigators were not asked to provide a travel document to verify
their identity--a procedure that management had called on officers to
carry out--as part of the inspection. The extent of continued
noncompliance is unknown, but these results point to the challenge CBP
management faces in ensuring its directives are carried out. Standards
for internal control in the federal government require that information
should be communicated to agency management to enable it to carry out
its program responsibilities. In July 2007, CBP issued new internal
policies and procedures for agency officials responsible for its
traveler inspection program at land ports of entry. The new policies
and procedures require field office managers to conduct periodic audits
and assessments to ensure compliance with the new inspection
procedures. However, they do not call on managers to share the results
of their assessments with headquarters management. Without this
communication, CBP management may be hindering its ability to
efficiently use the information to overcome weaknesses in traveler
inspections.
Weaknesses in physical infrastructure. While we cannot generalize our
findings, at several land ports of entry of entry that we examined,
barriers designed to ensure that vehicles pass through a CBP inspection
booth were not in place, increasing the risk that vehicles could enter
the country without inspection.[Footnote 14] CBP recognizes that it has
infrastructure weaknesses and has estimated it needs about $4 billion
to make the capital improvements needed at all 163 of the nation's land
crossings. CBP has prioritized the ports with the greatest need. Each
year, depending upon funding availability, CBP submits its proposed
capital improvement projects based upon the prioritized list it has
developed. Several factors affect CBP's ability to make improvements,
including the fact that some ports of entry are owned by other
governmental or private entities, potentially adding to the time needed
to agree on infrastructure changes and put them in place. For example,
according to CBP officials, for 96 ports of entry that are owned by the
General Services Administration (GSA), GSA approves and prioritizes
capital improvement projects. The process of submitting a request for
an infrastructure improvement and completion of the project is
approximately 7 years from start to finish, according to a GSA
official. For 23 ports of entry that are privately owned and leased by
GSA,[Footnote 15] CBP officials noted that coordinating with privately-
owned companies on infrastructure improvements is a difficult process
because the private owner's interest in facilitating commerce must be
balanced with CBP's interest in national security. As of September
2007, CBP had infrastructure projects related to 20 different ports of
entry in various stages of development.
As previously mentioned, insufficient staffing and lack of training can
contribute to a greater likelihood of failed traveler inspections. CBP
has taken action to improve staffing and training at ports of entry by
assessing staffing needs, adding more officers since 2005 in response
to higher budgeted staffing levels, and developing an extensive
training program, but it lacks (1) data to measure progress on
providing required training and (2) certain elements in its on-the-job
training program for new CBP officers, which limits its ability to
effectively train and evaluate the performance of new officers.
According to managers at ports of entry, staffing shortages can result
in, among other things, officer fatigue that can affect the quality of
traveler inspections. Untrained or poorly trained officers can increase
the probability that terrorists, inadmissible aliens, and illicit goods
will enter the country. Progress and problems with staffing and
training involved the following:
Progress and problems with staffing. Responding to language in a
conference report for its fiscal year 2007 appropriation, CBP has
developed a staffing model to estimate staffing needs. The model is
based on several assumptions, such as whether overtime is considered as
part of CBP's staffing at ports of entry. CBP's model estimates that
CBP may need up to several thousand more officers and agricultural
specialists[Footnote 16] to operate its ports of entry.[Footnote 17]
According to field officials, lack of staff is affecting their ability
to carry out border security responsibilities. For example, we examined
requests for resources from CBP's 20 field offices and its preclearance
headquarters office for January 2007 and found that managers at 19 of
the 21 offices cited examples of anti-terrorism activities not being
carried out, new or expanded facilities that were not fully
operational, and radiation monitors and other inspection technologies
not being fully used because of staff shortages. At seven of the eight
major ports we visited, officers and managers told us that not having
sufficient staff contributes to morale problems, fatigue, lack of
backup support, and safety issues when officers inspect travelers--
increasing the potential that terrorists, inadmissible travelers, and
illicit goods could enter the country. In addition, officers at six of
the eight ports of entry we visited indicated that officer fatigue
caused by excessive overtime negatively affected inspections at their
ports of entry. On occasion, officers said they are called upon to work
16-hour shifts, spending long stints in the primary passenger
processing lanes to keep lanes open, in part to minimize traveler wait
times.[Footnote 18] Further evidence of fatigue came from officers who
said that CBP officers call in sick due to exhaustion, in part to avoid
mandatory overtime, which in turn exacerbates the staffing challenges
faced by the ports.
