Customs and Border Protection has had some success identifying inadmissible aliens and other violators at ports of entry into the US, but weaknesses in its operations increase the potential that terrorists and inadmissible travelers could enter the country, GAO testified in a hearing before the House Homeland Security committee recently, much of it focusing on the border crossing at El Paso, Texas.
CBP works to keep certain people out of the country while facilitating cross border travel at 326 air, sea and land ports, and in fiscal 2006 it turned away more than 200,000 inadmissible aliens and interdicted other violators, according to its testimony, GAO-08-329T.
CBP thinks several thousand people got into the country in 2006 who should not have, something GAO attributed to weaknesses in inspection procedures, such as not verifying the citizenship and admissibility of each traveler.
Although CBP has tried to address those weaknesses, GAO found they persist. For example, in July 2007, CBP issued detailed procedures for conducting inspections, and required field office managers to assess compliance with them. However, CBP has not established an internal control to ensure field office managers share assessments with CBP headquarters, GAO said after reviewing CBP data and inspections, staffing, and training, interviewing managers and observing inspections.
According to a CBP staffing model, the agency needs several thousand more staff, and field office managers have said staffing shortages affect their ability to carry out anti-terrorism programs and lead to other vulnerabilities.
The agency is developing a strategy to help curb attrition, which has contributed to problems meeting budgeted staffing levels, the report said.
It said that while CBP has made progress developing training programs, it does not measure the extent to which it provides training to all who need it and whether new officers have required skills.
Further, while 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, current performance measures do not gauge CBP effectiveness in apprehending inadmissible aliens and other violators, a key strategic goal, GAO said.
