No need for an apology; a safer, more secure border is well worth the trouble.
NELVIN C. CEPEDA / Union-Tribune
Typical morning weekday traffic in Tijuana, this scene in early March, as motorists inch their way north to the Port of Entry in San Ysidro.
|
No one within U.S. Customs and Border Protection is comfortable with extended wait times at any U.S. port of entry. At Southern California's San Ysidro inspection station, the nation's busiest land port, officers and port officials are well aware of the high cost in time, money and frayed nerves these waits cause. It's far from ideal for travelers or our officers.
Customs and Border Protection is working to modernize facilities, technologies and procedures. But our pledge is to keep bad things and bad people out of the United States. Failure would cause lasting damage to citizens, economies and ways of life on both sides of the border.
We spend about 30 to 60 seconds with each vehicle, checking for terror watch list matches, outstanding criminal warrants, public health and narcotics lookouts and other indications of risk. Those who may require additional scrutiny are then referred for secondary inspection. At our 99 land ports of entry, we processed just under 300 million people last year.
This process yielded about 25,000 arrests during fiscal year 2007, a 10 percent increase over the previous year and a two-thirds increase from the launch of Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Last year, we stopped 280 people suspected of having terrorist ties from entering the United States.
During the first week of April at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa, we apprehended 28 fugitives trying to enter the country. They were wanted on felonies including assault, counterfeiting, sexual assault and weapons offenses.
As well as keeping dangerous people out, we've prevented 618,000 pounds of marijuana and 78,000 pounds of cocaine from entering through U.S. ports.
But I want to emphasize that extended waits are not a natural consequence of heightened security. I started my career at the San Ysidro inspection station more than three decades ago. No one back then could have anticipated the level of traffic and scrutiny that occurs today in our post-9/11 world.
For San Ysidro, the only solution is major reconstruction. Customs and Border Patrol, in collaboration with the General Services Administration and others, is implementing solutions. San Ysidro is undergoing an aggressive three-phased construction project. The complete overhaul of this facility is expected to be accomplished by 2014.
In the meantime, we have been testing the use of booths staggered parallel to each other, allowing for two vehicle inspections per lane. In the short term, San Ysidro will see the installation of five such stacked booths. They should be operational by fall. We have increased overtime for the San Diego area, enabling us to ensure that all locations are fully staffed during peak hours.
We have increased hours of operations at our ports of entry and opened cargo lanes for passenger processing. We also recommend that frequent travelers participate in the SENTRI program that will expedite crossings through dedicated lanes. In January, we standardized some of our travel document requirements, and by June of next year we will mandate smarter documents that will help speed the process.
When you have more than 100,000 travelers crossing through San Ysidro each day, seconds count. While we regret the inconvenience, we cannot apologize for doing our jobs. Any way you look at it, a safer, more secure border is well worth the investment and the wait.
Ahern, deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, began his career as a U.S. Customs employee at San Ysidro in 1976. He is a graduate of Northeastern University and a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
