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DHS Plans to Catch Only One in Four Travelers Committing 'Major' Crime
Posted on Tuesday, January 05 @ 13:05:57 EST
Topic: Department of Homeland Security
|
 Documents produced by the
Department of Homeland Security indicate that in fiscal 2010 the
department is planning to catch only 26 percent of travelers committing
major criminal violations while seeking to enter the United States
through international airports.
DHS documents also indicate that the department believes it will
fail to screen against law enforcement databases 15 percent of
travelers entering the United States in 2010 through all official ports
of entry.
In fiscal 2008, according to DHS, the department caught only 25
percent of those committing “major violations” while entering the U.S.
on international flights. It also planned to catch only 25% in fiscal
2009, which ended on Sept. 30. For fiscal 2010, which began on Oct. 1,
DHS set it sites slightly higher, planning to catch 26 percent of
“major” violators entering the U.S. on international flights while
letting 74 percent get away.
Subjects: illegal immigration, border, security, terrorist, port of entry, check points, customs, travel, airplane, flights
CNSNews
January 04, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
DHS each year calculates what it calls the “air
passenger apprehension rate for major violations.” This apprehension
rate is used as one measure of whether the department is achieving its
goal to “improve the targeting, screening, and apprehension of
high-risk international cargo and travelers to prevent terrorist
attacks, while providing processes to facilitate the flow of safe and
legitimate trade and travel.”
The “major violations” that DHS believes 74 percent of perpetrators
will get away with when entering the U.S. by air in 2010, according to
a 3,493-page document the department presented to Congress to justify
its annual budget, involve “serious criminal activity, including
possession of narcotics, smuggling of prohibited products, human
smuggling, weapons possession, fraudulent U.S. documents, and other
offenses serious enough to result in arrest.”
DHS determines the percentage of “major” violators it catches
entering the United States at international airports by subjecting a
random sampling of passengers to intensified scrutiny designed to
detect any offense they might be committing. “The sample rate is used
to estimate the ‘expected’ number of major violations in the general
population,” DHS explained in its budget justification. “The major
violations found during the regular primary inspection process are then
compared to the ‘expected’ number to compute the apprehension rate for
major violations among air passengers traveling to the U.S.”
The justification for its 2010 budget that DHS presented to
Congress said the department had apprehended 40.3 percent of those
committing “major violations” entering the United States on
international flights in fiscal 2007, but that the number dropped to
only 25 percent in fiscal 2008. For fiscal 2009, the document said, the
department set a goal of apprehending 25 percent again, and then raised
the goal to 26 percent for fiscal 2010.
An annual performance review updated by DHS in May also said the
department caught only 25% of those committing “major violations” while
entering the U.S. by air in fiscal 2008 and that the department had set
goals of apprehending 25 percent of such violators in 2009 and 26
percent in 2010.
A statement provided to CNSNews.com on September 11, 2009 by
Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the DHS agency responsible for
screening international travelers entering the United States, said “the
vast majority of passenger violations that fall into the ‘major
violations’ category are narcotics violations.”
Another measure that DHS uses to determine whether it is achieving
its goal of preventing terrorist attacks is called the “percent of
individuals screened against law enforcement databases for entry into
the United States.” The 3,493-page report DHS provided to Congress to
justify its 2010 budget said, “This measure identifies the percent of
individuals arriving at the ports of entry who have their names and
other identification information checked against electronic law
enforcement databases.”
According to the document, the department screened only 73.5% of
international travelers arriving at all U.S. ports of entry in 2008,
and set goals of screening 80 percent in fiscal 2009 and 85 percent in
fiscal 2010.
In its annual financial report published on Nov. 16, DHS said it
had done law-enforcement database screening on 83.4% of travelers
entering the U.S. at official ports of entry in fiscal 2009 and was
still planning to screen 85 percent in fiscal 2010—leaving 15 percent
of travelers entering the United States unscreened.
A Homeland Security Department official, who spoke to CNSNews.com last
week on the condition that his name not be used, said CBP screens 100
percent of international travelers entering the United States at
international airports but is not as efficient in screening
international travelers entering the country at land ports of entry.
Nonetheless, DHS officials told CNSNews.com that some individuals
whose names are discovered on law enforcement databases before they
board international flights to the United States are allowed to board
the planes and fly to the United States. After they arrive, they are
subjected to heightened scrutiny, sometimes being denied final entry
into the country by CBP. DHS said individuals dealt with in this way
are not included in its “air passenger apprehension rate”
“CBP officials are alerted to all travelers on the terrorist watch
list, including those with outstanding criminal warrants, or criminal
histories,” CBP told CNSNews.com in the September statement. “This
screening is done prior to arrival at the U.S. port of entry. On
arrival, such travelers are intercepted and their cases are handled
immediately, removing them from the pool of passengers included in the
air apprehension rate measure. This means that virtually all potential
terrorists and criminal violators are interdicted in our first layer of
enforcement, before the apprehension rate is determined.”
A Homeland Security Department official explained last week that
international passengers who appear on the “No Fly” list are not
allowed to board planes bound for the United States, but that officials
at CBP’s National Targeting Center make judgment calls about whether
other individuals “flagged” by the agency’s screening system will be
permitted to board U.S. bound flights. The screening system checks
names of passengers against multiple databases.
The official said that when passengers check-in for U.S. bound
flights at foreign airports their names are automatically run against
the “No Fly” list which is provided to the airlines. Then, depending on
the system the airline is using, the passenger’s name is either
instantly transmitted at check-in to CBP’s National Targeting Center or
the airline provides CBP with a manifest of all passenger’s on a
U.S.-bound flight either 60 minutes or 30 minutes before departure. CBP
checks the names by computer and examines any that its system flags to
determine whether the person in question should be allowed on the
flight.
