Customs And Border Protection

President Obama has nominated the administration's point man on Southwest border strategy to be the new commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, the White House announced today. Alan Bersin, a veteran of federal border enforcement and a former San Diego schools superintendent, has served since April as assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Bersin, 62, also is the department's special representative for border affairs, working with Mexican leaders and U.S. border-area agencies on challenges such as drugs and immigration.

Gulp! A bellyful of an alleged drug-smuggling attempt was recently thwarted at Dulles International Airport with the arrest of a woman on suspicion of ingesting 180 pellets - or nearly five pounds - of heroin. Bola Adebisi, 52, was arrested Saturday after arriving March 14 on a flight from her native Nigeria in what U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials called the largest heroin internal seizure at the northern Virginia airport. Adebisi caught the attention of a female customs agent, who, while conducting a routine pat-down, discovered that Adebisi's stomach was abnormally rigid, officials said.  An X-ray at a hospital detected foreign bodies in her abdomen.

Gulp! A bellyful of an alleged drug-smuggling attempt was recently thwarted at Dulles International Airport with the arrest of a woman on suspicion of ingesting 180 pellets - or nearly five pounds - of heroin. Bola Adebisi, 52, was arrested Saturday after arriving March 14 on a flight from her native Nigeria in what U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials called the largest heroin internal seizure at the northern Virginia airport. Adebisi caught the attention of a female customs agent, who, while conducting a routine pat-down, discovered that Adebisi's stomach was abnormally rigid, officials said.  An X-ray at a hospital detected foreign bodies in her abdomen.

U.S. Customs officials said Monday that they caught someone trying to import counterfeit and unsafe lighting fixtures depicting Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman. The holiday decorations were seized at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport complex between Nov. 23 and 25 in two shipments from China and had an estimated retail value of $173,000. The lighting displays had phony Underwriters Laboratories product safety certification labels and had not undergone the rigorous scrutiny required by the organization.

Anyone who has traveled abroad with a laptop or other electronic device might cringe to hear about the criminal defense attorney who had the contents of her computer searched by border agents after flying into Houston from Mexico. And then there is the freelance photographer who was stopped at the U.S. border with Canada where officials scanned through his laptop files. Perhaps the most unnerving tale is that of the graduate student who was riding a train from Montreal to New York when border guards confiscated his laptop and external hard drive for 11 days.

A top Homeland Security official in Boston has been accused of hiring illegal immigrants to clean her home, even warning one not to leave the country "cause once you leave, you will never be back." Lorraine Henderson, the regional director of the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection division, was arrested Friday and charged with harboring an illegal alien. She is responsible for stopping illegal immigration through all air and sea international ports in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Puzzled U.S. border police arrested a Mexican smuggler with 88 pounds of cheese in a hidden compartment in his truck. Officers at the port of entry in Columbus, N.M., referred the pickup for a routine examination, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Roger Maier. When they saw 16 packages in the compartment behind the seat, they expected to find what they usually do: marijuana, heroin or cocaine. Not cheese.

Most days, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer David Gasho sends three unmanned spy planes into the skies over the rugged Sonora Desert to hunt for drug smugglers crossing into southern Arizona from Mexico. But in mid-June, as the largest wildfire in Arizona history raged, Gasho sent one of the Predator B drones soaring over residential neighborhoods in search of another threat — rogue brush fires. Working from an air-conditioned trailer, his crew aimed an airborne infrared camera through thick smoke and spotted a smoldering blaze.

U.S. Customs officials said Monday that they caught someone trying to import counterfeit and unsafe lighting fixtures depicting Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman. The holiday decorations were seized at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport complex between Nov. 23 and 25 in two shipments from China and had an estimated retail value of $173,000. The lighting displays had phony Underwriters Laboratories product safety certification labels and had not undergone the rigorous scrutiny required by the organization.

The massive Long Beach warehouse is as well stocked as any big-box discount store, filled with brand-new electronics, designer jeans, famous-label handbags and toys. And cigarettes. Cartons and cartons of them, seemingly enough to supply a small kingdom. There are no shoppers, however. All of the goods in this 500,000-square-foot warehouse were seized by federal agents — mostly counterfeits, along with banned items such as elephant ivory and drug paraphernalia. Smuggling is on the rise, with seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection up 35% in fiscal year 2010 from 2009.

