On any given day at the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) Pigeon River station at Grand Portage, agents check 50 to 100 trucks coming from Canada. The trucks are run through radiation detectors and scanned by an X-ray machine to see if any contraband is hidden. If anything is out of place or doesn’t look right, agents conduct a manual inspection.
CBP personnel also monitor cars and motorhomes. CBP deals with 500 to 1,500 motor vehicles crossing at the border daily at Grand Portage, more in summer, less in winter.
Nationally, the number of inspections mounts up.
On a typical day last year U.S. Customs and Border Protection employees processed nearly a million people (992,243). Of those, 280,059 arrived by plane from international ports; 48,994 were passengers and crew arriving by ship or boat; and 663,190 came by land.
On average agents seized 11,945 pounds of drugs and confiscated $291,039 in undeclared or illicit currency. They also discovered $4.7 million worth of products with intellectual property rights violations.
CBP agents averaged 1,153 daily arrests at U.S. ports of entry, capturing an average of 22 wanted criminals. Some 366 people were deemed inadmissible persons and 440 pests and 4,379 materials covered under the quarantine-plan: meat, animal by-products, and soil were discovered.
Agents identified 137 individuals with suspected national security concerns, intercepted 48 fraudulent documents and inspected 67,337 truck, rail, and sea containers.
Not bad for a day’s work, but it takes a lot of people to power an operation that big. All told there are 59,969 CBP employees. They include 21,650 CBP officers; 2,382 CBP agriculture specialists; 20,979 Border Patrol agents; 766 Air Interdiction agents; (pilots); 343 Marine Interdiction agents, and 116 Aviation Enforcement officers.
Last year the CBP deployed more than 1,500 canine teams and took part in 250 horse patrols. Agents flew 169 hours of enforcement missions over the United States.
Operations were conducted at 328 ports of entry with 20 field offices and at 136 Border Patrol stations and five substations with 20 sectors and with 35 permanent checkpoints.
The mission of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection workers is to detect and prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the U.S. at and between ports of entry while allowing legitimate trade and travel. Two percent of travelers are randomly stopped and checked. It might not be convenient, but the mission is important, and we’re all safer for their work.
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