U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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Customs and Border Protection
Customs and Border Protection
Agency overview
Formed March 1, 2003
Preceding Agencies United States Customs Service
 
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Headquarters Washington DC
Employees 48,551 (2007)
Annual Budget $10.1 Billion (2008 Budget)
Agency Executives W. Ralph Basham, Commissioner
 
Jayson P. Ahern, Deputy Commissioner
Website
www.cbp.gov

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security charged with regulating and facilitating international trade, collecting import duties, and enforcing U.S. trade laws.

Its other primary mission is preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States. CBP is also responsible for apprehending individuals attempting to enter the United States illegally, stemming the flow of illegal drugs and other contraband, protecting the United States agricultural and economic interests from harmful pests and diseases, and protecting American businesses from theft of their intellectual property.

Contents

[edit] Organization

CBP has a workforce of over 56,000 employees, including officers, canine enforcement officers, Border Patrol agents, aircraft pilots, trade specialists, and mission support staff. There are 317 officially designated ports of entry and an additional 14 pre-clearance locations in Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean. CBP is also in charge of the Container Security Initiative, which identifies and inspects foreign cargo in its mother country before it is to be imported into the United States.

The four major "offices" operating under CBP are:

CBP Canine Enforcement Program within the OFO conducts the largest number of working dogs of any U.S. federal law enforcement agency. K-9 teams are assigned to 73 commercial ports and 74 Border Patrol stations throughout the nation.[1][2]

[edit] History

[edit] U.S. Customs Service

U.S. Customs Inspectors, late 1800s
U.S. Customs Inspectors, late 1800s

Responding to the urgent need for revenue following the American Revolutionary War, the First United States Congress passed and President George Washington signed the Tariff Act of July 4, 1789, which authorized the collection of duties on imported goods. Four weeks later, on July 31, the fifth act of Congress established the United States Customs Service and its ports of entry.

For nearly 125 years, the U.S. Customs Service was the primary source of funds for the entire government, and paid for the nation's early growth and infrastructure.[3] Purchases include the Louisiana and Oregon territories; Florida and Alaska; funding the National Road and the Transcontinental Railroad; building many of the United States' lighthouses; the U.S. Military and Naval academies, and Washington, D.C.

[edit] Immigration and Naturalization Service

Immigration inspectors, circa 1924
Immigration inspectors, circa 1924

Shortly after the American Civil War, some states started to pass their own immigration laws, which prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in 1875 that immigration was a federal responsibility.[citation needed] The Immigration Act of 1891 established an Office of the Superintendent of Immigration within the United States Department of the Treasury. This office was responsible for admitting, rejecting, and processing all immigrants seeking admission to the United States and for implementing national immigration policy. "Immigrant inspectors", as they were called then, were stationed at major U.S. ports of entry collecting manifests of arriving passengers. A "head tax" of fifty cents was collected on each immigrant.

In the early 1900s Congress's primary interest in immigration was to protect American workers and wages – the reason it had become a federal concern in the first place. This made immigration more a matter of commerce than revenue. In 1903, Congress transferred the Bureau of Immigration to the newly created Department of Commerce and Labor.

After World War I, Congress attempted to stem the flow of immigrants, still mainly coming from Europe by passing laws in 1921 and 1924 limiting the number of newcomers by assigning a quota to each nationality based upon its representation in previous U.S. census figures. Each year, the U.S. State Department issued a limited number of visas; only those immigrants who had obtained them and could present valid visas were permitted entry.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Immigration and Naturalization Service from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice in 1940.

[edit] Reorganization (2003 to present)

CBP Officers conducting traveller examinations
CBP Officers conducting traveller examinations

CBP became an official agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security on March 1, 2003, combining employees from the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (specifically, immigration inspectors and the United States Border Patrol), and the United States Customs Service. CBP is headed by Commissioner W. Ralph Basham.

Basham was nominated by President George W. Bush on January 30, 2006 to be the next CBP commissioner.[citation needed] Basham has 28 years of experience as a law enforcement manager. His experience includes serving as the head of the Secret Service and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. He has also served as the chief of staff for the Transportation Security Administration.

CBP officers are armed with 9mm Glock 17 and .40 Heckler & Koch P2000 pistols (the H&K are issued to new officers; the GLOCK 17's are to be phased out and replaced over time), expandable batons and oleoresin capsicum pepper spray and are trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and enforce over 450 laws.[citation needed] CBP officers have full arrest authority.[citation needed] CBP seizures and criminal cases are investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CBP's sister agency. Because CBP officers perform the duties of law enforcement officers, they are able to receive law enforcement pay retirement benefits under the 2008 federal budget. Agents placed outside of the U.S. do not have arrest or search powers, are not officers of the law, and are not armed.

