On-board inspections of ship crew docking in U.S. ports occurs without electronic tools to verify seafarer identity, says a Government Accountability Office report.

In fiscal 2009 about 5 million seafarers, most of them from cruise ships entered U.S. seaports, according to CBP data. The vast majority of the seafarers--4.25 million of them--were foreign citizens.

The report, dated Jan. 14, says that Customs and Border Protection field officials want a portable device such as fingerprint readers connected to the US-VISIT database or electronic passport readers, but that such hand-held biometric devices are several years away from being available. DHS in 2009 deemed as "high priority" the need for a hand-held biometric screening device that can operate in challenging environments, such as offshore, and issued a solicitation for research proposals. Still, those proposals don't address the problem of connecting such devices to a network, the report says.

Two CBP seaport field offices visited by GAO auditors have attempted to use laptops wirelessly connected to the shore, but one abandoned the effort because of poor connectivity while the other reported "some success," the report states.

Incoming ships transmit ship manifests to CBP and Coast Guard officials around 96 hours in advance of arriving in a U.S. port, during which time DHS runs the manifest data through various national security and other databases. Seafarers must attain visas in advance of embarkation in a process that requires an in-person interview. The State Department reports that fraud in seafarer visa types is comparable with other non-immigrating visa types "and does not constitute a substantial problem," the report says.

The report also faults the Coast Guard and CBP for having differing data on the number of foreign seafarers who desert their ship in the United States or who abscond on it without permission. In fact, the data differs even between different offices within CBP and the Coast Guard, the report finds. Overall, the Coast Guard reports a much higher rate of absconder and deserter incidents than CBP for fiscal years 2005 and 2009, the report says. It adds that CBP and Coast Guard officials say they don't know why their data differs.

On factor could be that the Coast Guard's Intelligence Coordination Center doesn't share data with CBP, the report adds, recommending that DHS set up a systematic information sharing process, a recommendation with which DHS concurs.

For more:
- download the report, GAO- 11-195 (.pdf)

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