The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection needs to
confront weaknesses that could “undermine border
security” if not “confronted squarely and soon,”
according to a report issued by the Migration Policy
Institute looking at the CBP’s One Face at the Border
initiative.
Primarily an organizational and management change, the
initiative is merely a starting point for improving
security or helping facilitate legitimate traffic,
according Deborah Meyers, the report’s author.
She said the Department of Homeland Security has made
progress creating a unified CBP, but that it needs to
“bring consistency and transparency to policymaking and
implementation, head off deficiencies in expertise and
infrastructure through planning and partnerships,” as
well as “increase information-sharing and stress
evaluation.”
While the report says management of the agency has
benefited from the creation of a single chain of
command with directors at ports-or-entry authorized to
set policy and allocate resources, it added that CBP
“lacks immigration expertise.”
That lack of expertise could lead to inconsistent
treatment of asylum seekers by inspectors uncertain
about visa categories and duration of stay, for example,
something Meyers found was troubling to the inspectors
themselves, saying they felt under trained in a climate
of “zero tolerance for errors.”
The report said just four of 21 field operations offices
are headed by former INS employees and that many
seasoned INS employees have retired or transferred to
other DHS agencies and programs.