Given at a Full Committee Hearing:
Oversight of Transportation Security
Tuesday, September 9 2003 - 9:30 AM - SR-253
The Testimony ofThe Honorable Robert C. Bonner
Commissioner, Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security

Chairman McCain, Senator Hollings, Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify
today to discuss what U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been doing since September 11, 2001 toprotect the American people, and to better secure the borders of our Nation and its ports of entry, throughwhich all people, vehicles and goods must enter. This includes the systems by which people and goods
move into and out of our country.
First, I want to say how delighted I am to be here with Admiral Loy and Admiral Collins. CBP has
coordinated on many issues with the Coast Guard and with TSA, as this coordination has been facilitatedby the fact that all three agencies are now within the Department of Homeland Security. Indeed, TSA andCBP are agencies within the Border and Transportation Security (BTS) Directorate of the Department,
which, under the leadership of Under Secretary Asa Hutchinson, has assisted greatly in our coordination
efforts.
It is an understatement to say that, in the days before the terrorist attacks, our border systems weredesigned, not for security, but for the rapid movement of people and commerce. It has been our challenge
since September 11 to “retrofit” this global system of commerce to protect the American people fromterrorism ? and do it in a way that does not impede, and indeed, where possible, facilitates, the efficient flowof legitimate people and goods so vital to our economy, and the economy of the world. CBP Transition
Before I go further, however, I want to spend a few moments talking about U.S. Customs and Border
Protection ? or “CBP.” As I am sure all of you know, CBP was formed on March 1, 2003 through the mergerof most of the U.S. Customs Service with the immigration inspectors and U.S. Border Patrol of the former
INS and the agricultural border inspectors of the USDA. Although under the Homeland Security Act and theDepartment’s Reorganization Plan, CBP is the successor agency to U.S. Customs, CBP is very much a newagency within the Department of Homeland Security. Now, for the first time in our Nation’s history, there isa single U.S. border agency, CBP ? responsible for managing and securing the entire U.S. border, that is, allof the 300 plus ports of entry, and between the ports of entry. And, through the unifying of customs,immigration, and agriculture functions at the border, under one unified chain of command, we are more
effective than we were before March 1, when we were fragmented into 3 agencies in 3 different
departments of government.
This was most vividly demonstrated last week, when Secretary Ridge, Under Secretary Hutchinson, and I
were at Dulles Airport, introducing the new “CBP Officer” ? with a new CBP Officer’s uniform andDHS/CBP patch ? to the American people. Starting this October, we will no longer be training legacy“immigration” or “customs” inspectors. We will be training a new cadre of “CBP Officers,” who will beequipped and trained to handle all CBP primary and secondary inspections, for all purposes in thepassenger environment. These CBP Officers will also perform all primary inspection functions in the cargoenvironment, although we will also be deploying CBP Agriculture Specialists to perform more specialized
agricultural secondary inspection functions.
And current legacy immigration and customs inspectors have already begun cross-training. So, we’re not
waiting for the new “CBP Officers” to graduate from FLETC to begin creating “one face at the border.” We
have already begun to roll out unified CBP primary inspections at our international airports, and we aremerging our specialized immigration and customs anti-terrorism secondary and passenger analyticaltargeting units.
In short, we are moving out quickly to achieve the President’s and the Secretary’s goal of “One Face at theBorder,” that is one unified, flexible, and effective agency to manage and control our Nation’s borders.
This merger has allowed us to think comprehensively about how we better secure, manage and facilitate themovement of people and commerce into and out of our country. No longer is our government fragmented ?
with one agency thinking about the movement of people, another thinking about cargo, and still anotherthinking about agriculture protection. It’s one agency focusing on the whole picture at our borders.
“Beyond the Border” Initiatives And in our view, that picture does not begin at our land border or the U.S.
water’s edge. We view our border as the last line of defense for the American people, not the first line. Our
effort to secure the flow of people and cargo is many layered, and starts in many places ? in Central Asia,
where CBP personnel are working with foreign partners to interdict WMD material at its source. At thefactory floors and in the secure supply chains of our partners in the Customs-TradePartnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT. At the docks of our Container Security Initiative, or CSI, ports
around the world, where CBP officers are working with our foreign counterparts to target and inspect
high-risk containers before they are shipped to the United States. In Canada and Mexico, with the people
and companies we vet through the FAST, NEXUS, and SENTRI programs. To ensure that our foreigncounterparts have the right skills and capabilities to cooperate successfully, we also provide training andtechnical assistance when needed. And we also apply the “beyond the border” concept to targeting andinterdicting high-risk people before they head to the United States. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, CBPtargeted two passengers traveling from Paris to Chicago who used a route typical of an individual trying toenter the U.S. with fraudulent documents. Because we were able to target these people before they got on
the plane in Paris, we were able to enlist the air carrier to deny boarding to these individuals ? who were athreat as the documents they were using were fraudulent .
