House lawmakers passed two bills Tuesday evening that would require the Department of Homeland Security to launch separate studies looking at security vulnerabilities at U.S. ports of entry and the maritime region around Puerto Rico.
The U.S. Ports of Entry Threat and Operational Review Act by Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., calls on DHS to analyze both threats and operations at the country’s 300 air, land, and sea ports, then create and implement a strategy to combat human trafficking, drug smuggling, and other transnational criminal activity.
“I introduced this bill because our country’s ports are long overdue for a comprehensive review,” Lesko said during a floor speech Tuesday night. “Many U.S. ports of entry were built 40 to 50 years ago. Therefore, they were never designed for post-9/11 security measures, technology, or increased volume of traffic.”
House Homeland Security Committee’s vice ranking Democrat, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J., backed the bill during remarks on the House floor Tuesday. “The strategy and implementation plan must include consideration of improvements needed at the ports of entry to reduce wait times and facilitate the lawful movement of trade, travel, and people,” Watson Coleman said.
The majority of reviews required are already being carried out by the department. This legislation would bring studies from other mandated studies into one report and mandate DHS release a formal plan of how it plans to address shortcomings or needs to improve facilities and infrastructure.
The second bill will require DHS to create a strategy to better respond to terrorism, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and other national security concerns in the “transit zone,” a term lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee use to refer to the 7 million square miles of water that includes the western Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., said the decision by Puerto Rico’s sole representative in Congress, Republican Rep. Jenniffer Gonzalez Colon, to call in the Maritime Border Security Review Act for a federal plan to further secure the region was warranted because of the effects last year’s hurricanes had on Puerto Rico and President Trump’s immigration policies have had at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We must be mindful that our adversaries can and will adapt as they seek to gain entry into our homeland,” Katko said on the floor Tuesday. “The nation’s maritime border is a likely alternative route for our adversaries to utilize.”
Katko previously worked as a senior trial attorney for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Narcotics, and Dangerous Drug Section in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He said his two years prosecuting international drug organizations there prompted him to back Gonzalez Colon’s bill.
Authorities intercepted only about 8.2 percent of cocaine that flowed through the transit zone in fiscal 2017, he said. The zone is 7 million square miles in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and eastern Pacific Ocean.
“Unfortunately, we currently do not have the resources to turn back or interdict all the threats in the maritime environment,” he added. “Under this environment, by the time a threat reaches our coastal waters it is too easy to slip into the country and often too late to intercept that threat.”
The report would also look at the effects 2017 hurricanes had on national security efforts on and around both U.S. territory islands.
House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., agreed with Republicans.
“It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that border security concerns more than the U.S.-Mexican land border,” said Thompson.
