CBP is the lead federal agency in charge of securing the nation’s borders. When CBP was created, it represented a merger of components from three agencies—the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, its implementing regulations, and CBP policies and procedures, CBP officers are required to establish, at a minimum, the nationality of individuals and whether they are eligible to enter the country at ports of entry. All international travelers attempting to enter the country through ports of entry undergo primary inspection, which is a preliminary screening procedure to identify those legitimate international travelers who can readily be identified as admissible. Regarding land ports of entry, the United States shares over 5,000 miles of border with Canada to the north (including the state of Alaska), and 1,900 miles of border with Mexico to the south. Individuals attempting to legally enter the United States by land present themselves to a CBP officer at one of the 170 ports of entry located along these borders. During the period of our investigations, U.S. citizens could gain entry to the United States by establishing their citizenship to the satisfaction of U.S. officials at a land port of entry. While this frequently involved a citizen presenting their birth certificate, photo identification (e.g., a driver’s license), or baptismal records, the law did not require U.S. citizens to present any of these documents as proof of citizenship. Until recently, U.S. citizens could enter the country at land ports of entry based only on oral statements. However, as of January 31, 2008, U.S. citizens age 19 and older are required, under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, to present both proof of identity and citizenship when attempting to enter the United States by land. Documents that would fulfill this requirement could include a passport, a military ID with travel orders, or an enhanced driver’s license. In the absence of a single document that establishes both proof of identity and citizenship, U.S. citizens require multiple documents, such as a driver’s license and a birth certificate, to enter the United States. Requirements for entering the United States by sea are similar to those for entering by land. Regarding air ports of entry, starting on January 23, 2007, U.S. citizens were required, under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, to present a passport or secure travel document when entering the United States. Prior to the implementation of this initiative, U.S. citizens entering the country by air from such locations as the Bahamas, Mexico, and Jamaica could establish their citizenship by oral assertions and documents such as drivers’ licenses and birth certificates. It is illegal to enter the United States at any location other than a port of entry. The U.S. Border Patrol, a component of CBP, patrols and monitors areas between ports of entry. However, given limited resources and the wide expanse of the border, the U.S. Border Patrol is limited in its ability to monitor the border either through use of technology or with a consistent manned presence. Commensurate with its perception of the threat, CBP has distributed human resources differently on the northern border than it has on the southern border. According to CBP, as of May 2007, it had 972 U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the northern border and 11,986 agents assigned to the southern border. The number of agents actually providing border protection at any given time is far smaller than these figures suggest. As mentioned above, in the September 2007 hearing on border security before your Committee, a CBP official stated that roughly 250 U.S. Border Patrol agents were patrolling the U.S.–Canada border at any given time—about a quarter of all agents reportedly assigned to patrol the northern border during that period. We found two types of security vulnerabilities in our covert testing at ports of entry. First, we found that, in the majority of cases, the government inspectors who reviewed our undercover investigators’ counterfeit documentation did not know that they were bogus and allowed them to enter the country. Second, we found that government officials did not always ask for identification. Although it was not a requirement for government officials to ask for identification at the time we performed our tests, we concluded that this was a major vulnerability that could allow terrorists or other criminals to easily enter the country. In table 1 below, each individual instance of an investigator crossing the border is noted separately, although, in some cases, investigators crossed the border in groups of two or more. We consider our attempts to enter the country through sea and air ports of entry as different from our land crossings. For one thing, we did not perform the same amount of testing that we performed at land ports of entry. For another, the standard for admittance via air ports of entry continues to be stricter than via land and sea routes. In table 2 below, each individual instance of an investigator entering the United States via air or sea is noted separately. Selected details related to these covert tests are discussed below. For our 2003 testimony, investigators successfully entered the United States using counterfeit drivers’ licenses and other bogus documentation through a land port of entry in Washington. They also entered Florida via air from Jamaica using the same counterfeit documentation. Similar follow-up work was performed throughout 2003 and 2004, resulting in successful entry at locations in Washington, New York, California, Texas, and Virginia using counterfeit identification. In 2006, investigators successfully entered the United States using counterfeit drivers’ licenses and other bogus documentation through seven land ports of entry on the northern and southern borders, adding the states of Michigan, Idaho, and Arizona to the list of states they had entered. In the majority of cases, investigators entered the country by land using rental cars. When requested, they displayed counterfeit Virginia and West Virginia drivers’ licenses and birth certificates to the government officials at ports of entry. They also used bogus U.S. passports and, in one case, a fake employee identification card in the name of a major U.S. airline. Government officials typically inspected the documentation while inquiring whether our undercover investigators were U.S. citizens. On some occasions, the officials asked whether our investigators had purchased anything in Canada or Mexico. In several instances, CBP officials asked our investigators to leave their vehicles and inspected the vehicles; they appeared to be searching for evidence of smuggling. In only one case on the northern border, one of our undercover investigators was denied entry because a CBP officer became suspicious of the expired U.S. passport with substituted photo offered as proof of citizenship. For our 2003 testimony, we found that INS inspectors did not request identification at a sea port of entry in Washington and a land port of entry in California. Our investigators’ oral assertions that they were U.S. citizens satisfied the INS inspectors and they were allowed to enter the country. Later, while conducting our 2006 covert tests, we found that CBP officers did not request identification during several foot crossings from Mexico. For example, on February 23, 2006, two investigators crossed the border from Mexico into Texas on foot. When the first investigator arrived at the port of entry, he was waved through without being asked to show identification. At this point, the investigator asked the CBP officer whether he wished to see any identification. The officer replied, “OK, that would be good.” The investigator began to remove his counterfeit Virginia driver’s license from his wallet when the officer said “That’s fine, you can go.” The CBP officer never looked at the license. However, the CBP officer did request identification from the investigator who was walking behind the first investigator. In another test on March 15, 2006, two investigators entered Arizona from Mexico by foot. They had received a phone call in advance from another investigator who had crossed the border earlier using genuine identification. He said that the CBP officers on duty had swiped his driver’s license through a scanning machine. Because the counterfeit drivers’ licenses the other two investigators were carrying had fake magnetic strips, the investigators realized they could be questioned by CBP officers if their identification cards did not scan properly. When the two investigators arrived at the port of entry, they engaged one of the officers in conversation to distract him from scanning their drivers’ licenses. After a few moments, the CBP officer asked the investigators if they were both U.S. citizens. They said, “yes.” He then asked the investigators if they had purchased anything in Mexico, and they responded, “no.” The CBP officer then said, “Have a nice day” and allowed them to enter the United States. He did not ask for any identification. We first reported on potential security vulnerabilities at unmanned and unmonitored border areas in our 2003 testimony. While conducting testing at U.S.–Canada ports of entry, we found that one of our investigators was able to walk into the United States from Canada at a park straddling the border. The investigator was not stopped or questioned by law enforcement personnel from either Canada or the United States. In our September 2007 testimony, we reported on similar vulnerabilities at unmanned and unmonitored locations on the northern and southern borders. The unmanned and unmonitored border areas we visited were defined as locations where CBP does not maintain a manned presence 24 hours per day or where there was no apparent monitoring equipment in place. Safety considerations prevented our investigators from performing the same assessment work on the U.S.–Mexico border as performed on the northern border. We found three main vulnerabilities during this limited security assessment. First, we found state roads close to the border that appeared to be unmanned and unmonitored, allowing us to simulate the cross- border movement of radioactive materials or other contraband from Canada into the United States.