Finding fraud at borders still difficult, DHS official says

Homeland Security officials told lawmakers on Wednesday that the nation's border guards have problems identifying counterfeit birth certificates and driver's licenses, and the vulnerability will remain until the government implements new security requirements.

Jayson Ahern, assistant commissioner for field operations at the Customs and Border Protection division, told the Senate Finance Committee during a hearing that implementing stricter requirements for foreign visitors must not be delayed.

Some lawmakers want to delay the Western Hemisphere travel initiative, which will require travelers to and from the Americas, Bermuda and the Caribbean to first establish their identities with passports or other accepted documents. The requirement takes effect for all air and sea travelers on Jan. 1 and all land travelers on Jan. 1, 2008.

Industry and travel groups have lobbied to push back the deadlines, saying they will be too costly to implement and create a bureaucratic logjam at the borders.

Wednesday's hearing came after a Government Accountability Office investigation that found inspectors are still able to get past border guards using fictitious driver's licenses and "other bogus documentation." Investigators defeated the nation's border security through nine land ports along both the northern and southern borders and at an airport from Jamaica, said Gregory Kutz, GAO's managing director on forensic audits and special investigations.

Kutz told the committee that the ability of border agents to detect fraudulent travel documents has not improved since a May 2003 hearing on the subject. In written testimony to the committee, he said "our periodic tests since 2002 clearly show that CBP officers are unable to effectively identify counterfeit driver's licenses, birth certificates and other documents. This vulnerability potentially allows terrorists or others involved in criminal activity to pass freely into the United States from Canada or Mexico."

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, expressed amazement that the border vulnerability has persisted. "Frankly, it's hard to believe that there has been so little progress in plugging this gaping security hole," he said. "Until someone does something to address this problem, criminals and terrorists will know that our front door is wide open."

Ahern said CBP is giving border guards more equipment and training to help read documents. But he said guards are flooded with documents. More than 870,000 people using 8,000 different documents try to enter the country each day through land borders.

Ahern said the solution is for the government to standardize travel documents and require them to have biometric identifiers, such as digital photographs, and be machine readable, which helps ensure their authenticity. The Western Hemisphere travel initiative would do just that.

Ahern said CBP has sent the White House Office of Management and Budget a notice of proposed rulemaking for the initiative's first deadline. The rulemaking will define what documents will work. Ahern did not say when the rulemaking will be made public.