The CBP Border Patrol has a strong presence here as well. Its New Orleans Sector provides law enforcement support to seven states that cover nearly 362,310 square miles.

Photo Credit: James Tourtellotte

Truck moves a maritime container unladed at New Orleans seaport to NII inspection station.

Stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to western Canada, with tributaries that unfold all over the North American continent, the Mississippi River forms a virtual north-south maritime Silk Road. Professor Emeritus Pierce Lewis of Penn State University, a renowned historical geographer, once described New Orleans as a site begging to become an international port because of its unparalleled proximity to both river and ocean.

Its first colonizers, the French, realized this as early as 1700, recognizing that a city built at the mouth of this great river would offer carte-blanche access to the resources of the entire North American interior. And indeed, this nautical thoroughfare across the United States has made marine operations the field office’s main area of concern, even though a land port and an international airport also fall under its jurisdiction. But it is the port’s maritime profile, with its booming cruise-ship industry and the 850 cargo ships that enter the Mississippi each month, that make New Orleans vital to the security of the entire nation.

Photo Credit: James Tourtellotte

The New Orleans FTC is a key informational resource for area law enforcement.

CBP performs border security and anti-terrorism functions on both sides of the 225 miles of river—450 miles—that stretch from Baton Rouge, La., to the mouth of the Mississippi, a wedge of geography larger than many land border ports. To accomplish this mission, the port employs 152 employees, which includes 91 uniformed CBP officers and agriculture specialists along with import and merchandise specialists; vessel inspection officers; technicians and administrative personnel.

The Border Patrol manages the areas between the ports of entry in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and part of the Florida panhandle, employing 54 agents who staff the six stations of this sector. The Border Patrol’s jurisdiction includes 15 small seaports that stretch almost 700 miles from the western boundary in Lake Charles, La., to Port St. Joe, Fla., in the east.

Crew, cargo and risk

Clearance of both crew members and cargo, and determining the admissibility of both, are the field office’s foremost enforcement priority on the Mississippi River and on the Gulf of Mexico: Its one inland port and five seaports cleared 93,000 containers in fiscal year 2004.

Working closely with its sister agencies in the Department of Homeland Security, particularly the U.S. Coast Guard, CBP obtains information on crew and cargo before ships arrive in port. “We have made many dramatic technological and law enforcement enhancements at the port while also improving relationships with other law enforcement and DHS agencies,” says Director of Field Operations James A. Hynes.

Using an array of cutting-edge techniques like automated information systems, risk-analysis protocols, and especially assistance from the New Orleans Field Targeting Center (FTC), CBP evaluates cargo manifests for several risk factors, looking for crew members, containers or cargo that suggest inconsistencies or irregularities—departures from statistical norms. Should this computerized wizardry zoom in on a container or shipment with discrepancies in its records, CBP will handle that shipment in one of several ways: It might require that the container be detained and examined in the foreign port of export; it can work with the Coast Guard to examine the ship at sea; or it might inspect the container portside. If CBP officers choose this last option, they will examine the container with large-scale, non-intrusive inspection and imaging equipment that can inspect containers quickly, allowing more to be screened per unit of an officer’s time.

Photo Credit: James Tourtellotte

Electron microscope photo of clothing fibers to determine fabric content for classification purposes.

Without question, the New Orleans Field Targeting Center is the port’s most significant enhancement. In operation since August 2003, the FTC is staffed by CBP officers and agriculture and field analytical specialists with expertise in immigration, customs, and agricultural issues; by intelligence specialists from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and by members of the Coast Guard, all working in concert to assure that the FTC maintains clear, open, constant communication with all law enforcement elements in the New Orleans area.

Using data culled from passenger, crew, and cargo manifests; watch lists; vessel histories and itineraries; 24-hour monitoring of national and local news stations; and intelligence reports provided by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, the FTC supplies intelligence and information about containers, cargo, and individuals to ports of entry from Lake Charles, La., to Mobile, Ala.

This blend of technology, information, and staff dedication has enabled the FTC to implement the four critical components of the National Seaport Strategy, which are to: (1) improve local targeting capabilities, (2) expand the use of non-intrusive inspection technology, (3) increase physical inspection capabilities, and (4) strengthen officer presence at seaport facilities.

Acknowledged by the FBI as well as its sister DHS agencies as the local clearinghouse for research, analysis and targeting support regarding maritime security, the FTC has become indispensable in managing the daily operations at all the ports within the New Orleans field office. And in 2004, Commissioner Robert C. Bonner recognized the New Orleans Field Office with a Best Practice Unification Award.

Ship jumpers

The Gulf Coast has always been a favorite destination for rogues, renegades and buccaneers, even before the gentleman pirate Jean Lafitte made his reputation. With the fifth-largest cruise ship operation in the United States, the New Orleans field office is adding more processing facilities to gain better control, not just over passengers, but also over crews. More foreign-crewed vessels stop at the port of New Orleans than at any other seaport in the United States, and crew members have become an increasing concern at CBP seaports. Some, called “ship jumpers,” leave the ship unlawfully and become illegal immigrants. (See Apprehending the “invisible immigrant”: CBP outwits ship jumpers, in this issue.)

Working with the Coast Guard on programs to prevent or intercept them, the New Orleans field office apprehended 29 ship-jumpers over the past year.

Science: filling in the gap

Computerized intelligence isn’t the only weapon in New Orleans’s anti-terrorism arsenal. A field laboratory staffed by chemists, textile analysts, and a biologist provide scientific services to five CBP field offices and six Border Patrol stations that cover 90 percent of our border with Mexico.

The New Orleans lab analyzes samples of every kind of imported merchandise imaginable: clothing, building materials, vegetable waxes, raw steel, food, glass products, explosives, suspected narcotics, petroleum products, and that’s barely the tip of the iceberg. Laboratory chemists can look at a mere drop of oil and tell whether it’s from Venezuela or Iraq, which tells CBP officers whether an importer has violated a trade embargo.

Before 9/11, these kinds of analyses were primarily intended to support revenue functions: accurate merchandise classification; determining whether a commodity violated copyright, patent, or trademark laws; or gathering forensic evidence for dumping and countervailing duty investigations. But the terrorist attacks of September 11 added an entirely new set of responsibilities: Today, the lab’s employees advise CBP officers about hazardous materials and chemicals; they advise foreign customs organizations about weapons of mass destruction (WMDs); and they staff a hotline to instruct field officers should their radiation monitors yield positive findings.

Equipped with special gear and protective attire, lab personnel can also go into the field to make on-the-spot identifications of virtually any hazardous product. Two lab employees are part of CBP’s nationwide jump teams that will respond if a WMD incident occurs anywhere in the United States.

Location, location, location

The old adage that “geography is history” has been around since at least the Phoenicians, who understood the venerable truth that geography is also destiny: Nature shapes public policy and even international affairs. It’s a maxim that speaks volumes about the colorful beginnings of the city of New Orleans and how President Thomas Jefferson understood that a port in such a location could bring great wealth to the new United States—despite the fact that when he bought it, it was a swamp. In what has been called one of the greatest real estate deals in history, President Jefferson purchased the entire Louisiana territory for $15 million—about three cents an acre—virtually doubling the size of the emergent United States.

Nearly all ancient civilizations turned to the sea for mercantile reasons, which, by the way, were the real incentive behind Columbus’s “discovery” of America. Today, even in an age of jet payloads and cyber-commerce, maritime trade has only increased, which is why, in the post-9/11 world, we have programs like the Container Security Initiative, the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, and targeting centers. In the past, navigators looked for water routes; today, having found them, we must protect them against terrorists and their weapons.