Customs: Security department needs power to revamp border agencies

The secretary of the proposed Homeland Security Department needs broad authority to restructure and possibly combine federal agencies that protect the border, U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner said Monday. In a speech urging Congress to give the executive branch a wide range of management flexibilities to set up and manage the proposed department, Bonner said that federal border agencies-primarily the Customs Service, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which includes the Border Patrol-have some overlapping functions that could benefit from restructuring. "The authority to streamline overlapping border functions is absolutely essential to achieving greater efficiency and effectiveness," he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "It's not enough for all organizations with border responsibilities to simply be moved into the new department. There must be authority to consolidate where that is appropriate." Bonner said that all agencies slated to move to the border and transportation security division in the new department should share a common chain-of-command to increase efficiency. The Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration and Federal Protective Service are poised to join Customs and the INS in the division. He added that the secretary of the proposed department would make all decisions on restructuring. Previously, Bonner has suggested that the Customs Service absorb the Border Patrol to create a Customs and Border Administration. Bonner also announced progress on a Customs project to secure shipping containers at their ports of origin, before they are shipped to the United States. Six countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany and Singapore, have now agreed to let Customs place inspectors at major ports to inspect containers headed for the U.S. On Monday, a team of five Customs inspectors began work at the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, which handles more U.S.-bound traffic than any other port in Europe. Bonner added that Customs is negotiating to bring other ports into the project, known as the Container Security Initiative, and is "cautiously optimistic" that Hong Kong, the world's busiest port, will join. Besides inspecting containers at their ports of origin, Customs officials also affix tamper-proof seals on the containers. The agency is working with the Transportation Department to explore other ways to secure containers, he said. Bonner said Customs is working to deploy 1,000 new agents and inspectors financed through fiscal 2002 appropriations and supplemental funds. Most of these employees have been hired, and many have completed training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga., he said.