Customs official details work toward secure ports, borders

The Homeland Security Department's efforts to tighten border security while facilitating the flow of legitimate cargo have kept delays to a minimum in recent weeks at the nation's seaports and land borders, a senior customs official said on Thursday.

"The borders are open," Jayson Ahern, an assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, said during a conference at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Substantial improvements have occurred since [the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks]."

Ahern said last month's transfer of the Customs Service to the Homeland Security Department has boosted efficiency at the borders. "We've already started to see some of the enhancements and some of the accountability and responsibility improving operational procedures at the border," he said.

Ahern said the Container Security Initiative (CSI), which enables U.S. customs agents stationed in foreign ports to use surveillance equipment to screen U.S.-bound containers identified as "high risk," also has helped prevent border and port delays.

"We have the Container Security Initiative now operating in 15 of the top 20 megaports," he said, adding that customs officials have done about 1,800 screenings in those overseas locations so far, and they plan to expand CSI to the five remaining megaports in the next few months.

Homeland security officials also are working to enhance the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT), a pilot program that enables nearly 3,000 participating companies-including domestic manufacturers, trucking firms and shipping companies-to take a "fast lane" into the United States after taking steps to ensure security in the cargo supply chain.

"We're now looking at expanding [C-TPAT] over the next several months to include foreign manufacturers, and we think that's where we'll have an opportunity to get deeper into the supply chain to really affect good supply security at the point of origin," Ahern said.

Customs officials also have started conducting "validations" of supply-chain security measures reported by C-TPAT participants to ensure that the program does not just become a "paper exercise," according to Ahern.

"We've done 15 of those thus far, and ... and we've just created a new job position for that, so we can have C-TPAT validators who are trained as supply-chain security specialists," he said. He added that customs officials hope to complete 100 validations by November.

"And then we'll start to pick up the pace, doing considerably more [validations] over the next few months after that as we continue to bring these trained assets on board," Ahern said, adding that the C-TPAT and CSI programs "helped keep our borders open over the last few weeks, as we were at alert-level orange and the war began with Iraq."