Federal auditors have discovered that U.S. customs inspectors are not fully trained, and lack some fundamentals to do their job at ports of entry.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found weaknesses within the training programs at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Among them, the GAO found that officers who have been in the field are not receiving proper training.
Richard Stana, Director for Homeland Security and Justice Issues at the GAO, wrote the report. The auditors went over two years of training reviews and found that inspectors failed at asking the right questions or looking carefully at cargo.
"This is not the first time we’ve seen this. And these kind of vulnerabilities at the ports of entry have to be addressed," Stana said. "We just don’t want to get ourselves into a situation where dangerous individuals and cargoes can make into a port of entry without being detected.”
CBP did hold a back-to-basics training program for officers already working, but Stana said CBP won’t evaluate its effectiveness.
