Technology helps keep border traffic flowing ? safely
http://federaltimes.com/index2.php?S=963225
July 13, 2005
By STEPHEN LOSEY
SAN DIEG0 ? Securing the nation?s borders can be a daunting task.
Each year, 9 million cargo containers arrive at the nation?s seaports and 121 million privately owned vehicles cross the borders from Mexico and
Canada. Customs and Border Protection turns to a variety of technologies ? some new, some tried-and-true ? to keep people and goods, mostly
legitimate, flowing.
Efforts to lock down ports and border crossings after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had swift consequences.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Robert Bonner has said that within three days of 9/11 ? after which the former Customs Service went to its
highest level of alert ? wait times at the borders shot from 10 or 20 minutes to as long as 12 hours. By Sept. 14, automobile plants began shutting
down for lack of parts.
CBP officials acknowledge they won?t catch everything, but technology helps them strike the best possible balance between security and open borders.
?The technology we are now at, in a post-9/11 world, is absolutely amazing,? said Peter Gordon, CBP?s acting port director at the Los Angeles and Long
Beach seaports. ?It?s incredible, the difference between what exists today and what it was five years ago.?
The latest addition to CBP?s high-tech toolbox are radiation portal monitors, which are stationary detection devices that have been deployed to border
crossings and seaports nationwide. On April 26, the Port of Oakland, Calif., became the first seaport to have enough monitors to scan every cargo
container and vehicle, and the Homeland Security Department plans to have complete coverage at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports ? the busiest
seaport complex in the nation ? by the end of this year.
The monitors are passive systems that detect radiation. As of April, all vehicles that pass through the 24 lanes at the San Ysidro border crossing,
south of San Diego, drive through monitors just before they reach an inspection booth.
Each CBP officer inspecting cargo or vehicles also has a personal radiation detector, which clips to a belt like a pager. The personal detectors are
not as sensitive as the monitors, but they are mobile and let officers search for dirty bombs or nuclear weapons as they rove among vehicles waiting
to enter the country.
But those detectors and monitors go off a lot ? anywhere from five to 25 times a day at San Ysidro, which grants entry to about 55,000 cars from
Mexico daily. Anything from cat litter to ceramics and people returning from Tijuana after receiving radiation treatments can set off an alert.
Such alerts send CBP officers reaching for their radiation isotope identifier devices, or RIIDs ? handheld machines that display what type of
radiation it detects.
Jesus Sanchez, a CBP supervisory officer at the Long Beach port, said every cargo container targeted for inspection is scanned with personal radiation
detectors and the RIID. If an officer detects radiation that the cargo manifest says shouldn?t be there, the container is sent to a bonded warehouse
for further inspection.
The RIID is precise enough to detect if someone is trying to smuggle dangerous radioactive substances under the cover of legitimate radiation, Sanchez
said. If, for example, a terrorist tried to smuggle uranium for a nuclear weapon alongside cesium, which can be found in many legitimate goods, the
RIID would be able to identify both types of radiation.
CBP officers also use gamma radiation devices mounted on trucks to scan cargo containers and vehicles to see whether they are smuggling hidden
contraband or anything not declared on the cargo manifest. Similar devices are used to scan cargo on conveyer belts at warehouses where CBP conducts
inspections.
That technology can also save lives, officials said. Scans can show officers if illegal aliens are hiding in containers or unusual spots in cars, such
as inside gas tanks or hollowed-out dashboards, and let officers get them medical attention before they dehydrate or suffocate.
If CBP needs to check packages of frozen fish or anything else that can be tough to penetrate with gamma rays, it turns to X-ray machines that date
back to the 1980s. The X-ray machines are more detailed, but cost more to maintain, said Donald Kusser, CBP chief at the centralized examination
station in Long Beach for import-export company Price Transfer Inc.
The Border Patrol?s 11,000 or so agents use other types of technology to secure the nearly 7,500 miles of borders with Mexico and Canada. Surveillance
cameras, infrared scopes, lighting and underground sensors to detect footfalls all help layer a defense against illegal migrants.
For instance, the rocky canyon walls of Smuggler?s Gulch, south of San Diego, are too steep to support the corrugated steel walls that close off the
rest of the Southwest border, said senior Border Patrol agent Hilary Smith. So lights, sensors and agents stationed at the bottom of the gulch combine
to make up for that gap, she said.
But recently, administrative hiccups have undermined Border Patrol efforts to deploy more technology. The General Services Administration told
Congress on June 16 that it found problems in the way it helped the Border Patrol buy technology. GSA Deputy Inspector General Joel Gallay said a 2004
audit of the Remote Video Surveillance program found many improper task orders and contract awards.
As a result of GSA?s and the Border Patrol?s poor contract administration and project management, Gallay said, eight locations ? Tucson, Nogales and
Naco in Arizona; Laredo and Carrizo Springs in Texas; Detroit; Buffalo, N.Y.; and Blaine, Wash. ? did not have fully installed and operational cameras
and monitoring equipment.
Smith said the San Diego Border Patrol has not had any such problems.
The Border Patrol operation in Southern Arizona has experimented with unmanned aerial vehicle technology to keep an eye on the borders. Tucson Border
Patrol Chief Mike Nicley said last year?s experiment was a success: UAVs were able to loiter over rough terrain for up to 12 hours at a time,
deterring illegal immigrants or drug smugglers.
In its Homeland Security Department authorization bill for next year, the House is instructing the department to draft a plan for using UAVs to help
patrol the U.S.-Canadian border.
US-VISIT roll out
In addition to these technologies, Homeland Security agents charged with protecting the borders have a new computer system with which to cross-check
names and fingerprints of foreigners entering the country with at least 20 databases of criminals, suspects and terrorists.
An initial version of the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program, or US-VISIT ? which can scan fingerprints and names of those
entering the country ? is already deployed at 115 airports, 15 seaports and the 50 busiest land ports of entry, and Homeland Security expects to
deploy it to the remaining 115 land ports of entry by the end of this year.
An updated version that processes the exits of foreigners is behind schedule. On July 13, Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, Fla., will
become the 14th site to use US-VISIT to track the exit of foreign visitors, said program director James Williams. US-VISIT has not yet set a date for
the last pilot site, Phoenix International Airport, to track exits. Exit systems at the pilot sites were originally meant to be up and running by Nov.
1, according to the Government Accountability Office, but the government?s lengthy security clearance process has delayed work. Williams did not know
when US-VISIT could begin deploying the exit system nationwide.
Visitors to the country stop by a US-VISIT booth at airports, seaports or border crossings when they plan to travel more than 25 miles from the border
or stay more than 30 days.
For a Mexican citizen entering the country at a land port, CBP employees swipe the traveler?s electronic border-crossing card containing his name,
address and other personal information. US-VISIT uses the information to automatically fill out the arrival and departure form for foreign visitors.
Since the traveler does not have to fill out a paper form with that information and employees do not have to read handwriting, the electronic process
saves time.
After a scan of the traveler?s two index fingers ? checked against databases of suspected and wanted criminals and terrorists downloaded to US-VISIT ?
and a photograph, CBP prints out and stamps the arrival/departure form, the traveler pays a $6 fee and is on his way.
At the San Ysidro border crossing south of San Diego ? the busiest border crossing in the country ? the process takes about two minutes, about par,
employees there say. Anywhere from 600 to 3,000 travelers are processed through US-VISIT at San Ysidro each day. Nationwide, US-VISIT processes 65,000
to 110,000 visitors daily.
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