03 March 2004
U.S. Considers Sending Customs Agents to Foreign Airports
Action aims to block terrorists from U.S.-bound planes, U.S. Customs head says
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering a plan to place U.S. customs inspectors at key airports around the world to prevent potential terrorists from boarding U.S.-bound planes, the head of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau says.
Speaking February 11 to a Washington research organization, Commissioner Robert Bonner said that his bureau in DHS has proposed stationing small teams of six to seven primarily CBP officers at hub international airports with large volumes of passengers heading for the United States. Working with the host-nation authorities and airlines, those officers would target and scrutinize high-risk individuals to determine before they board the plane whether they are admissible into the United States, he said.
In remarks published March 2 Bonner noted that the idea, based on a successful pilot project run by the now-eliminated Immigration and Naturalization Service, is not unprecedented. The Israeli airline follows a similar procedure in foreign airports and Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have similar programs, he said.
Bonner said that within the U.S. program -- called the Immigration Security Initiative (ISI) -- U.S. inspectors would not have the legal authority to keep non-admissible passengers from boarding but added that air carriers would likely act on the CBP officer's recommendation because airlines pay a penalty for transporting to the United States an alien found inadmissible.
Bonner said that ISI would be more effective than sending emergency teams to foreign airports to respond to specific threats and would save the government and airlines money that would be otherwise spent on detaining, processing and sending back inadmissible individuals. It also would give the U.S. and other governments an option other than canceling flights when credible intelligence indicates that terrorists are targeting U.S.-bound flights, he added.
During the 2003 Christmas holiday period and later, British, French and Mexican authorities cancelled several flights to U.S. destinations that, according to information they had received, were targeted by the Al Qaeda terrorist network.
Bonner said he will propose to launch within months a pilot program at five to ten hub international airports, which are likely to include Heathrow in London, Schiphol in Amsterdam and Charles de Gaulle in Paris. If the program turns out to be successful, it could expand to other locations, he added.
According to news reports, CBP has already begun preliminary talks on ISI with a number of countries.
Following is an excerpt from Bonner's remarks:
(begin excerpt)
Commissioner Robert C. Bonner Remarks to Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Transnational Threats Audit Conference
February 11, 2004
IMMIGRATION SECURITY INITIATIVE (ISI)
We cannot rest our laurels, however. We must continue to strengthen our ability to prevent terrorist attack. We must strive to be as agile as our enemy.
CSI and C-TPAT are aimed at extending our border and protecting the global trade; to help us prevent terrorist weapons from entering the U.S., to prevent the use of cargo shipments -- containers, food products and the like -- from being used as terrorist weapons.
But now that the frontline Immigration inspectors and Immigration authorities are part of CBP, how do we extend our borders further? How do we do a better job preventing terrorists from entering the U.S.; the other big part of CBP's priority mission?
I want to turn now to a new concept -- how we push our zone of security out to prevent terrorists from entering our country by air, add an additional layer of defense, and in the process, better secure passenger aircraft and the commercial aviation industry.
This, of course, is not a new duty for us, on either the legacy Customs or legacy Immigration sides of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But the creation of CBP, and the unification of Customs and Immigration border authorities, gives us an unparalleled opportunity to be more effective in carrying out that task.
I need only make reference to the recent testimony of CBP officer, and legacy Immigration Inspector Jose Melendez-Perez to the 9/11 Commission concerning his denial of entry into the United States of a Saudi national, named Mohamed al-Qahtani, who attempted entry on August 4, 2001 at the Orlando Airport. Al-Qahtani was traveling on a genuine Saudi passport and had a valid U.S. B-2 visa. He was traveling from Dubai via London. He did not appear on any watchlist. And yet, after questioning Al-Qahtani and hearing his evasive and inconsistent answers to questions about the purpose of his visit, Inspector Melendez-Perez believed Al-Qahtani's story did not add up, and after consulting with his supervisor, he used the authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny Al-Qahtani entry into the United States. Al-Qahtani was escorted by two armed inspectors to board a flight back to Dubai.
As it turned out, something was wrong. Four months later, this same Saudi, Al-Qahtani, was captured in Afghanistan by the U.S. military. Al-Qahtani was fighting alongside the Taliban. Subsequent FBI investigation indicates that Al-Qahtani is very probably an Al Qaeda member. Whether or not he was a conspirator in the attacks of September 11, 2001, as speculated in the media, he was very clearly an Al Qaeda-trained terrorist. And it was Immigration inspector -- now, a CBP inspector -- who kept him out of our country. And he did it by doing what he was trained to do -- asking probing questions, reading behavior, and making a judgment call. If the purpose appears to be terrorism, deny entry. That is what all CBP inspectors are trained, directed and expected to do, and are doing almost every day.