These “beyond the border” efforts are key pieces of CBP’s layered strategy for protecting the Americanpeople from terrorism, while facilitating the efficient flow of legitimate people and goods into our country.
These programs are being implemented and have been effective. In the short life of CSI, we have alreadyworked with our foreign partners to intercept and seize shipments that posed a potential threat to theAmerican people ? including machine guns, gas masks, and other military equipment that would clearly be on
Al Qaeda’s shopping list. And CSI is now operational in 16 seaports around the world ? in Europe, Asia andCanada.
Once all the ports in Phases 1 and 2 of CSI become operational, approximately 80% of the 7 million maritime
containers heading for the United States annually will be under the CSI blanket. That said, we still havemuch work to do to get CSI fully operational.
It is also important to view CSI in the context of CBP’s layered-defense strategy. Just as important is oureffort to secure the supply chain through C-TPAT. Currently, over 4,000 companies are enrolled inC-TPAT ? not only U.S. importers, but also all the major air, sea, rail, and trucking carriers, a large numberof brokers and forwarders, and domestic ports and terminal operators. And on August 18, we opened
C-TPAT for the first time to foreign manufacturers ? first those based in Mexico, to facilitate their
participation in the FAST program, and then to a select group of manufacturers based in other parts of theworld.
While CSI protects one means of moving goods into the country at a particular place ? the foreign seaport ?
C-TPAT protects the entire supply chain, including goods moving across our land border by truck or railand both sea and air cargo. Our C-TPAT partners are making great strides to secure every link in their
supply chains. And, we are working with our C-TPAT partners to redesign the containers themselves ?
adding sophisticated technology to make them “smarter,” more secure, and tamper-evident. In short, weare in the process of revolutionizing and retrofitting global trade to face the 21st Century terrorist threat.
And, we are validating that the security measures have been taken. We’ve launched a program to sendteams of CBP Supply Chain Specialists around the world to verify that our C-TPAT partners, theirsuppliers, and logistics vendors are doing what they say they are doing.
I’ve spent a great deal of time focusing on what we are doing “beyond the border.” But before I close, I
should touch on what we are doing at U.S. ports of entry to protect the American people and prevent
terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States.
First, let me speak to the numbers. Two years ago, when I took over as Commissioner of Customs, 7.6% of
all containers entering the United States ? by land, sea, or rail ? were inspected by Customs. That figure is
now up to 12.1%, and it is rising. Two years ago, only 9% of all rail containers were inspected. That figure is
now 22.6%. Sea container inspections have increased from 2% to 5.2%. And truck inspections have increased
from 10.3% to 15.1%. These are impressive numbers, and, where necessary, I am pushing to increase CBP’s
capacity to rapidly inspect containers without slowing legitimate trade.
Advance Information and Technology I should point out there is no reason to increase the inspectionsblindly ? or just for the sake of having higher inspection statistics. Quite frankly, it would becounterproductive and damaging to the U.S. economy to inspect 100% of the 7 million sea containers or the11 million trucks that arrive in the United States every year. We must use some risk management
techniques to identify and screen the relatively few high-risk shipments out of the millions of virtuallyno-risk shipments.
Through regulations such as the 24 Hour Rule, those requiring advanced passenger information, and theproposed rules under the Trade Act of 2002 which require advance information on all shipments, I am
pushing to improve our ability to focus our efforts on the high-risk shipments. We are also working with theIntelligence Community and others to improve our targeting rules and systems. It is through effective
targeting that we meet our goal of inspecting 100% of high-risk people and cargo, while allowing legitimate
commerce and passengers to proceed unimpeded.
We are also increasing our inspection rates through the rapid deployment of radiation detection technology,
as well as large-scale X-Ray type imaging systems. In the almost two years since I became Commissionerof Customs, CBP has deployed this equipment to every major U.S. port of entry. This has dramaticallyincreased our ability to inspect high-risk containers, but it has done so in a way that does not interrupt theflow of legitimate commerce.
In closing, CBP has moved aggressively to secure the flow of people and commerce into our country. It hasdone this at our physical border, and beyond our border ? working both with foreign governments and theprivate sector. And it has done this without materially slowing the flow of legitimate travel and commerce.
Are we finished yet? No. Are we working to make America even more safe? Yes. And I look forward toworking with Secretary Ridge, Under Secretary Hutchinson, Admiral Loy, and Admiral Collins ? as well as
this Committee ? to continue our project of securing America from terrorism.