Reported staffing shortages are exacerbated by challenges in retaining
staff, contributing to an increasing number of vacant positions
nationwide.[Footnote 19] CBP officials attribute attrition to
retirements, officers receiving better law enforcement benefits at
other DHS components and other federal agencies, and new officers being
unable to afford high cost-of-living locations. Low job satisfaction,
as reflected in the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) Federal
Human Capital Survey, is also a contributing factor to attrition,
according to CBP. CBP recognized that it has a problem with retaining
staff and plans to develop ways to stem its problems in this area. For
example, CBP plans to analyze attrition data and data from OPM's Human
Capital Survey and employee satisfaction and exit surveys in order to
help identify what actions are needed to curb attrition. CBP plans to
develop some initial retention strategies by December 2008 and by
September 2009 develop approaches to retain staff based on areas of
concern identified in the employee exit survey.
Progress and problems with training. CBP has developed 37 courses on
such topics as how to carry out inspections and detect fraudulent
documents and has instituted national guidelines for a 12-week on-the-
job training program that new officers should receive at land ports of
entry. However, CBP faces challenges in providing the required
training. Managers at seven of the eight ports of entry we visited said
that they were challenged in putting staff through training because
staffing shortfalls force the ports to choose between performing port
operations and providing training. For example, at one land port of
entry we visited, managers stated that courses are scheduled, but then
canceled because of staffing concerns.
Managers and supervisors at six of eight ports of entry we visited told
us that vulnerabilities in traveler inspections occurred when officers
did not receive cross-training before rotating to new inspection areas.
Although CBP's training policy calls for no officer to be placed in an
area without receiving the proper cross-training module, officers and
supervisors at ports of entry we visited told us that officers were
placed in situations for which they had not been trained. While we
cannot determine the degree to which this is happening in other ports
of entry cross the country, we identified several examples where this
policy is not being followed at the ports of entry we visited. For
example, legacy customs officers at one port of entry reported feeling
ill prepared when called upon to inspect passengers because they had
not received the requisite training. One supervisor at this port of
entry stated that he had "no confidence" that the officers he
supervised could process the casework for a marijuana seizure correctly
to successfully prosecute the violator because they had not received
training. Supervisors at another port of entry told us that they were
rotated to areas in which they had not received training. With
responsibility over admissibility decisions, these supervisors were
concerned that they could not answer questions from their subordinates
or make necessary determinations beyond their area of expertise. As a
result of not being trained, officers at this port stated that they
relied heavily on senior officers from legacy agencies. The officers
also told us that these senior officers have been leaving the agency.
CBP managers in headquarters recognize that insufficient training can
lead to a higher risk of failed inspections. For example, in a
presentation that was given to all field office directors, CBP
headquarters officials stated that untrained officers increase the risk
that terrorists, inadmissible travelers, and illicit goods could enter
the country.
Standards for internal control in the federal government provide a
framework for agencies to achieve effective and efficient operations
and ultimately to improve accountability. One of the standards calls on
agencies to compare actual performance to planned or expected results
throughout the organization and to analyze significant differences.
However, CBP lacks data that show whether the individuals who require
training are receiving it. Having reliable data to measure the degree
to which training has been delivered would put CBP management in a
position to better gauge the results of its cross-training program. In
regards to on-the-job training, while CBP guidance states that new
officers at land ports of entry should receive 12 weeks of on-the-job
training, new officers at the ports we visited did not receive 12 weeks
of training. For example, at one port of entry, new officers told us
they received between 2 weeks and 6 weeks of on-the-job training. In
addition, internal control standards related to management of human
capital state that management should ensure that the organization has a
workforce that has the required skills necessary to achieve
organizational goals. CBP's guidance for its on-the-job training
program does not require that new CBP officers perform certain tasks in
order to develop needed skills or that the officers demonstrate
proficiency in specific tasks. In contrast, the U.S. Border Patrol,
another office within CBP, has developed a field training program where
officers are required to demonstrate proficiency in 32 different
skills. We discussed the utility of the Border Patrol's on-the-job
training standards with CBP officials who told us that they might
examine the Border Patrol's program to identify best practices that
they could incorporate into the on-the-job training program for new CBP
officers. When staff do not receive required training or are not
trained consistently with program guidance, it limits knowledge
building and increases the risk that needed expertise is not developed.