And this expertise is not limited to the Immigration inspections side of the house. As you all know, it was a legacy Customs inspector, now, a CBP inspector, Diana Dean who, along with her colleagues arrested an Al Qaeda terrorist named Ahmad Ressam, who was trying to enter the U.S. from Canada. It was questioning by Inspector Dean and observing behavior that led to Ressam's arrest.
This is CBP's most fundamental job -- keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the United States. That is our priority mission. And the bringing together of both legacy Customs and Immigration Inspectors into one, unified workforce brings together all of the personnel performing that mission, and all the broad legal authorities to back it up, within a single antiterrorism border agency -- CBP. CBP's legal powers -- to detain, question, search and deny entry -- are broader than any other U.S. law enforcement agency.
We are now working together as one agency to target high-risk passengers, with a unified CBP running the National Targeting Center and our "Passenger Analytical Units" at our international airports. And we are working together in consolidated anti-terrorism "secondary" examination teams -- with both legacy Customs and Immigration inspectors working side-by-side to scrutinize individuals presenting any potential terrorist risk. And if there is a concern about a person's intent, they are denied admission into the U.S.
But if a person is going to be denied admission, why wait till they have boarded an aircraft and arrived at our port of entry, whether it is JFK, LAX or some other U.S. airport. Why not have an extended border, defense-in-depth strategy.
As I have said many times, the border should not be the first line of defense against terrorists. Within the Department of Homeland Security's Border and Transportation Security Directorate, under the leadership of Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson, we are now considering, how to take these concepts -- and our well-trained officers -- to foreign hub airports, so we can better prevent terrorists from boarding planes bound for America in the first place. A "CSI for People," if you will.
I want you to remember for a moment what happened during the Christmas holidays. During that period, we received information indicating that a number of flights headed for the United States from France, the United Kingdom, and Mexico had been potentially targeted by Al Qaeda for terrorist activity of some form. As the media has reported, we worked together with our foreign counterparts and the airlines to review relevant intelligence, run passenger manifests through the sophisticated databases of CBP's National Targeting Center, among other things, to determine whether any individuals potentially boarding these planes presented a risk.
As it turned out, some of the flights in question ended up being cancelled, at considerable cost to the airlines, I might add. Why? In part, because we could not be assured that Al Qaeda operatives had not targeted these planes for terrorist attack and had no effective way of screening a small number of passengers that were of concern.
What tools did the United States have at its disposal to deal with this situation? We had reservation data through the Advance Passenger Information System maintained at the National Targeting Center, and all of the databases and expertise of the intelligence agencies of the United States government. We had our relationships with foreign intelligence agencies and sources, as well as our relationships with the relevant air carriers. And we had some advance information on the flights -- not all we needed, but some.
What I am positing today is that we need another "tool in our toolbox" -- an Immigration Security Initiative -- to deal with the threat that terrorists might board commercial planes abroad and attempt to enter the United States. We in DHS are considering whether we should station small teams primarily of CBP officers to work with foreign law enforcement and the airlines at key foreign "hub" airports, perhaps starting with the top 5 or 10 in terms of passenger volume and strategic locations. The Immigration Security Initiative might include airports, such as Heathrow in London, Schiopol in Amsterdam, Charles de Gaulle in Paris, Benito Juarez Airport in Mexico City, or Narita or Frankfurt. As you can see from the Chart, the top seven hub or mega airports account for 40 per cent of all passengers flying to the U.S. from abroad.
Under the Immigration Security Initiative, or "ISI," these teams of CBP officers would work with the National Targeting Center, the foreign authorities, the air carriers, and other U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to do three things -- what I have called the "core elements" of ISI:
First, the ISI teams would utilize advance manifest information to identify potentially high-risk passengers. Currently, CBP does this on all passengers before their arrival in the United States. ISI would push this process out to before boarding, so we could identify the high-risk passengers before they get on the planes.
Second, the ISI teams would work with the airlines and the host-nation authorities to question the high-risk passengers and examine their travel documents. Currently, CBP does this upon arrival, with, for example, a CBP officer trained in document fraud reviewing the high-risk passenger's travel documents. ISI would push this process out to the foreign airports, so we can do this before the high-risk passengers get on the airplanes.
Third, the ISI teams would make a determination whether the high-risk passengers are admissible into the United States. And they would do this prior to boarding, rather than on arrival, so the high-risk passenger would not get on the plane.
The CBP officers would not have legal authority in the host country. But given that CBP -- through authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act -- has exclusive authority to determine admissibility into the United States, and air carriers pay a penalty for transiting an alien found inadmissible, the air carriers will likely listen to the CBP officer's advice and deny boarding to the individual, because it is, in effect, a decision to deny admission to the U.S. It is just being made prior to departure rather than after arrival.
