Air Marshal Ranks Boosted

Customs and immigration agents will be trained as air marshals to significantly boost the number of federal officers who can protect passenger flights in emergencies, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Tuesday.

However, government officials said it was unlikely that all 5,500 agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement would qualify and be deployed as marshals, partly because it would leave no one to do the agents’ work.

Instead, the plan is to have more officers with air marshal training available under high-threat conditions or after a terrorist attack. “This gives us a ‘surge capability,’ ” said Ridge, “more people being able to do more things when we need it.”

In a speech keyed to the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Ridge also announced new procedures for questioning passengers arriving at U.S. airports from overseas, initiatives to improve communication between federal and local authorities and a technology program aimed at countering the threat of bioterrorism. He spoke at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative public policy center here.

“We’ve made significant progress toward shoring the necessary layers of homeland security that have made America safer,” Ridge said. “And yet, clearly our work is not done. In homeland security, we have to be right thousands of times a day. A terrorist only has to be right once.”

The air marshal announcement was part of an ongoing internal realignment of the Homeland Security Department, created at the beginning of the year from 22 disparate government agencies.

Ridge directed that the Federal Air Marshal Service be moved from its current bureaucratic home in the Transportation Security Administration to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. That would combine two of the department’s major law enforcement agencies and presumably increase efficiency.

No layoffs of marshals or ICE agents are planned as a result of the transfer. “There are little or no budgetary implications,” Ridge said.

Cross-training would open up new career paths for officers in each agency. “We see it as an opportunity for air marshals to become criminal investigators and vice versa,” ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said. “It brings together a like-minded pool of special agents.”

But many critical details have yet to be worked out, including the schedule for training or the determination of whether the trained immigration and customs agents would receive additional pay and have the right to turn down assignment as air marshals.

Marshals are more than undercover officers with guns. They must learn how to shoot in confined quarters and how to work in teams. Several thousand -- the exact number is classified -- are now covering selected domestic and international flights. Nonetheless, with about 35,000 commercial airline flights a day, odds are slim that marshals will be on any given flight.

“This transfer will contribute to aviation security by creating a

Industry groups were generally receptive to the idea. “It makes a certain amount of sense,” said John Mazor, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Assn., which represents pilots for 42 U.S. and Canadian airlines.

Ridge’s other significant announcement also involved cross-training. By the end of the year, the department expects to put in place a more streamlined system for interviewing passengers arriving from overseas. Currently, travelers answer questions from separate customs and immigration officers and, in some cases, from agricultural inspectors.

Under the new program, one officer will handle all three areas. Passengers suspected of violating customs or immigration statutes, or of having possible terrorist connections, will be referred to other officers for closer questioning. But the vast majority of travelers are expected to clear customs more rapidly.

“Most people will find this a great change when they get off a six- or eight-hour flight,” said Bill Strassberger, a department spokesman. “This is going to allow travelers to meet one primary inspector, who will determine who needs to go through any in-depth checking.”

The new procedures are already in effect for passengers at Los Angeles International Airport and six other airports -- Hartsfield Atlanta International, George Bush Intercontinental in Houston, Miami International, Newark Liberty International in New Jersey, Dulles International near Washington and New York’s John F. Kennedy International.