The Red Bridge entry is the first of four projects that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be conducting over the next two years to help modernize Georgia’s customs and border protection capabilities. This assistance makes Georgia a strong partner in CBP’s worldwide effort to prevent the passage and transshipment of terrorists and terrorist weapons.

CBP helped the Republic of Georgia modernize its primary point of entry to enhance inspection capability. The facility will help Georgia become a more effective partner in the worldwide effort to control the passage of terrorists and their weapons.

Located on the Black Sea, which forms its entire western border, Georgia has been a major international crossroads since antiquity. The country shares a northern border with Russia, a southern border with Turkey and Armenia, and an eastern border with Azerbaijan. When Georgia declared its independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the new republic, which had prospered economically under the USSR, found itself on the verge of economic collapse.

Major challenges

One of Georgia’s major challenges was how to protect its borders, which ranged from 17,000-foot mountains to a sub-tropical seacoast. The lack of adequate border facilities hobbled the ability of both the Department of Georgian State Border Defense and the Georgia Customs Department to enforce laws, inspect goods, detect and seize contraband, and collect revenue.

Before the official opening of the new Red Bridge facility, border defense personnel were working out of 24-foot shipping containers with holes cut for windows and doors. The country’s climate is much like that of Washington, D.C.—hot and humid in summer, cold in winter—and the containers lacked heat, air conditioning or other amenities. To top it off, the containers also served as tollbooths in the middle of a two-lane road—one for those entering the country, one for those leaving.

In 2003, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of International Affairs offered to help Georgia upgrade its customs and border operations by supplying technical assistance, training and modern equipment. International Affairs’s Georgia Border Security and Law Enforcement Program provided funds for a model land border project under the Freedom Support Act, an international Congressional initiative. CBP administered the program and also transferred funds to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which served as the general contractor, hiring Georgian workers for the actual construction.

Revolutionary changes

Construction began on the facility in the spring of 2003 and was finished by April 2005. The new facility has revolutionized customs and border operations in the area. Infrastructure improvements, which include a six-lane highway, a nationwide high-frequency radio-communication system, closed-circuit televisions and dining facilities, allow Georgian State Border Defense officers to process passengers and cargo much more efficiently. The new assets and technology also allow Georgia’s customs and border officials to conduct enforcement examinations on-site at the port, which was not possible at the old Red Bridge port.

One area of weakness was that without the former Soviet Union’s funding and capital assets, Georgia’s border defense agency lacked sufficient personnel, training and equipment to perform its job as effectively as that region of the world required. Border enforcement outposts were under-equipped, understaffed, far away from each other and far from the T’blisi, the nation’s capital. The country’s geography meant that border stations were located along the remote seacoast and in mountainous frontiers, which presented enormous transportation, communication and logistical challenges.

CBP has helped Georgia make strides, not only at the Red Bridge port of entry, but also by upgrading other outdated facilities, adding new ones, and modernizing training. The Georgian staff working at the new Red Bridge station participated in the International Border Interdiction Training program in Hidalgo, Texas. CBP also has provided on-site training in advanced inspectional techniques, contraband detection, and how to identify weapons of mass destruction and related terrorist materials.