GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Report finds foreigners defeat border security with stolen passports

• 9348
  

  OIG and the powers that be are only suggesting an ICE/CBP merger because they were prompted to do so to solve a budgetary crisis. CBP has bucks, ICE does not. Nothing will change except to reconstruct the U.S. Customs Service under the umbrella of CBP. Immigration duties are the heart of Homeland Security, but counterfeit beanie babies, cigarettes, and Gucci handbag interdiction are at the heart of the former Customs Service. The later mission (pursuing lost tariff and tax revenue)will prevail and the country's national security will suffer. Legacy Customs Agents look down their noses at Immigration work. Period. Nothing will change except that less resources and attention will be paid to our security.

  GovExec.com reader Posted April 21, 2005 2:10 AM
• 7653
  

  Now that CBP has apparently permitted entry to persons in possession of stolen passports, the report calls for ICE to "take action".

  In the DHS reorganization, CBP appears to have become one of the best funded, staffed & most technologically advanced entities in the department. Will someone please elaborate on what went wrong here?

  So, how shall ICE accomplish this mandate? Congress so underfunded ICE that, while agents are retiring in droves, trainees are being sent home from training for lack of money; SAC offices do not have sufficient funds to pay for mission critical expenditures such as travel, equipment or GOV maintenance, or to even detain all illegal aliens encountered; accounting systems are so outdated & monies so unaccounted for that ICE is the continual focal point for negative reporting from the GAO & IG offices.

  It seems painfully clear we are headed for the self-fulfilling prophecy warned about by ICE agents since its inception in March 2003: It was a bad idea to separate agents from the uniformed division, as it would lead to a lack of a coordination in combatting border-related security threats. This now pits CBP & ICE against each other as the one who, according to the IG, messed up, & the one who has to clean up, instead of creating a close, symbiotic relationship like one that legacy agents & inspectors enjoyed before DHS' creation. Should one of these individuals with a stolen passport perpetrate 9/11, Act II, the FBI will cite CBP and ICE as the proximate cause for DHS' failure to protect America from another terrorist attack. This is interesting since the FBI had a voice in creating DHS (and a voice in its policy making ever since (remember the name change scandal?)), but wanted no part in being a stakeholder in the final product. That's akin to an aerospace engineer who designs a spacecraft, but would hesitate to fly on it at an astronaut's expense.

  In conclusion, since the FBI desires all investigative jurisdiction anyway, may it be suggested that they join their fellow Special Agents in DHS in this proposed round-up with their ever-increasing financial and human resources: one administrative arrest and a trip to their local immigration detention facility may frustrate them sufficiently enough to more fully appreciate what ICE has been doing for almost the last 2 years without sufficient manpower or budget resources.

  GovExec.com reader Posted December 28, 2004 1:23 PM
• 7638
  

  Part of the problem started early this year when CBP (Legacy Customs Inspectors) were given a CD ROM and a couple of hours of training on Fraudulent Passports and then were re-assigned from Customs to INS primary (at airports the uniformed guy at the desk) to have essentially less than one minute with incoming visitors to determine if they have fake documents. While this person (Legacy Customs) is experienced in finding contraband in containers and suitcases he or she is not that experienced or trained in catching fake passports. So when our nation is the most vulnerable to terrorist attacks we are standing by watching and waiting for one of mistakes to cost us big time.

  This is a typical blunder made by Department of Homeland Security managers that go to congress saying that we are properly trained to do the "cross-trained" duties (Legacy INS doing Legacy Customs duties and Legacy Customs doing Legacy INS duties).

  The level of training I received as a Special Agent at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center to do my job with Legacy US Customs made me an expert and a valuable asset to the US Government. The Immigration cross-training I received in the field that lasted six days and ended with an open-book test was a real American tragedy. Because now I enforce our nations Immigration law with sub-par training that WILL lead me to make mistakes. I don't have the power to make changes because I am not the Chief I am an Indian. By pretty soon this Indian is going to leave if serious changes are not made to make us safer. Budget problems and morale problems that hinder speedy learning and adaptation are being stalled because of the illogical splitting up of the Special Agent to ICE, and the Uniformed Officers to CBP. These days... we can't afford to make a mistake in the war on terror Mr. Bush and Mr. Congress!

  GovExec.com reader Posted December 23, 2004 7:27 PM
• 7625
  

  Anyone can cross the border anytime. Go to Canada and just walk across in some rural area. Why are we wasting money with the border patrol? We should get rid of this group and reduce the budget. Everyone in the southern US will be speaking spanish within the next ten years anyway (in many places they already do).

  taxpayer Posted December 23, 2004 7:36 AM
• 7615
  

  There are two reasons why ICE and CBP were created as separate entities in the first place, and why they haven't been merged yet.

  1) Michael Garcia needed a new home, and ICE allowed for that. Whereas the Customs Commissioner, Robert Bonner, was handed the reins of CBP, Garcia was handed the reins of ICE. If CBP and ICE had been created as one agency, Garcia would have been left out in the cold. So for purely political reasons, and against the interest of national security, ICE was created separately from CBP.

  2) The FBI was actively involved in the entire DHS creation process, even though they aren't even a part of DHS. If CBP and ICE had been created as one entity, this agency would pose a significant threat to them in terms of its size and capabitities. Indeed, we would have become an agency so big and so formidable that the FBI could have had a hard time maintaining its reputation as a bully and as a thief among the rest of the federal law enforcement community. Additionally, by separating CBP and ICE, the FBI knew it would be easily able to infringe on many investigative areas that had been traditionally done by Customs, such as money laundering and weapons exports. They were right. ICE and DHS management have given away so much to them that I wouldn't be surprised if our Undersecretary and Assistant Secretary let FBI agents walk into their own homes and take whatever they want. So, again, against the interest of national security, they just couldn't have allowed for CBP and ICE to be created as one agency.

  GovExec.com reader Posted December 22, 2004 8:37 AM
• 7598
  

  A little too late now Mr. Hutchinson. Again no one will be held accountable. When will our leaders ever require accountability? Oh well, let's not worry about all those illegal foreigners coming across our borders and into our back yard, we just need to send more billions into Iraq. That will solve everything.

  GovExec.com reader Posted December 21, 2004 7:23 AM
• 7588
  

  Why not merge ICE and CBP so there is better cordination and less overlap?

  GovExec.com reader Posted December 20, 2004 6:06 PM