The Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which plays a key role in preventing nuclear smuggling by monitoring cargo arriving at U.S. ports of entry, is understaffed and faces challenges in properly screening incoming high-risk shipments, according to witnesses at a House Homeland Security Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee hearing Thursday.
Todd Owen, executive assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Field Operations, told lawmakers that a workload staffing model used by his agency has identified that it is 2,107 officers short of what it needs to effectively carry out its assignment, approximately 500 of whom would be directed toward seaports. Customs and Border Protection currently has over 60,000 employees. The agency is also concerned about aging technology used at ports of entry, Owen said.
David Espie, director of security for the Maryland Port Administration, added that his team also feels CBP “is very strapped.” Citing the example of the personnel operating the radiation portal monitors, he said lack of personnel changeover during long days of work could lead to morale problems that might impact the agency’s ability “to safeguard a potential nuclear weapon leaving our port.”
There were 2,889 confirmed incidents of illicit nuclear and radiological material trafficking globally reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s member states by the end of last year, according to the agency’s Incident and Trafficking Database.
Outlining CBP’s main cargo inspection programs, Owen noted that automated targeting systems are used to assess shipments before they are placed on vessels traveling to the United States, and that the agency receives advance information on each shipment before its arrival to U.S. ports of entry.
Additionally, the Container Security Initiative (CSI) partners CBP with foreign authorities to identify high-risk containers at foreign ports before they are placed on U.S.-bound vessels. “CBP now has 60 CSI ports in 35 countries,” Owen said. “We screen over 80 percent of the maritime containerized cargo before it heads to the United States.”
Owen said CBP has also deployed nuclear and radiological detection equipment nationwide, in partnership with Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. He said with these radiation portal monitors CBP is able to scan all the arriving mail, truck cargo, personal vehicles, and maritime containerized cargo for the presence of radiological or nuclear materials.
While all incoming cargo is scanned for radiation, a small percentage deemed higher risk – about 3.7 percent – is sent for X-ray or other more intrusive scanning, Owen said. However, Jennifer Grover, director of homeland security and justice issues for the Government Accountability Office (GAO), pointed out that a 2015 GAO report found that “of the roughly 120,000 high-risk maritime shipments processed each year, most, about 90 percent, were actually examined, but CBP did not have good data on the disposition of the other 10 percent.”
Some of those shipments were found not to be high-risk, she said. In other cases, CBP officers failed to examine some cargo without also waiving the examination as required, she said. Grover added that CBP has since developed a new policy to address the problem, enhancing consistency for its officers.
Grover testified that GAO found in 2013 that “CBP had not regularly assessed foreign ports for risks to cargo under the CSI program since 2005,” noting that budget cuts prevented the agency from modifying the locations of CSI staff based on an internal risk assessment.
Congressional auditors also found that CBP’s risk assessment indicated “CSI did not have a presence at about half of the foreign ports CBP considered high-risk, and about one-fifth of the existing CSI ports were at lower-risk locations,” according to Grover. She noted that CBP in response developed a CSI Port Risk Matrix and Port Priority Map to be used to assess future changes in the allocation of its resources.
