Aimed at the influx of travelers who enter the United States, the campaign emphasizes that travelers need to prepare for new travel requirements and regulations before they depart on their trip, as summer is the year’s peak travel season. CBP officers and agriculture specialists will clear and process more than 150 million travelers during this three-month period alone, and, because keeping out terrorists and terrorist weapons is our number-one priority, an informed traveler is the CBP officer’s best ally. It helps both the traveler and CBP clear the passenger quickly.

Even more than that, however, Commissioner Bonner used this opportune occasion to remind travelers and the foreign press that CBP is now operating as “One Face at the Border.”

“One of the biggest changes is that since the Department of Homeland Security was established not long ago, there is now one face at the border,” he told his audience. “For the first time in history, we have one agency to manage and process everyone and everything arriving in the United States. A single CBP officer will greet all passengers arriving at international airports around the country.”

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Each CBP officer and agriculture specialist now conducts the inspectional duties that formerly required personnel from three different federal departments: an inspector from the U.S. Customs Service, one from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the Department of Agriculture, and an immigration inspector from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. As Commissioner Bonner put it, “Now there will be no more having to run the gauntlet of three different agencies. One uniform, one face, one agency, and one priority mission: preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States.”

Every day, CBP becomes more effective in keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out, making America safer for all its citizens. First, by coordinating and sharing information better, CBP officers eliminate redundant inspections and screenings. Second, this same process of coordinating information makes CBP officers and agriculture specialists more efficient in processing arriving travelers and merchandise, which streamlines their entrance into our country.

But information sharing and information technology have other benefits as well. Using advanced information and the principles of risk management, CBP speeds the legitimate, low-risk traveler’s entrance, allowing officers to spend more time on high-risk travelers—those who might pose a genuine threat to our national security. In order to do this, we need a firm hand on who’s coming in and what they are bringing. But passengers also have some responsibility to make sure that their entry into the U.S. is swift and smooth.

Details about what to bring in (and what not to) are explained in the brochure Know Before You Go. Our web site, www.cbp.gov, is also full of information about what travelers can and cannot bring back, and what procedures apply.

They’ll find the answers to questions they never even knew they had! LW