It is imperative that DHS
personnel stationed overseas serve as an effective force in this
mission, and enactment of this legislation would be a positive step
towards this goal. In fiscal year 2016, CBP officers inspected over 390 million
travelers at 328 ports of entry, of which over 119 million flew into
air ports of entry. Deployed overseas CBP officers, through programs
such as Preclearance and the Immigration Advisory Program, utilize a
risk-based, intelligence-driven strategy to extend our border security
efforts outward to detect, assess, and mitigate, at the earliest
possible point in the travel continuum, any risk imposed by travelers
before they reach the United States. Today, ICE agents are assigned to 66 offices in 49 countries and work
with their overseas law enforcement counterparts to detect, disrupt,
and dismantle transnational criminal groups
and individuals who seek to harm our country and people. ICE special agents investigate transnational crime by conducting a
wide range of criminal investigations, in coordination with our foreign
and domestic partner agencies, targeting the illegal movement of
people, merchandise, and monetary instruments into, within, and out of
the United States. Maintaining an overseas footprint is costly. In fact, the annual cost
of deploying an ICE agent overseas can be four times the cost of
deploying the agent domestically. As such, it is critical that DHS have
a strategy for its overseas programs and execute it. Congress has an important oversight role to play to ensure that DHS
carries out these programs in a risk-based, strategic manner.
Keywords matched
ICE agents border security ICE agent Immigration