Plan Would Slash Anti-Smuggling Funds : Customs Cuts Would Hurt Drug Fight, Official Says

The White House budget office is proposing to cut in half the U.S. Customs Service’s effort to stop airborne drug smuggling, a reduction that a top customs official said would “seriously undermine” the nation’s drug enforcement program.

Deputy Customs Commissioner Alfred R. De Angelus complained in an internal memorandum obtained by The Times that the Office of Management and Budget’s plan would leave “the entire border without any airborne detection capability most of the year.”

As part of the austere budget that President Reagan will propose to Congress next month, OMB wants to provide the air program $39.7 million in fiscal 1987, down from the $75 million provided by Congress in the current year. In addition, OMB proposes to rescind $30 million from this year’s appropriation.

The Customs Service had asked OMB for $71.4 million to operate its air program next year. De Angelus contended that the deeper cuts sought by OMB would not only strap drug enforcement efforts but also hamper the agency’s ability to enforce marketing agreements and trade quotas and even to prevent illegal exportation of critical technology to Soviet-bloc countries.

Could Create Furor

Noting that the customs program enjoys bipartisan political support, De Angelus argued that “substantial reductions will create a furor in the Congress that may result in attacks against other segments of the Treasury Department” and could lead to increased “micro management” of customs by Congress.

For the Customs Service as a whole, OMB recommended a $685-million fiscal 1987 budget, down from the $717 million that Congress provided for the current year. The Customs Service asked OMB for $753 million in fiscal 1987, which begins on Oct. 1.

The Customs Service has come under harsh attack from congressional critics, who see it as a symbol of the Reagan Administration’s insincerity in battling the estimated 100 tons of cocaine that poured into the United States last year. They have charged that the Administration has tried to cut drug enforcement budgets even as it declares war against drug smugglers.

One critic, Rep. Glenn English (D-Okla.), said Tuesday that if Reagan accepts OMB’s proposed cuts, “the Reagan Administration will be ending the war on drugs. That conclusion is inescapable.”

Administration’s Options

English, chairman of the Government Operations subcommittee that monitors the federal anti-drug effort, said that what the Administration is “faced with is deciding whether it will make the war on drugs a high-priority item.” He spoke from Phoenix, where he was attending a hearing on drug matters.

The Customs Service is responsible for air border interdictions and for sea interdictions up to 12 miles from shore. But in a series of revelations--many by English’s subcommittee--the service has been shown to be ill-equipped to do its job.

In his memo, De Angelus proposed what he called “a reasonable compromise between protecting our vital enforcement programs and meeting the needs of the budget crisis.” He agreed to a hiring freeze and advocated merging inspection functions of customs and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a move De Angelus said would eliminate 500 full-time positions.

But he argued against some of the proposed cuts and urged the Administration to beef up some programs.

De Angelus said the Customs Service intercepted 55,000 pounds of cocaine in fiscal 1985, a 100% increase over the previous year. But the proposed cuts, he said, would “seriously undermine the Administration’s strong drug enforcement record. Our drug interdiction capability will be appreciably diminished.”