The following is excerpted from today’s edition of “Journal of Commerce”.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is stepping up its efforts to secure the nation’s land borders, and the agency is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars to support its efforts.
Jayson Ahern, acting commissioner, said CBP will receive $420 million in federal stimulus funds for border security, and the General Services Administration will receive $300 million for border facility enhancements.
Ahern said Wednesday at the annual conference of the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America this funding will be a “good first step” toward the estimated $5 billion needed to build infrastructure and upgrade border facilities.
CBP has already invested heavily in X-Ray equipment and other technologies that are used to search for narcotics and weapons of mass destruction in passenger vehicles and freight transportation.
However, inadequate infrastructure continues to restrain CBP’s efforts at a time when there is a crescendo of concern in Congress and the media over border violence among Mexican drug cartels…
Protecting the nation’s security and preventing terrorists and weapons of mass destruction from entering the U.S. have remained CBP’s top priority since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Terrorist incidents in Pakistan and India and the recent attack on the Maersk Alabama by pirates off the coast of Somalia are reminders that terrorism is still a global threat….
That is why CBP is pressing the trade community to provide more information about imported products from as far back in the supply chain as possible. …
