Border Security: Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler	 
Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry (03-JAN-08,	 
GAO-08-329T).							 
                                                                 
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.							 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-08-329T					        
    ACCNO:   A78951						        
  TITLE:     Border Security: Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler
Inspections Exist at Our Nation's Ports of Entry		 
     DATE:   01/03/2008 
  SUBJECT:   Air transportation 				 
	     Airline security					 
	     Airport security					 
	     Airports						 
	     Border control					 
	     Border patrols					 
	     Border security					 
	     Customs administration				 
	     Homeland security					 
	     Performance measures				 
	     Port security					 
	     Security assessments				 
	     Security investigations				 
	     Security policies					 
	     Security threats					 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Terrorists 					 
	     Transportation					 
	     Transportation security				 
	     Travel						 

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GAO-08-329T

   

     * [1]Summary
     * [2]Concluding Remarks
     * [3]GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
     * [4]GAO's Mission
     * [5]Obtaining Copies of GAO Reports and Testimony

          * [6]Order by Mail or Phone

     * [7]To Report Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Federal Programs
     * [8]Congressional Relations
     * [9]Public Affairs

Testimony before the Committee on Homeland Security, House of
Representatives

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO

For Release on Delivery
Expected at 10:00 a.m. MST
Thursday, January 3, 2008

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

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.^1 My statement today
is based on our November 5, 2007, report^2 that describes the progress
made by CBP in inspecting travelers at air and land ports of entry and the
challenges that remain.^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.

^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, [10]GAO-08-219
(Washington D.C.: Nov. 5, 2007).

^3 Our November 2007 report ( [11]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, [12]GAO-08-123SU
(Washington D.C.: Oct. 5, 2007).

When CBP was created in March 2003, it represented a merger of components
from three departments--the U.S. Customs Service,^4 the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service,^5 and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service.^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.^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:

           o What success and challenges has CBP had in interdicting
           inadmissible aliens and other violators^8 at its ports of entry?
           o 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?

           o What progress and problems has CBP encountered in setting goals
           and performance measures for its traveler inspection program?

^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, [13]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.

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.^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^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^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.

^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, [14]GAO-06-644 (Washington D.C.:
May 19, 2006).

^10CBP's 20 field offices are responsible for managing more than 300 ports
of entry.

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.^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:

^11 GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government,
[15]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.

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:

           o 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.

           o 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:

           o 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.

           o 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.^13

           o 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.

           o 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.

^13 Staffing and training issues are discussed in more detail later in
this testimony.

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.^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,^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:

^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.

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^16 to
operate its ports of entry.^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.^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.

^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.

Reported staffing shortages are exacerbated by challenges in retaining
staff, contributing to an increasing number of vacant positions
nationwide.^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.

^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.

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,^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:

^20 See [16]GAO-08-219 .

           o 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;

           o 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;

           o 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

           o 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 [17][email protected] .

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.

(440686)

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Highlights of [25]GAO-08-329T , a testimony before the Committee on
Homeland Security, House of Representatives

January 3, 2008

BORDER SECURITY

Despite Progress, Weaknesses in Traveler Inspections Exist at Our Nation's
Ports of Entry

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.

[26]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.

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.

References

Visible links
  10. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-219
  11. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-219
  12. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-123SU
  13. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-03-782
  14. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-644
  15. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1
  16. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-219
  17. mailto:[email protected]
  18. http://www.gao.gov/
  19. http://www.gao.gov/
  20. http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm
  21. mailto:[email protected]
  22. mailto:[email protected]
  23. mailto:[email protected]
  24. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-329T
  25. http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-329T
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