EXCLUSIVE — A tiny percentage of passenger vehicles and commercial trucks seeking admission at U.S. ports of entry are actually stopped and inspected while attempting to enter the country, but a new Senate bill aims to overhaul that shortcoming.
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) has partnered with Sens. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and John Cornyn (R-TX) to reintroduce legislation that would require U.S. Customs and Border Protection to temporarily hire and train image technicians for the sole purpose of conducting and reviewing the images of vehicles scanned at land, air, and sea ports of entry.
“Adding more personnel at ports of entry will immediately provide our country with another layer of security to prevent traffickers from smuggling weapons or drugs across the border,” Lankford said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Border law enforcement has repeatedly asked for more support to analyze cargo images in real time, so this bill also gives them tools they need to catch criminals and secure our border.”
At present, CBP officers are responsible for deciding if a vehicle is suspicious and ought to be sent for review and pushed through large, nonintrusive X-ray and Gamma-ray systems. Those officers also look over the X-ray images to determine if anything on board looks suspicious and if it is, the contents will be offloaded for inspection.
As of now, CBP scans roughly 20% of the 7.6 million commercial trucks and rail containers and fewer than 5% of the 80 million passenger vehicles, former acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller told NBC News last year. CBP was not able to provide an updated figure.
The lack of scanning is of particular concern given that 90% of fentanyl seized at the nation’s borders in 2023 occurred at points of entry, according to CBP data. The remaining 10% of fentanyl seized was intercepted between ports of entry.
The agency is optimistic that it will reach a 40% scan rate of passenger cars and 70% of trucks by late 2025, which may stand a greater chance if Lankford’s bill passes.
Lankford’s bill, the Border Enforcement, Security, and Trade Facilitation Act of 2025, would commence a five-year pilot program that sets up five command centers nationwide where specialized government employees would remotely review the contents of what is being scanned at ports of entry across the country in real time.
Lankford previously introduced the bill in 2023 and it made it through the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee before the legislative session closed out. Now, with slight tweaks to the bill and broad support for keeping fentanyl out of the country, his office views this as the right time to strike again.
The BEST Act dictates that two types of image technicians be hired. They may be existing CBP employees, but the position itself would not be a law enforcement role and could not go to a government contractor.
Technicians would look over images of containers and conveyances entering and exiting the United States through land, air, and sea ports, as well as international railroad crossings. It would be their responsibility to decide whether to admit or inspect vehicles, possibly thousands of miles away.
Creating this new role of expert image reviewers comes after President Donald Trump, in his first term, signed into law a bill that provided CBP with $59 million to buy more scanners. The border now has more scanners than ever before but needs better capabilities to review the information being captured by these giant machines.
Increasing the amount of training and having more experienced employees reviewing X-ray and Gamma images could lead to higher rates of interceptions of human smuggling, as well as drug and gun trafficking.
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It could also cut down on corruption at the ports of entry among officers who admit vehicles that they know are suspicious or appear to have contraband inside.
A Congressional Budget Office estimate of the previous version of the bill estimated a cost of $168 million to implement the plan over five years, but that cost would likely be significantly lower this time around due to changes in the bill.