“The no-fly list is exactly that. They don’t get on a plane,” the
DHS official said. “Everyone else that is on that plane and headed for
the states, we get that information before the plane pushes back, we
are starting our vetting against all these databases and they have
different levels of complexity, depending on whose lists they are. So
everyone is being vetted against those and that allows us to identify
individuals that are coming to the United States that are interest to
us for further screening.”
The DHS official stressed that passengers who are not on the “No
Fly” list but appear on other databases that trigger more extensive
screening after the passenger arrives at a U.S. airport are “not known
terrorists” but have aroused the interest of the U.S. government for
other reasons. “The individuals we are looking at are not known
terrorists. They are not considered a threat to the country,” said the
official. But because some law enforcement or federal agency is
interested in them, CBP is “made aware of it so that we can talk to
them when they do enter the United States.”
Some passengers may be flagged for fairly minor matters, the DHS
official said. “I am from Michigan and I have a warrant for failure to
appear and that shows up,” said the official, giving a hypothetical. “I
am going to get talked to when I enter the United States because there
is a law enforcement agency out there that has an interest in me. I am
not a threat to national security. I am not on a no-fly list.”
When asked if people on the “No Fly” list were the only travelers
automatically excluded from boarding international flights to the
United States, the DHS official said travelers with invalid visas are
also supposed to be automatically excluded from boarding flights to the
United States.
The DHS official also said one reason the department sometimes
waits until a passenger flagged by their screening system arrives in
the United States before dealing with them is because the department
has few resources and no jurisdiction in foreign countries.
“Most of our resources are at our ports of entry. That is where our
officers have the authority and the ability to deal with these
individuals,” said the official. “Just because someone is trying to get
on a flight in a foreign country and they may have a past criminal
history that is of interest, we have no authority to act on that at
that time.”
The first line of defense in preventing bad actors from boarding
planes to come to United States from foreign countries is the State
Department, which is responsible for screening would-be travelers who
apply for visas.
When CNSNews.com asked CBP in September why DHS’s annual
performance report set a goal of apprehending only 26% of those
committing “major violations” while entering the United States by air,
CBP provided CNSNews.com with a written statement that said the
apprehension rate is low because the majority of major violators are
smuggling small amounts of drugs that are difficult to detect.
“CBP Officers are always attempting to catch 100% of the major
violations occurring at the ports of entry,” said the statement. “This
is extremely difficult to do since most major violations at the ports
of entry are narcotics violations and narcotics smugglers are very
inventive at finding new ways to hide contraband.”
The statement said the DHS conducts a “thorough physical
inspection” of a random sampling of passengers to estimate the rate of
major violations being committed by those arriving at U.S.
international airports.
“We track the ‘results’ for this measure by taking a true random
sampling of arriving passengers and conducting a thorough physical
inspection of them, their luggage, and travel documents to identify all
violations in our sample,” said the statement. “This information is
used to develop a statistically valid estimate of the number of
violations occurring in the group of travelers arriving at the port of
entry. We then compare the violations we actually find to this estimate
to determine the overall apprehension rate.”
Below is CBP’s September 11, 2009 statement in response to
CNSNews.com’s inquiry about why the agency set a goal of catching 26
percent of those committing “major violations” while entering the U.S.
by air in fiscal 2010:
“Air Apprehension Rate Performance Measure response:
“The Air Apprehension Rate performance measure, as described in the
DHS Annual Performance Report, is easily misunderstood and should not
be used to make an assessment of our success at stopping terrorists
from entering the country. In the air environment, all airline manifest
information is captured in the Advance Passenger Information System and
air passengers are screened against the major law enforcement databases
using the Automated Targeting System prior to their arrival. CBP
officials are alerted to all travelers on the terrorist watchlist,
including those with outstanding criminal warrants, or criminal
histories. This screening is done prior to arrival at the U.S. port of
entry. On arrival, such travelers are intercepted and their cases are
handled immediately, removing them from the pool of passengers included
in the air apprehension rate measure. This means that virtually all
potential terrorists and criminal violators are interdicted in our
first layer of enforcement, before the apprehension rate is determined.
“Furthermore, the vast majority of passenger violations that fall into
the ‘major violations’ category are narcotics violations. Although this
measure encompasses most violations that result in arrest at the ports
of entry, the reality is that most of these violations result from an
attempt to smuggle a relatively small amount of narcotics that are
easily concealed and difficult for CBP Officers to detect. The
compliance program that is used as the basis for this measure results
in a small group of randomly selected passengers undergoing a thorough
physical examination that is highly successful at finding this hidden
contraband. Because of how skewed the arriving passenger violations are
towards narcotics, this performance measure is largely a measure of our
success at interdicting narcotics, especially the relatively small
amounts that the average traveler tries to smuggle into the country.
“The ‘targets’ for this measure are misleading. CBP Officers are always
attempting to catch 100% of the major violations occurring at the ports
of entry. This is extremely difficult to do since most major violations
at the ports of entry are narcotics violations and narcotics smugglers
are very inventive at finding new ways to hide contraband. The targets
as specified are a forecast of what we are likely to find based on
recent history.
“We track the ‘results’ for this measure by taking a true random
sampling of arriving passengers and conducting a thorough physical
inspection of them, their luggage, and travel documents to identify all
violations in our sample. This information is used to develop a
statistically valid estimate of the number of violations occurring in
the group of travelers arriving at the port of entry. We then compare
the violations we actually find to this estimate to determine the
overall apprehension rate.
“The hand-held radiation screening devices are not used on
passengers directly. They are typically used to inspect aircraft,
vehicles, luggage, and packages, including suspected contraband.
“CBP strives to identify every violation at every port of entry, be
it about terrorism, immigration, customs, criminality or agriculture.”
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