Report Backs Beleaguered Customs Chief

Under fire from Congress and its own employees for a poor record on drug interdiction, the U.S. Customs Service is releasing a report focusing on the agency’s limited success along the Southwest border and expressing support for its beleaguered commissioner.

An advanced copy of the 20-page report, scheduled to be released today, highlights successes in the first year of Operation Hard Line. The drug interdiction program was launched along the U.S.-Mexico border after not a single pound of cocaine was confiscated in 1994 from more than 2 million trucks that crossed from Mexico at three of the busiest commercial entry points.

The report includes a letter from Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin praising Commissioner George Weise, who has been criticized both inside and outside the agency for emphasizing trade and its facilitation over enforcement at the nation’s ports. A Customs analyst who saw the report said it was intended to blunt ongoing criticism of Weise’s leadership and calls for his resignation.

Overall, the amount of drugs seized along the border in 1995 rose 25%. The report did not respond to continued criticism from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and the agency’s own inspectors and agents about the absence of significant cocaine seizures at the major commercial ports, where more than two-thirds of the trucks enter from Mexico. Feinstein and some inspectors blame the low number of seizures on a facilitation policy that allows trucks to enter the United States without inspection.

On Saturday, Weise acknowledged in an interview that most of the cocaine seized on the Southwest border in 1995 was taken “in smaller quantities and in passenger vehicles, not trucks. We do feel we can do better in our surveillance of commercial trucks.”

Most of the 51,162 pounds of cocaine seized at the U.S.-Mexico border by Customs in 1995 came from passenger vehicles. That amount was a record and represented a 19% increase from the previous year. Cocaine seizures from commercial cargo, such as trucks and shipping containers, dropped 48% in the same period.

Meanwhile, the number of trucks crossing from Mexico at the three busiest commercial ports of entry continues to increase, but inspections are not keeping pace.

According to the latest figures provided by Customs, in 1994 truck traffic increased 29% in Laredo, Texas, but inspections declined 21%. The number of trucks that crossed at El Paso in the same year rose 62%, but the number of inspections increased only 14%. In San Diego, the number of trucks entering from Mexico increased 266% in 1994, but inspections increased only 0.6%.

Weise was portrayed in the report as a pro-enforcement commissioner who has made drug interdiction Customs’ most important goal. The report credits him for helping develop anti-smuggling strategies, including a requirement that manufacturers shipping cargo from Mexico use trucking companies and drivers who have undergone background checks.

This requirement was enacted after The Times reported last year that trucking firms and drivers linked to drug smuggling were being allowed to participate in the Line Release program, which allows Mexican companies to ship their goods into the United States uninspected.