U.S. Customs and Border Protection - Criticism

Criticism

National Public Radio's Morning Edition reported that CBP radiation-detection equipment at ports is better at detecting kitty litter than dangerous weapons, and that U.S. borders are so porous that congressional investigators carrying simulated nuclear materials have walked across unchallenged.

In an article entitled "DHS Decision-Making: Competence or Character?", James Giermanski states that the fundamental problem within CBP is that the agency has weak and sometimes flawed management. He says that DHS and CBP suffer from "seriously flawed decision-making", citing the "door only" policy, radio frequency identification technology, and lack of focus on exports which contain bombs.

The agency's practice of performing internal document checks on buses and trains running entirely within U.S. territory has been called "coercive, unconstitutional, and tainted by racial profiling".

The United States Court of International Trade found that CBP improperly classified merchandise when it had untrained chemists testifying before the court. The court found that there were errors in the laboratory reports, that CBP destroyed the evidence, and the tests used by the chemist did not meet any Daubert Factors.

During a federal court case for unlawful removal, CBP and United States Department of Justice attorneys cited the U.S. Supreme Court case of Garcetti v. Ceballos (04-473), which ruled that CBP employees do not have protection from retaliation by CBP managers under the First Amendment of the Constitution. The free speech protections of the First Amendment have long been used to shield whistleblowers from retaliation. In response to the Supreme Court decision of Garcetti v. Ceballos, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 985, the Whistleblower Protection Act of 2007, and the Senate passed its version of the Whistleblower Protection Act (S. 274), which has significant bipartisan support.

Some in Congress, such as Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), have argued that the combined infrastructures of ICE, CIS and CBP should be merged into one agency called U.S. Border Enforcement Administration(BEA) followed by seven major offices: Office of Investigations, Office of Border Patrol, Office of Air and Marine Patrol, Office of Field Operations, Office of Agriculture, Office of Immigration Adjudications, and Office of Deportation and Removal.

Canadian author and marine biologist Peter Watts accused customs officers of assaulting him and throwing him in jail for the night of December 1, 2009 when he was returning to Toronto from the U.S.

See also the criticisms against the United States Border Patrol, a federal law enforcement agency within CBP.