When Luis Alarid was a child, his mother would seat him in the car while she smuggled people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. She was the sweet-talking commuter, he was her cute boy, and the mother-son ploy regularly kept customs inspectors from peeking inside the trunk. FOR THE RECORD: Corruption case: An earlier version of this online article showed a photo of the San Ysidro border crossing and included a caption that stated that a Border Patrol agent who was hired there was engaged in illegal activity.

Most days, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer David Gasho sends three unmanned spy planes into the skies over the rugged Sonora Desert to hunt for drug smugglers crossing into southern Arizona from Mexico. But in mid-June, as the largest wildfire in Arizona history raged, Gasho sent one of the Predator B drones soaring over residential neighborhoods in search of another threat — rogue brush fires. Working from an air-conditioned trailer, his crew aimed an airborne infrared camera through thick smoke and spotted a smoldering blaze.

The massive Long Beach warehouse is as well stocked as any big-box discount store, filled with brand-new electronics, designer jeans, famous-label handbags and toys. And cigarettes. Cartons and cartons of them, seemingly enough to supply a small kingdom. There are no shoppers, however. All of the goods in this 500,000-square-foot warehouse were seized by federal agents — mostly counterfeits, along with banned items such as elephant ivory and drug paraphernalia. Smuggling is on the rise, with seizures by U.S. Customs and Border Protection up 35% in fiscal year 2010 from 2009.

Anyone who has traveled abroad with a laptop or other electronic device might cringe to hear about the criminal defense attorney who had the contents of her computer searched by border agents after flying into Houston from Mexico. And then there is the freelance photographer who was stopped at the U.S. border with Canada where officials scanned through his laptop files. Perhaps the most unnerving tale is that of the graduate student who was riding a train from Montreal to New York when border guards confiscated his laptop and external hard drive for 11 days.

Congress gave final approval Thursday to a $600-million border security package that President Obama had sought to tighten the border with Mexico — a move supporters hope will open a broader political discussion on comprehensive immigration reform. The Senate gave quick final approval to the measure in an unusual special session that was arranged to rectify an earlier procedural glitch. The House had passed the bill without dissent Tuesday, and Obama is expected to sign it Friday.

Jose Sanchez, a 36-year-old travel agent, has a problem that seems inescapable. It's on his passport, birth certificate and the document that allows him to live here as a permanent, legal resident. Sanchez's problem is his name. Being called Jose Sanchez wasn't much of an issue until 2007, about the time U.S. authorities required everyone entering the country by plane to carry a passport. Up to then, Sanchez had traveled freely between his Southern California home and Mexico, the land of his birth.

Re "Immigration Arrests Not Policy Shift," June 11: We should all be alarmed by federal agents' sweeps of our communities in search of undocumented persons. These dragnets make a mockery of fundamental constitutional rights. Racial profiling has supplanted the requirement that an officer have probable cause to believe that a suspect has committed a crime. Trolling our neighborhoods for illegal immigrants does not protect us from robberies, shootings, drug dealing or other crimes.

Congress gave final approval Thursday to a $600-million border security package that President Obama had sought to tighten the border with Mexico — a move supporters hope will open a broader political discussion on comprehensive immigration reform. The Senate gave quick final approval to the measure in an unusual special session that was arranged to rectify an earlier procedural glitch. The House had passed the bill without dissent Tuesday, and Obama is expected to sign it Friday.

Alan Bersin is back at the border and on the move. On the third day of a sprint through Texas and Arizona, a law enforcement convoy zooms into Nogales. Riding in a sport utility vehicle, Bersin scans a dusty landscape that he knows well: this desert town of 20,000 with its fast-food joints and discount shops facing the pastel facades and helter-skelter skyline of Nogales, Mexico, a city of 300,000 just south of the fence. Bersin, a compact 63-year-old with the stride of a former star football player at Harvard, arrives at the Nogales station, the U.S. Border Patrol's biggest.

President Obama has nominated the administration's point man on Southwest border strategy to be the new commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, the White House announced today. Alan Bersin, a veteran of federal border enforcement and a former San Diego schools superintendent, has served since April as assistant secretary for international affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Bersin, 62, also is the department's special representative for border affairs, working with Mexican leaders and U.S. border-area agencies on challenges such as drugs and immigration.