Border Agents Go High-Tech

A beat-up Honda Accord lurches in stop-and-go traffic at one of the largest border crossings from Mexico. Still yards from the inspection booths--but technically inside the United States--an inspector with a large black Labrador walks toward the car. The dog suddenly stops sniffing and sits.

Careful not to agitate the driver, the inspector calmly the car toward a covered parking lot, where a huge recreational vehicle with a metal arch idles. Without even peeking through the window, inspectors soon will know there are several bags of drugs hidden in the car.

New gadgets, such as the X-ray system enclosed in that metal arch, are becoming essential tools for agents who patrol the nation’s borders in the face of ever-growing traffic fueled by trade agreements like NAFTA.

“Technology has been a driver for us for the last 25 years,” said Edward W. Logan, U.S. Customs Service special agent in charge for Southern California. “We’ve been on the pointy end of the sword dealing with this explosion in trade.”

On average, almost two cars cross into San Ysidro from Tijuana every second of every day. They can spend up to 90 minutes sitting in traffic as agents search for contraband.

As the cars wait, agents walk through the lanes carrying black devices the size of bricks. Called “busters,” they are dragged along a car to measure the density of the metal, revealing hidden spaces where smugglers can stash drugs or even people.

In hard-to-reach places such as a gasoline tank, an inspector uses a long fiber-optic camera, similar to those used in exploratory surgery, to check for drugs.

The mobile truck X-ray facing the Honda Accord moves slowly down the length of the vehicle, barraging it with X-ray transmissions. On a black-and-white screen, three dark blocks glow against the gray metal of the Accord’s chassis, suggesting a drug stash. Another three blocks appear in a check of the other side.

When it comes to retrieving the evidence, no high-tech gizmo works better than a sharp metal pole. Stabbing it into the car’s quarter panels, fenders, upholstery and dashboard, agents stack up more than 80 pounds of marijuana.

The X-ray truck is new this year at the San Ysidro border station. At nearby Otay Mesa, Calif., where tractor-trailers pass into the country, a 90-foot-long gamma ray scanner is used on many of the more than 3,000 semis that travel through each day. The scanner’s two large vertical bars move along the length of each trailer, firing gamma rays to provide inspectors with a silhouette of what’s inside.

Technology has brought some success. Last year the five California border stations found 207 tons of illegal drugs with an approximate street price of $372 million.

“We’ve had 14-year-old kids to 78-year-old grandmothers and everything in between” try to smuggle drugs through, said Customs spokesman Vincent Bond.

But all the technology isn’t used just to stop the bad guys. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has a new system, dubbed SENTRI, that helps pedestrians and commuters pass more smoothly between countries.

In SENTRI, cross-border commuters fill out forms and get background checks. Once approved, their cars are fitted with a transponder similar to those used to automatically deduct tolls on roads and bridges.

When a SENTRI-equipped car approaches the express lanes, an agent instantly sees pictures of the passengers, along with their name, nationality and other information. The driver then swipes a card with a magnetic strip to verify his identity, and after an instant police database check, he is waved through.

An American businessman returning from Mexico said the SENTRI program saves time.

“It’s been one of the most unbelievably good things that has happened to this port,” said Enrique Fernandez of Coronado, Calif.

INS agents like it too.

“The officer here already knows [the driver] has been checked out,” INS supervisory inspector William P. Snyder said. “In the other lanes you have no idea who these people are.”

Other gadgets may soon join the contraband hunt.

Rudy Camacho, director of Customs field operations in the region, said the service is considering new technologies that take air samples to analyze for suspicious residues. With an eye on terrorism, they also are considering sensors to help detect small nuclear devices.

“We’re trying to do everything we can with the forces we have,” Camacho said.

Publicity helps as well. Camacho, Bond, Logan and other Customs officials appeared in the recent Oscar-winning movie “Traffic” about drug cartels, which was filmed in part at San Ysidro.

But technology and publicity can’t stop the flow of drugs completely, Logan said, because as long as there’s demand, the drug smugglers will find a way to continue.

“We hate this whole thing being characterized as a ‘war on drugs,’ ” Logan said. “It’s management of a criminal activity like any city has. You never win it. We’ll never be able to turn out the light.”