Border and Transportation Security

Efforts by the federal government to provide a level of border security and safety that adequately corresponds to terrorist threats from abroad while facilitating legitimate cross-border travel and commerce and protecting civil liberties.

The BTS and Border Security

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, raised serious questions about the security of the nation's borders from terrorist attack. Several of the hijackers who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on that day were on lists of suspected terrorists. Government officials and the public alike wanted to know how they were able to obtain U.S. visas and entry into the United States despite being on terrorist watch lists. The attacks led to the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tasked with coordinating government efforts to protect the nation from attack. In March 2002, the Directorate of Border and Transportation Security (BTS), a division of DHS, assumed responsibility for securing the nation's borders and transportation systems.

The BTS oversees more than 350 official ports of entry that connect the United States to the rest of the world. It also assumes responsibility for enforcing the nation's immigration laws. Divisions of the BTS include the United States Customs Service, the enforcement division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and the Transportation Security Administration. BTS has oversight of all government infrastructure and relies on the Federal Protective Service to protect government buildings.

In addition to providing security to the nation's borders and ports of entry, the BTS is responsible for defending the U.S. transportation system. The recently created Transportation Security Administration, now part of the BTS directorate, has responsibility for security at the nation's airports. The BTS uses a wide array of methods to fulfill its duties including intelligence gathering, enforcement of regulations, and inspection, screening, and education of carriers, passengers, and shippers.

Defending the Transportation System

The Department of Transportation is responsible for ensuring that the nation's transportation infrastructure is robust and efficient, and that it keeps pace with modern technology and the nation's demographic and economic growth. This mandate is threatened by the specter of terrorism and the vulnerability of the national transport system. The United States has a 7,500-mile land and air border with Canada and Mexico. More than 500 million people, including 330 million noncitizens, are admitted into the United States every year. Each year, 11.2 million trucks and 2.2 million rail cars cross into the United States and 7,500 foreign-flag ships make 51,000 calls to U.S. ports.

The principles of free and open trade, which have been responsible for the extraordinary prosperity and economic growth of the United States, are also at the heart of the transport system's vulnerability. Maritime trade is perhaps the most exposed link in the system. The maritime trade transport system is a major source of concern among world governments and global corporations. Particularly serious is the matter of container transport. The uniformity, speed, and anonymity of containerized traffic offer terrorists ample opportunity to inflict catastrophic damage to the commercial infrastructure of the United States. The system has already been the target of pirates and criminal organizations, which regularly traffic in contraband materials, weapons, illegal drugs, and bulk quantities of dangerous material. Terrorists have the ability to exploit weak maritime security to move material, funds, and human beings around the globe using legitimate commercial operations as fronts for their activity.

...