In essence, ISI would institute in these foreign airports something akin to what the Israeli airline, El Al, does with all individuals: running information against databases and, importantly, questioning potentially suspect individuals before they board the aircraft.
It was the process of questioning that led Inspector Melendez-Perez to suspect that something was amiss with Al-Qahtani.
Conceivably, we could do this now on a "threat-response" basis -- sending jump teams to foreign airports, based on specific intelligence. But in my view, a more effective way of doing this would be to permanently station teams of CBP officers, about 6 or 7, at major foreign "hub" airports, so these teams can develop close working relationships with their foreign counterparts and the airline officials. Because the team would be made up of legacy Immigration inspectors primarily, ISI teams would be expert in spotting fraudulent and counterfeit entry documents. They would also be expert at questioning high-risk individuals and making determinations based on behavior and other factors.
I would propose that we pilot ISI at 5 to 10 hub airports, evaluate it, and then expand -- as we are doing with the Container Security Initiative.
I see ISI as part of the DHS continuum of "layered" defense aimed at preventing terrorists from entering the United States -- from the DHS Visa Security teams being deployed to consular offices under Section 428 of the Homeland Security Act, to the ISI teams at the hub airports, to the CBP antiterrorism inspectors and US-VISIT technology deployed at the ports of entry. ISI would add that middle layer of defense between the consular office and the U.S. port of entry, and would be particularly valuable for visa waiver passengers, who are exempted from the visa issuance process; people such as Richard Reid who held a U.K. passport and who was flying to the U.S. via Charles de Gaulle.
ISI is not an entirely new concept. It builds upon and revitalizes the old Immigration Control Officer program of the former INS, although ISI would give the program a sharper, homeland security focus. Our counterparts in Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom all have some form of ISI program, that is, immigration officers stationed abroad to screen outbound passengers to their respective nations for admissibility and valid, genuine entry documents. Thus, Immigration Control Officers, as they are called, are currently deployed in various locations around the world, with their chief mission to interdict inadmissible aliens, often with fraudulent documentation, before they board planes. In some locations, there are actually multi-national teams. For example, in Bangkok, the Immigration Control Officer team is made up of individuals from five countries, and the team has worked closely with the Thai government to great effect.
Aside from its obvious antiterrorism benefits, the Immigration Security Initiative I am proposing will be cost effective. The U.S. Government and the airlines will save substantial sums of money when it is implemented. Unlike most government programs, this one literally pays for itself.
How do we know that ISI will save the government money? In Fiscal Year 2003, the INS launched a five-month pilot or temporary "surge" ICO initiative in various locations around the world, called Operation Global Shield. In its five months of operation, Global Shield resulted in 2,791 interceptions of inadmissible aliens bound for the United States.
Because these interceptions were done on foreign soil, the individuals were not boarded and did not arrive in the U.S. Accordingly, the U.S. Government did not have to detain these individuals on arrival, or process them, or send them back from whence they came. Nor did the airlines have to transport these aliens back or pay the penalties associated with transporting inadmissible aliens. The INS estimated that, because of Operation Global Shield, the U.S. Government avoided having to pay out over $45 million in detention and processing costs. And the airlines avoided over $9 million in penalties and costs. How much did Operation Global Shield's five-month deployment cost the U.S. government? Only $2.4 million. So, according to the INS analysis, for a $2.4 million investment, the U.S. Government received $45 million in avoided costs.
The U.K., Australian, and Canadian ICO programs have resulted in similar and substantial savings to the airlines and to these governments; savings that significantly exceed the costs of the programs.
ISI will pay for itself and then some.
There is an additional, humane benefit to ISI. Currently, foreign nationals traveling under the Visa Waiver Program -- those have overstayed their time in the United States previously -- are not admitted into the U.S., and are detained, sometimes overnight, before they can be put back on a plane. Unfortunately, CBP -- like the INS before it -- has no legal authority to waive prior overstay violations, except in very rare emergency cases.
With ISI, we should be able to identify these individuals before they board, thereby avoiding the humiliation and inconvenience of being denied admission at a U.S. airport, detained, sometimes overnight, and then put on a plane back to the country of origin.
But that's not the sole or driving reason to launch ISI. We need it to add to our layered, extended border defense against the terrorist threat. We need it to better protect passenger aircraft and the civil aviation. And it will give the U.S. Government, in a circumstance like the Holiday Threat, an option other than canceling flights.
We need another, less blunt, tool in our toolbox to identify potential terrorists, and make determinations on whether these particular individuals should be allowed to fly. ISI will give us that tool.
Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this idea.
(end excerpt)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=March&x=20040303141038SAikceinawz0.5736353&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
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