Mexican authorities last month discovered 513 illegal immigrants in two tractor-trailers making their way to the United States border. Authorities detected the immigrants with x-ray technology.
Port security — which includes such x-ray technologies — has increased by 700 percent since Sept. 11, 2001. In the 2005 fiscal year, the Department of Homeland Security spent $1.6 billion on port security, according to a DHS fact sheet.
While the United States will not comment officially on what happens outside its domestic border, a spokeswoman with Department of Homeland Security said security coming into the U.S. is seen as a layered approach.
On the U.S. side of the border, imaging systems are used primarily for cargo inspection, according to Jenny Burke with U.S. Customs and Borders Protection. If a secondary inspection is necessary, that’s when a large scale x-ray is used. It looks for anomalies in the density of the container.
That may be when customs “expects something and sees another,” Burke said.
Canine alerts, cargo shipment risk information, radiation alerts or officer observation are all signs that could lead to a second inspection.
But, Burke said, discovering immigrants in cargo via the x-ray system is not its intended use.
“With the non-obtrusive inspection we are looking for other illegal things that might be present, such as narcotics,” she said. “We don’t intend to see people in the cargo container, but sometimes they are found.”
The imaging system only creates a silhouette of those inside the vehicle being scanned, such as a driver.
“The system cannot be used to identify an individual, or the race, gender or age of persons inside the vehicle,” according to a U.S. Customs and Border Control fact sheet.
Such systems are only one aspect of port security — the ‘cutting edge’ technology aspect, according to U.S. Customs. The other aspects are: Screening and Inspection, Container Security Initiative (CSI), 24-hour rule, Customs Trade Partnership against Terrorism and Canine detection teams.
