Homeland official outlines budget plan for border protection

The Homeland Security Department's Bureau of Customs and Border Protection requires a 33 percent budget increase to support a host of new programs designed to avert potential terrorist threats, a top department official said on Tuesday.

Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, Asa Hutchinson, head of the department's border and transportation security directorate, cited programs such as the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAP) and the Container Security Initiative (CSI) as reasons for seeking a bureau budget of $6.7 billion in fiscal 2004, a 33 percent increase over the fiscal 2002 level.

The funds will "provide greater accountability through an integrated border and transportation security organization, create smart borders that are more secure and increase the security of international shipping containers," Hutchinson said.

Asked by Subcommittee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., what degree of technological integration Hutchinson is seeking within the directorate, he replied: "The ultimate goal is that they are integrated and shared. I am working with [Homeland Security Chief Information Officer] Steve Cooper to achieve that. We can't stop every program right now and say, 'Wait until we have that coordinated,'" but that is the ultimate goal, he said.

The directorate that Hutchinson heads includes the bureaus of the Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The other three DHS directorates deal with emergency preparedness, science and technology, and information analysis and infrastructure protection.

In the Bush administration budget proposal, the bureaus within Hutchinson's directorate are slated to receive a total of $18.1 billion: $6.7 billion for customs, $2.8 billion for immigration, $4.8 billion for TSA; and the remainder going to other bureaus.

The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the half of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service devoted to enforcement and border protection. (The DHS includes a separate Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services that reports to the deputy secretary.)

Nearly $1.1 billion of the $2.8 billion slated for immigration enforcement "will support investigative activities, including immigration fraud, smuggling of illegal aliens, international money laundering, export enforcement, forced labor, trade-agreement investigations, smuggling of narcotics, weapons of mass destruction and other contraband, illegal transshipment and vehicle and cargo theft," Hutchinson said.

"Furthermore, the budget will continue our ability to apprehend, detain and remove illegal aliens, and strengthen visitor and immigrant arrival and departure control by facilitating timely enforcement actions against violators."

Within the customs bureau, the C-TPAP "increases supply-chain security and expedites the clearance of international commercial cargoes and conveyances," Hutchinson said. CSI, he said, "puts personnel in key international ports to examine high-risk cargo before it is placed on U.S.-bound ships."

Other programs within the bureau include the International Trade Data System and the Automated Commercial Environment System, two capital projects that, including the current proposal, would account for $1.1 billion in spending since fiscal 2001. He also cited a program designed to track the departures of U.S. visitors.