Our analysis of OPM's 2006 Federal Human Capital Survey shows that CBP
staff expressed concern about training. Our analysis shows that less
than half of nonsupervisory CBP staff were satisfied with how CBP
assesses their training needs (43 percent), the extent to which
supervisors support employee development (43 percent), and the degree
to which supervisors provide constructive feedback on how to improve
(42 percent). In responding to these three questions, a significantly
lower percentage of nonsupervisory staff at CBP was satisfied with
their training experiences than nonsupervisory staff in other federal
agencies.
CBP has developed strategic goals that call for, among other things,
establishing ports of entry where threats are deterred and inadmissible
people and goods are intercepted--a key goal related to traveler
inspections--but it faces challenges in developing a performance
measure that tracks progress in achieving this goal. Linking
performance to strategic goals and objectives and publicly reporting
this information is important so that Congress and the public have
better information about agency performance and to help to ensure
accountability. While CBP's 2006 Performance and Accountability Report
included some performance measures related to CBP's goal of
intercepting inadmissible people and goods, the report did not include
a performance measure regarding how effective CBP is at achieving this
goal at ports of entry. CBP has data on the degree to which it
interdicts travelers who seek to enter the country illegally or who
violate other laws at major air and land ports of entry. During the
course of our review, we discussed with CBP officials the potential of
using these data as one way of measuring the effectiveness of CBP
inspection efforts. In June 2007, CBP officials told us that CBP was in
the process of selecting performance measures for fiscal year 2008 and
a decision had not yet been made on whether to include these data or
other similar outcome-based measures in its performance report.
Concluding Remarks:
Effective inspection of the millions of travelers entering the country
each year is critical to the security of the United States. As CBP
matures as an organization, having effective inspection procedures,
retaining its officer corps, and developing the necessary skills in its
officer corps are essential given the critical role that CBP plays in
national security. Although CBP developed new inspection procedures
that require CBP field office directors to monitor and assess
compliance with the new procedures, a key internal control requiring
field office directors to communicate with CBP management the results
of their monitoring and assessment efforts is not in place. As a
result, CBP management may not get information that would identify
weaknesses in the traveler inspections process that need to be
addressed. The initial set of actions that CBP has taken for dealing
with challenges in training at ports of entry is a positive start, but
it has not established a mechanism to know whether officers who need
specific cross-training have received it and whether new CBP officers
have experience in the necessary job tasks and are proficient in them.
This means that some officers may be called on to perform certain
inspection tasks without having the knowledge and skills to do them.
It is also important to have performance measures in place to permit
agency management to gauge progress in achieving program goals and, if
not, to take corrective action. In regard to traveler inspections, CBP
is missing an important performance measure that shows what results are
achieved in apprehending inadmissible aliens and other violators. CBP
has apprehension rate data that could be used to develop such a
performance measure. Having performance measures related to the
effectiveness of CBP interdiction efforts would help inform Congress
and agency management of improvements resulting from changes in CBP's
traveler inspection program and what gaps in coverage, if any, remain.
In our report,[Footnote 20] we made a number of recommendations to
mitigate the risk of failed traveler inspections. We recommended that
the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Commissioner of Customs
and Border Protection to take the following four actions:
* implement internal controls to help ensure that field office
directors communicate to agency management the results of their
monitoring and assessment efforts so that agencywide results can be
analyzed and necessary actions taken to ensure that new traveler
inspection procedures are carried out in a consistent way across all
ports of entry;
* develop data on cross-training programs that measure whether the
individuals who require training are receiving it so that agency
management is in a better position to measure progress toward achieving
training goals;
* incorporate into CBP's procedures for its on-the-job training program
(1) specific tasks that CBP officers must experience during on-the-job
training and (2) requirements for measuring officer proficiency in
performing those tasks; and:
* formalize a performance measure for the traveler inspection program
that identifies CBP's effectiveness in apprehending inadmissible aliens
and other violators.
