Border Agents Check More Than People

The smell is overpowering, a mixture of bad fish and worse garbage. It spreads across the Customs area, from one end--where the U.S. Department of Agriculture does its inspections--to the other.

The USDA guys explain: A visitor from Africa packed some giant snails, each the size of a man’s fist. Inspectors opened his luggage to discover that some of the gastropods had not survived the trip.

None of the snails will enter the country. They are fed into a grinder, and a deodorant labors to mask the stench.

Giant snails are rare contraband at the border--unlike drugs.

On an average day, the U.S. Customs Service seizes 3,925 pounds of narcotics. Many of the seizures are at San Ysidro, the busiest border crossing on the planet, where agents roam 24 lanes of traffic, examining 45,000 vehicles a day as they enter California from Mexico.

There, one recent day, Customs inspector Darrell Watson signals a red Suzuki Samurai to pull forward.

Watson sees that the driver, a man in his mid-40s, is neatly dressed in a suit and tie, but his fingernails are dirty. He claims he is a furniture salesman, but his hands are a laborer’s. When Watson asks for the keys to the car, the driver asks, “Why?”--a red flag because most travelers are eager to comply.

Watson asks the driver to pop open the hood, a ploy to get him out of the car, because Watson has seen something: loose paneling in the rear compartment, and a bundle wrapped with black tape behind it.

The search reveals 4.6 pounds of methamphetamine.

This is the cat-and-mouse game that goes on every day as inspectors struggle to bar the illegal and the unwholesome.

* At Brownsville, Texas, where Sandra Garza hunts for bottles of Mexican liquor by day, then slips across the border at night to her Matamoros dental practice. “I always wanted to be a dentist,” she says, “but it was too tough in the state of Texas.”

* At LAX, where the flow through Customs is roiled momentarily by the discovery of two very real-looking handguns--plastic replicas, purchased in Korea by a GI headed home to Pennsylvania on a 30-day leave. He can petition to have them returned.

* At Miami International Airport, where Hector Serapio Santos Jimenez is immigrating after a 20-year wait. His only luggage is a black carry-on bag containing a bottle of rum and four boxes of Romeo y Julieta cigars--half of which are seized because of U.S. Treasury regulations.

“These are gifts, though,” he argues. No matter. Agents say they will be destroyed.

* At the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Canada, where USDA veterinarian Lisa Dellar has her hands full examining two trailers full of Iowa-bound piglets. She will spot check them, making sure the ID on each animal’s ear matches the paperwork.

Piglets are handed down from the truck. They hang by their hind legs, squealing energetically, as Dellar checks IDs and another worker marks each checked animal’s back with a red streak.

As port veterinarian, Dellar has encountered buffalo, elephants, sharks, llamas, even a tiger. “You don’t get this in private practice, where you get dogs and cats and rabies shots all day.”

By contrast, Coast Guard Gunner’s Mate Roy Cusworth is getting a little tired of his job. He’s about to board the freighter Enterprise in rough seas in the Gulf Stream off Miami, where the “border” is an invisible line in the dark blue water.

“I said to myself, ‘Self, you’re getting too old for this,’ ” he says, as a wave slams him elbow-first into the Enterprise’s rusty hull.

Cusworth is one of 17 men on the Baranof, a 110-foot cutter that circles the Enterprise like a wolf sizing up a deer. The freighter bobs violently, its rudder popping out of the water.

The Enterprise is carrying cars; the boarding crew finds that four are not on the manifest. They also find one car with gasoline in its tank and a battery still connected --safety violations and a hint that the car may be stolen.

But two hours later, authorities certify that none of the cars has been reported stolen.

Is Cusworth disappointed that nothing turned up? “It’s kind of like playing blackjack,” he says. “You win, you lose.”

Besides, he’s transferring to Key West soon to run an armory.