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contacts for this news release

Baltimore — September 30 closed the books on fiscal year 2008 and Michael J. Lovejoy, Director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Baltimore Field Office, is pleased to report that his area’s officers, agriculture specialists, analysts and technicians recorded many significant accomplishments in security, law enforcement, high-risk agriculture interceptions and technology enhancements.

Chiefly among these accomplishments was an increase in international travelers processed for arrival, an increase in insect and prohibited agriculture products intercepted, an increase in unreported currency seizures, and the successful implementation of air cargo radiation portal monitors and mobile non-intrusive inspection technologies.

The Baltimore Field Office employs more than 700 officers, agriculture specialists, analysts, technicians and other employees at three primary ports of entry—Port of Washington, Port of Baltimore and the Area Port of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Area Port includes the Ports of Wilmington, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. These employees are charged with protecting America, our citizens, our economy and our agriculture against bad people and bad things.

“Our personnel continue to do an amazing, selfless and sometimes thankless job working around the clock to protect you and me from people who wish to do us harm,” said Michael Lovejoy, Director, CBP Baltimore Field Office. “I applaud their impressive contributions in working with our local trade and travel partners to explore processing efficiencies; in cementing relationships with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that enhance our national and regional security; in deploying new radiological detection capabilities to scan inbound and outbound cargoes; and in helping implement international container security agreements that protect the global supply chain.”

The following are the Baltimore Field Office accomplishments for fiscal year 2008.

International Traveler Processing
One of the major operations in the Baltimore Field Office area is international traveler processing. During FY08, CBP officers processed 5,177,082 international travelers and crew arriving at Washington National, Washington-Dulles, Baltimore-Washington, Philadelphia, Trenton-Mercer, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh International Airports; McGuire, Dover and Andrews Air Force Bases; and at seaports in Southeastern Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. This represents a 5.1 percent increase over FY07’s total of 4,924,058 international travelers processed.

Of these numbers, CBP officers processed a 9.4 percent increase in foreign nationals arriving to Baltimore FO airports and seaports (FY08 - 2,297,277; FY07 – 2,099,924), and reported an 8.1 percent increase in inadmissible foreign nationals, travelers who are returned to their originating nation due to visa or other immigration issues (FY08 – 2,324; FY07 – 2,150).

“Managing passenger arrivals is extremely critical to our national security in that it allows United States authorities to know precisely who is attempting to enter the country by air and by vessel, and to intercept those travelers who pose a threat to our nation, to our citizens or to our commerce,” said Lovejoy.

“Our goal is to retain situation awareness, while continuing to create passenger processing efficiencies that expedite legitimate travelers through our ports of entry,” he said.

During FY08, the Baltimore FO has implemented several initiatives that enhance both security and passenger processing efficiencies, including:

• Installing 10-Print scanners at Dulles, BWI and Philadelphia International Airports that capture a traveler’s 10 fingerprints and quickly identifies a traveler’s identity.
• Dulles has instituted Global Entry, a program that expedites CBP clearance for pre-approved, pre-screened frequent international airline passengers during arrivals to the U.S.
• Implemented Model Ports initiative at Dulles and Philadelphia. Model Ports is a partnership between the federal government and the travel industry to streamline the queuing process and create a more welcoming arrival using multi-lingual instructional signage and videos.

Trade and Economic Security
CBP employees are engaged in various missions that ensure the integrity of air and sea cargo arriving and departing the United States, including collecting appropriate customs, verifying cargoes, and conducting agriculture inspections.

International agreements, such as the Container Security Initiative and Secure Freight Initiative, help push our borders outward by securing the global supply chain starting at the source nation. CBP officers and agriculture specialists play a critical role inspecting arriving passengers and cargoes for prohibited products upon their arrival.

CBP agriculture specialists reported a 26.2 percent increase in overall quarantine material interceptions (FY08 – 46,892; FY07 – 37,170), but a 14.2 percent decrease in insect pest interceptions (FY08 – 2,480; FY07 – 2,891). Quarantine materials are foreign soil or non-indigenous plant, seed and insects that, if introduced to America’s agriculture, could destroy U.S. crops and damage the U.S. economy.

“Securing our nation’s commerce is vital to supporting a healthy economy, and we continue to leverage our relationships within the trade industry to develop initiatives designed to improve supply chain security while expediting legitimate trade,” said Lovejoy.

Some of these initiatives include new technologies that enhance targeting and scanning of arriving commercial cargoes. Among the more notable initiatives are:

• the Heimann Cargo Vision – Mobile, a high-energy X-ray scanning vehicle deployed at the Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia seaports. The HCVM will supplement existing non-intrusive inspection technologies at these ports to thoroughly scan more containers more quickly.
• Air Cargo Radiation Portal Monitors installed at Dulles. This RPM technology is similar to RPM’s presently used at our nation’s seaports and are now being phased in at airports.
• the Port Radiation Inspection, Detection and Evaluation (PRIDE) system installed at the Baltimore seaport provides a critical link between RPM’s, radioisotope identifier devices and visual identification systems to allow CBP to immediately and accurately assess and respond to radiological threats.

Law Enforcement
CBP officers conducted random and planned enforcement operations on air, land and sea conveyances to detect and interdict illegal contraband, including illicit narcotics, unreported currency, counterfeit monetary instruments, and intellectual property rights violations.

Currency -- The Internal Revenue Service requires that all travelers report monetary instruments in excess of $10,000 in U.S. dollars or foreign currency equivalency they bring to or take from the United States. Violators risk their money being seized by CBP officers. Some travelers have been investigated for carrying large sums of money for international terrorism or narcotics smuggling organizations. To combat this illicit link, CBP officers and trained canines conduct random currency inspections.

Baltimore FO officers reported a 36.4 percent increase in inbound currency seizures over the previous year (45 seizures during FY08; 33 during FY07), while the seized dollar value decreased by 11.7 percent ($835,148 seized in FY08; $945,906 in FY07).

Officers however, report an increase in both outbound currency seizures and dollar values over the previous year. Officers also reported a 100 percent increase in outbound currency seizures (eight seizures in FY08; four in FY07), and a 109.7 percent dollar value increase (FY08 - $232,674; FY07 – $110,960).

“We must strike a blow when we can and attack illicit narcotics smugglers and terrorists where it hurts most—in their funding—and stop them at our Ports of Entry from hurting our citizens,” said Lovejoy.

There are 327 official CBP ports of entry in the U.S. and 15 CBP pre-clearance offices in Ireland, Canada and the Caribbean. CBP personnel are the “face at the border” for most cargo and foreign travelers entering the U.S. CBP employees enforce hundreds of import and export, agriculture, travel and immigration laws and regulations.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws.