http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_3322145

Article Last Updated: 12/18/2005 10:03 PM

The border is everywhere
Illegal immigrants come by land, sea and air

Mason Stockstill, Staff Writer SAN PEDRO When 29 undocumented Chinese nationals were found trying to enter the United States through the Port of Los Angeles in April, it wasn't the Border Patrol that caught them.
San Bernardino County Sun

SAN PEDRO -- When 29 undocumented Chinese nationals were found trying to enter the United States through the Port of Los Angeles in April, it wasn't the Border Patrol that caught them.
The men had arrived in a cargo container carried on a Panamanian vessel that had last stopped in China and Hong Kong. Port security personnel spotted them wandering around a cargo area.

The security officers called the U.S. Coast Guard and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which later described the scene as familiar: a 40-foot shipping container filled with empty food packages, water bottles and receptacles overflowing with human waste.

Smuggling fees for immigrants from China can run as much as $60,000 per person. Although tougher security in the post-9/11 world has decreased the smuggling of immigrants by sea, the practice continues.

"It isn't all that uncommon," said Tony Migliorini, a spokesman with the Coast Guard. "We have caught them several times."

The phenomenon of would-be immigrants shipped in sealed containers drives home a fact faced daily by officials around California and the rest of the nation: The battle over illegal immigration is no longer fought only at the line separating the United States from Mexico.

As the tide of undocumented aliens swells, the border is everywhere.

It's a stiff challenge for personnel at ports of entry along U.S. coastlines and at international airports throughout the country. With so much commerce and so many people entering and leaving the country each day, inspecting every man, woman and package that enters the United States would be a daunting task.

Instead, officials use intelligence and improved communication to identify potential threats, focusing limited resources where they're likely to accomplish the most.

But sometimes, someone or something slips through the cracks.


By air and by sea

At the nation's airports, Customs and Border Protection the agency that includes the Border Patrol is charged with maintaining security and making sure no one enters the country who isn't supposed to.

The agency was created in 2003, after the Department of Homeland Security reorganized immigration, border enforcement and customs services. Since then, security at airport checkpoints has improved, said Ana Hinojosa, area port director for CBP in Los Angeles.

Information on travelers is now more readily available to customs officers, Hinojosa said sometimes before flights to the United States ever leave the ground. CBP also has officers stationed at overseas airports, working with foreign governments to screen passengers and keep those deemed "high risk" from boarding U.S.-bound flights.

Before the 2001 terrorist attacks, illegally entering the country through an airport was attempted far more frequently. More than 1.8 million people were apprehended between October 1999 and September 2000 at U.S. airports.

Now, new programs such as US-VISIT which links travelers' visas with fingerprints and digital photographs make it harder for anyone to enter the country without valid documents. But many still try. Customs officers catch impostors "all the time," Hinojosa said.

"In the past, it was easier for brothers or cousins to swap each other's paperwork and come in," she said. "That's no longer an option for them, because we verify their fingerprints."

The government also has implemented a program requiring travelers connected to certain "special interest" countries to undergo stricter screening and questioning upon arrival.

Similarly, information on cargo shipped to the United States is closely monitored by CBP, but only a small fraction of it is ever physically inspected.


Containment problem

Considering the amount of cargo arriving each day, incidents in which immigrants are found inside a container are rare. But many say the fact they happen at all shows the nation's seaports need much tighter security.

Of the thousands of containers coming into U.S. seaports every day, few are opened or scanned to see what's inside. In 2004, the total was 6 percent of all seafaring cargo.

CBP requires information on all cargo coming into the country more than 24 hours before it's loaded onto vessels at foreign ports. That information what's being shipped, where it's coming from and which company is shipping it is used to determine the ships and containers that will be searched with X-ray scans and radiation-detection equipment.

"It gives us 24 hours before that container's actually going to be boarded to screen it and determine whether or not there's any high-risk factor," Hinojosa said.

Additionally, about 40 percent of incoming cargo is transported by companies that participate in a government-certified security program. CBP officers go overseas to be sure the firms involved in the program have instituted higher levels of security.

Customs officials say those programs, taken together, mean 100 percent of cargo entering the country is screened in one way or another.

But that still leaves the port infrastructure in the United States. In 2002, Congress passed the Maritime Transportation Security Act, which was intended to improve security at and around ports. Among the changes it mandated were the use of biometric identification cards, vessel tracking and secure port perimeters.

Although all of the nation's seaports meet the minimum level of security required by the act, many port operators say funding from the federal government to cover those improvements has been slow in coming.

"The government has done a lot with security, especially on the air side, but it's now time to more effectively fund the maritime side," said Aaron Ellis of the Association of American Port Authorities. "We need to make sure our seaports are treated as fairly as our airports."

Many seaports have paid for security improvements out of their operating budgets, then found themselves shut out of federal grants available for reimbursement, Ellis said.

Port security is important to ensure no one can enter a seaport and slip explosives or something else aboard a container scheduled for departure, Ellis said. Also, port security personnel are on the front lines in the immigration battle, like the ones who found the 29 Chinese nationals at the Port of Los Angeles this year.


Watching the waters

That those 29 got ashore before being discovered shows how difficult it can be to stop illegal immigrants and contraband from entering the country, said the Coast Guard's Migliorini.

With more than 12,000 miles of coastline, 300-plus ports, daily arrivals of dozens of foreign ships and 76 million recreational boaters to monitor, the Coast Guard is a busy agency.

The emphasis on anti-terror operations that followed the terrorist attacks of 2001 changed the way the force works. The Coast Guard has increased security patrols around seaports, begun sending armed officers to board incoming and outgoing vessels, and started flying helicopters armed with machine guns in some areas off the East Coast.

Enforcing U.S. immigration laws at sea remains one of the Coast Guard's missions. Each year, thousands of immigrants usually from island nations such as Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic are halted before they reach U.S. soil. Many, however, succeed in landing at U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico.

"If we come across some illegal-immigrant or smuggling operations, we're going to attempt to find those and stop them," Migliorini said.

Depending on whether potential migrants make it to U.S. soil or are intercepted while still in the water, they can be immediately deported or turned over to Citizenship and Immigration Services for processing. At that point, refugees can claim asylum and remain in the country if they meet certain requirements.

In recent years, human smuggling from China has become a larger problem for the Coast Guard. Migliorini said it's not unusual to find a ship nearing U.S. waters with dozens of Chinese nationals crammed together in the cargo hold.

That's where the cargo containers come into play. Although many migrants have been apprehended in the United States and at ports in other nations, it's possible that more made it successfully through the various security measures in place.

"It's hard to tell how often it's happening and if we're catching them every time," Migliorini said. "If they remain in the container and then drive off without anybody knowing, it's hard to know if we missed them."