GAO Calls for CBP Improvements to High-Risk Cargo Handling

CBP doesn't have accurate data on its handling of high risk maritime cargo shipments, said the Government Accountability Office in a newly released report for the House Homeland Security Committee (here). CBP’s data on the subject overstate the number of high-risk shipments, including those not examined or not waived, the GAO found. CBP is generally required to hold high-risk shipments for examination unless evidence shows that an examination can be waived as allowed under CBP policy, said the GAO in the report. CBP "is taking steps to improve its data on the disposition of high-risk shipments," including an update to the National Maritime Targeting Policy, said the GAO.

Although CBP's data for fiscal years 2009-2013 showed that less than 1 percent of the average annual maritime shipments were determined as high risk by the Automated Targeting System (ATS), that number does not give an accurate picture, said GAO. "CBP officials stated that the data include (1) shipments where the carrier deleted the bill of lading, meaning the shipments ultimately never arrived in the United States (referred to as deleted bills), and (2) shipments for which ATS assigned high risk scores only after entry was filed and the shipment had been released from the port," GAO said in the report. "In further iterations of the data CBP provided us, CBP officials were able to identify the shipments in these two categories and therefore provide us with more accurate data on the number and disposition of high-risk shipments."

CBP is now working to improve its data on the high-risk shipments, the agency told the GAO. CBP has already developed a query to identify shipments in its data that are not truly high risk at the time of arrival, including deleted bills and shipments with high risk scores only after entry, said the GAO. Also, CBP will update the National Maritime Targeting Policy to require cargo exams and waivers be recorded within ATS, said the GAO. The agency could also better define standard exemption categories used, said the GAO. Though the targeting policy identifies what the standard exception categories are, it does not provide definitions for what specifically constitutes the various standard exception categories, said the GAO in the report. Examples of exception definitions in the report weren't included because it's considered to be sensitive information, said the GAO.

Another area for improvement is CBP's monitoring of the eventual disposition of high-risk cargo, the GAO report said. While CBP has some oversight mechanisms in place, such as biannual self-inspections, "these are not sufficient to fully identify whether officials are complying with policy on examinations and waivers," said the GAO.

The GAO also found that CBP’s efforts don't sufficiently identify situations when officials are not following policies on high-risk shipments. CBP is considering updating the policy for the Self-Inspection Program, which requires port directors or their designees to analyze selected shipments and complete a worksheet, said the GAO. "CBP is considering changing the shipment sample size to a percentage of high-risk shipments, which would result in port directors of larger ports analyzing a greater number of shipments than the 20 shipments per question they currently sample," said the GAO. "However, CBP has not finalized its plans for making this change." The Department of Homeland Security concurred with the GAO's recommendations in the report and will take steps to resolve the issues identified, the GAO said (here).