CBP to Establish Outbound Oversight Office Next Year

CBP plans to form a “dedicated” outbound oversight office after the Office of Inspector General said the agency's existing infrastructure may be causing it to miss inspections of illegal exports.

In a new report released this week, OIG said CBP’s Office of Field Operations doesn’t “consistently” conduct outbound inspections -- including of personal vehicles -- at land crossings at the southwestern and northern U.S. borders. OIG officials said they visited 108 of 167 crossings at the two borders, and the frequency of CBP’s outbound inspections, inspection techniques, technology and infrastructure “varied significantly,” which may be preventing the agency from screening illegal exports of currency, guns, explosives, ammunition and narcotics.

CBP field office and port of entry officials often use “professional judgment and other strategies” to inspect certain outbound cargo, OIG said, adding that they have “wide discretion regarding when and how to conduct outbound inspections.” The report said this is because “there is no structured outbound inspection program with oversight from OFO headquarters.”

OIG recommended CBP consider establishing an office responsible for outbound inspections; outlining budget, staffing and training needs for that office; establishing a “minimum frequency of outbound inspections” at land border crossings; and requesting more funding from Congress for outbound inspections. The office also said CBP should develop a “comprehensive policy” for outbound inspections and assess the current state of infrastructure and technology at every land border crossing to make sure officers have the tools to screen outbound cars and cargo.

CBP agreed, saying it recently created an Outbound Enforcement Strategy Workgroup, which “has already established goals addressing this recommendation.” The agency plans to “establish a dedicated office with outbound oversight” by April 30 that will focus on “creating a robust outbound posture, dedicated outbound funding string, training unique to each modality, and reportable metrics.” CBP said it will also produce a “comprehensive updated policy” for the agency's outbound efforts and survey land ports to assess their infrastructure and technology needs.

A CBP official earlier this year acknowledged most U.S. ports don't have the infrastructure or procedures in place to adequately inspect outbound cargo (see 2306220038). Although the agency seized $58 million in currency exports and more than 2,000 firearms exports from 2018 through 2022 -- numbers that “demonstrate the value of outbound inspections to CBP’s mission” -- officers at many ports are “not conducting any outbound inspections and not making any seizures,” OIG said in its report.

Leadership at less than half of the Southwest border crossings that OIG visited said they conduct daily outbound inspections. Along the Canadian border, that number dropped to 15%, OIG said, and most northern border crossings conducted inspections less than once a month.

Officers who do conduct outbound inspections may interview the shipper and conduct physical and visual inspections of the cargo. But those procedures vary by port, the report said, adding that some officers use X-ray machines to scan cars but don’t physically search the vehicle unless they find an “anomaly,” while others stop and search each car exiting the country and interview the occupants. Others conduct inspections only during “peak traffic times,” while others conduct “pulse and surge” inspections -- short-term operations at specific land border crossings, either “randomly or based on intelligence.”

Some crossings had more sophisticated technology than others, OIG said. Officers also told OIG they experience “significant Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity issues,” which affect their ability to use certain technology.

CBP field officers told OIG that CBP’s Law Enforcement Operations Division (LEOD) is responsible for the agency’s outbound inspection programs, but LEOD officials told OIG they only track “information related to one outbound operation” at the Southwest border and said there is “no direct oversight” of outbound inspections at land border crossings. “Without prioritization of outbound inspections,” OIG said, CBP leaders “often divert resources from outbound operations to other priorities such as mandated inbound inspections.”

The report also noted that CBP’s Office of Field Operations doesn’t collect or analyze “essential program data” that would help it better monitor outbound cargo inspections, such as inspection frequency, staffing costs or performance metrics. OIG called this data “critical elements of oversight,” saying the field operations office “does not know how many people or vehicles exit the country or the number of staffing hours and budget spent on outbound operations.”

“To their credit,” OIG said, many land border crossings had their own set of internal standard operating procedures for outbound inspections. But the report also called these procedures “decentralized” and said some “contradict each other.” Some procedures, for example, call for at least two officers to conduct outbound inspections, while others require at least three officers.

The report specifically pointed to concerns that illegal U.S. gun exports are being sent to transnational criminal groups in Mexico. It also said Canada’s new gun law, which restricts certain imports of firearms, creates opportunities for criminal groups to “exploit” increased Canadian demand for guns and illegally ship the weapons across the U.S.-Canadian border.

CBP is “missing opportunities to stop currency, firearms, ammunition, and narcotics from reaching [criminal groups] that perpetrate cross-border violence,” the report said. Without better oversight, the agency “cannot make informed decisions about appropriate staffing, resources, or budget needed to conduct outbound inspections.”