DHS said it agreed with our recommendations and discussed actions CBP
has underway or has taken to address our recommendations.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to
answer any questions that you and the Members of the committee may
have.
GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
For further information about this statement, please contact Richard M.
Stana, Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues, on (202) 512-
8777 or at stanar@gao.gov.
Major contributors to this testimony included Mike Dino, Assistant
Director; Neil Asaba; Frances Cook; Josh Diosomito; Kasea Hamar; Chris
Leach; Michael Meleady; Ron La Due Lake; and Stan Stenersen.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Ports of entry are government-designated locations where CBP
inspects persons and goods to determine whether they may be lawfully
admitted into the country. A land port of entry may have more than one
border crossing point where CBP inspects travelers for admissibility
into the United States.
[2] See GAO, Border Security: Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler
Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry, GAO-08-219
(Washington D.C.: Nov. 5, 2007).
[3] Our November 2007 report (GAO-08-219) is the public version of a
For Official Use Only report that we issued on October 5, 2007. This
report contained sensitive information about CBP traveler inspection
efforts, including information on the techniques used to carry out
inspections, data on the number of inadmissible aliens and other
violators that enter the country each year, and data on staffing at
ports of entry. See GAO, Border Security: Despite Progress, Weaknesses
in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry, GAO-08-
123SU (Washington D.C.: Oct. 5, 2007).
[4] U.S. Customs Service was in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Customs inspectors were primarily responsible for inspecting cargo and
goods.
[5] U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service was in the Department
of Justice. Immigration inspectors were responsible for processing
people traveling across the border.
[6] Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was in the Department of
Agriculture. Unlike the Customs Service and the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, which were moved to DHS in its entirety, Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service continues to exist within the
Department of Agriculture and retains responsibility for conducting,
among other things, veterinary inspections of live imported animals,
establishing policy for inspections and quarantines, and providing risk
analysis.
[7] See GAO, Land Ports of Entry: Vulnerabilities and Inefficiencies in
the Inspections Process, GAO-03-782 (Washington, D.C.: July 2003).
[8] Other violators include individuals seeking to enter the country
who are not in compliance with the laws and regulations for entry,
including immigration, customs, and agricultural requirements.
[9] Our work on training focused on the training provided at ports of
entry and did not include basic training given to CBP officers at the
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. We also did not examine the
role of agricultural specialists in CBP because we issued a report on
agricultural inspections at ports of entry last year. See GAO, Homeland
Security: Management and Coordination Problems Increase the
Vulnerability of U.S. Agriculture to Foreign Pests and Disease, GAO-06-
644 (Washington D.C.: May 19, 2006).
[10] BP's 20 field offices are responsible for managing more than 300
ports of entry.
[11] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government,
GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999).
[12] We did not include data on the rate at which CBP apprehends
inadmissible aliens and other violators who seek to enter the country
because the data are considered sensitive.
[13] Staffing and training issues are discussed in more detail later in
this testimony.
[14] The locations and a description of weaknesses in physical
infrastructure are considered sensitive information and therefore are
not included in this testimony.
[15] Examples of privately-owned ports of entry that are leased to GSA
include the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls, New York, and the Windsor
Tunnel in Detroit, Michigan.
[16] The agricultural specialist is a technical, scientific position
rather than a law enforcement position with an emphasis on detecting
and preventing the importation of harmful agricultural pests and
diseases. The agricultural specialist is responsible for conducting
agriculture inspections of passengers and cargo as well as analysis of
agriculture imports. Additionally, agricultural specialists are not
authorized to carry firearms, and therefore, they cannot staff primary
inspection lanes. However, they may provide backup support to CBP
officers during secondary screening.
[17] CBP has determined that data from the staffing model is law
enforcement sensitive. Therefore, we are not providing more detailed
data and information from the model in this testimony.
[18] Specific concerns from CBP officials of how officer fatigue
affects primary inspections are not included in this testimony because
the information is considered sensitive.
[19] Specific data on CBP's budgeted staffing level and the number of
officers onboard are not included in this testimony because CBP
considers the data sensitive.
[20] See GAO-08-219.
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