[edit] Employee morale

CBP officers at a ceremony
CBP officers at a ceremony

In July 2006, the Office of Personnel Management conducted a survey of federal employees in all 36 federal agencies on job satisfaction and how they felt their respective agency was headed. DHS (which includes CBP) was last or near to last in every category including;

  • 36th on the job satisfaction index
  • 35th on the leadership and knowledge management index
  • 36th on the results-oriented performance culture index
  • 33rd on the talent management index

The low scores were attributed to major concerns about basic supervision, management and leadership within DHS. Based on the survey, the primary concerns are about promotion and pay increase based on merit, dealing with poor performance, rewarding creativity and innovation, and the inability of leadership to generate high levels of motivation in the workforce, recognition for doing a good job, lack of satisfaction with various component policies and procedures and lack of information about what is going on with the organization and complaints from the traveling public.[4][5]

In June 2007 CBP Commissioner W. Ralph Basham announced to employees that the agency would be conducting 125 different focus groups in 12 different cities around the country to better understand their concerns as expressed in the Human Capital Survey. The agency is also going to give employees who are not a part of that focus group process an intranet virtual focus group where they can express their views and their concerns. The commissioner stated: "We are looking at this very seriously. We want to hear from the employees, we want to hear from these focus groups, we want to drill down on this survey."

A November 2007 Government Accountability Office report showed that low staffing, training, and overwork is a large problem within CBP, and an average of 71 officers leave the service every two weeks.[6]

[edit] Equipment

CBP Air and Marine Intrepid and SafeBoat vessels accompanied on patrol by a UH-1 Huey near San Diego, Calif.

Unmanned aerial vehicle (CBP Air and Marine Unmanned Aircraft System) - MQ-1 Predator

CBP agriculture specialists doing lab work

CBP BORSTAR canine team conducting rappel training
Vehicle Country of Manufacture Type Notes
MQ-1 Predator Flag of the United States United States UAV
Bell Helicopters UH-1 Huey Flag of the United States United States helicopter
Marine Intrepid Flag of the United States United States marine craft
Safe Boat International Walk Around Cabin / Safe Boat International RB-S "Defender" Class Flag of the United States United States marine craft
Ford Crown Victoria Flag of the United States United States cruiser
Chevrolet Silverado Chevrolet Tahoe / Chevrolet S-10 Blazer Flag of the United States United States SUV
MD Helicopters MD 500 Flag of the United States United States helicopter
Dodge Ram Van Flag of the United States United States van
Jeep YJ Flag of the United States United States utility vehicle
AM General Hummer Flag of the United States United States SUV
Eurocopter Ecureuil Flag of France France light utility helicopter

[edit] Criticism

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CBP chemists and textile analysts who work in the Office of Information and Technology (OIT) were told to write official laboratory reports without the proper training or expertise in commodities entering the nation's borders (see junk science).

CBP has been accused of failing to protect U.S. consumers from risks such as:

  • lead in toys[7]
  • poisons in dog and cat food[8]
  • poisons in imported fish[9]
  • the false positives radiation detectors at U.S. ports[10]

In an article entitled "DHS Decision-Making: Competence or Character?", James Giermanski states that the fundamental problem within CBP is that the agency has weak and sometimes flawed management. He says that DHS and CBP suffer from "seriously flawed decision-making", citing the "door only" policy, radio frequency identification technology, and lack of focus on exports which contain bombs.[11]

BorderGate, the story the government doesn't want you to read by Darlene Fitzgerald and Peter Ferrara states that CBP takes citizens and changes them into "good old boys", "cronies", and "thugs".[12]

The United States Court of International Trade found that CBP improperly classified merchandise when it had untrained chemists testifying before the court. The court found that there were errors in the laboratory reports, that CBP destroyed the evidence, and the tests used by the chemist did not meet any Daubert Factors.[13]

National Public Radio's Morning Edition reported that CBP radiation-detection equipment at ports is better at detecting kitty litter than dangerous weapons, and that U.S. borders are so porous that congressional investigators carrying simulated nuclear materials have walked across unchallenged.[14]

During a federal court case for unlawful removal, CBP and United States Department of Justice attorneys cited the U.S. Supreme Court case of Garcetti v. Ceballos (04-473), which ruled that CBP employees do not have protection from retaliation by CBP managers under the First Amendment of the Constitution. The free speech protections of the First Amendment have long been used to shield whistleblowers from retaliation. In response to the Supreme Court decision of Garcetti v. Ceballos, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 985, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2007, and the Senate passed its version of the Whistleblower Protection Act (S. 274), which has significant bipartisan support.

Poster in support of whistleblower legislation
Poster in support of whistleblower legislation

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ U.S. Customs and Border Protection Canine Enforcement Program
  2. ^ Mission, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Canine Enforcement Program
  3. ^ History of the U.S. Customs Service
  4. ^ abc7chicago.com: Homeland Security employees rank last in job satisfaction survey 2/08/07
  5. ^ DHS memo reveals agency personnel are treated like "human capital"
  6. ^ Stephen Barr - One Tired, Under-Trained, Overworked Face at the Border - washingtonpost.com
  7. ^ CDC Toys_and_Childhood_Lead_ Exposure
  8. ^ FDA pet food contaminated with melamine and melamine-related compounds
  9. ^ NewYorkTimes In China, Farming Fish in Toxic Waters
  10. ^ Maritime_Executive_Magazine Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Delivers Speech on Homeland Security as Industry Circles the Wagons Against 100% Cargo Screening
  11. ^ DHS Decision-Making: Competence or Character?
  12. ^ publiser iUniverse BorderGate By Darlene Fitzgerald-Catalan
  13. ^ THOM S. ZANI D/B/A WHOLESALE ART & FRAME LTD., Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant.
  14. ^ National Public Radio - Morning Edition 1/14/2008 DHS Still Dogged by Questions over Effectiveness.

[edit] External links

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