EL PASO, Texas – U.S. Customs and Border Protection has released year-end data on its fiscal year 2014 operations. CBP officers working at 11 border crossings at six area ports of entry upheld CBP’s vital homeland security mission while also processing increasing amounts of legitimate trade and travel.
“CBP officers are working hard every day to keep our nation safe while also implementing new tools and technology to keep traffic moving,” said Hector Mancha, CBP El Paso Director of Field Operations. “The free flow of legitimate trade and travel is important to our community and the nation as a whole.”
In fiscal 2014, CBP officers at El Paso area commercial cargo facilities processed 864,181 northbound trucks. That is up 3.4 percent from a year ago when CBP officers processed 835,401 northbound commercial trucks.
“We are poised for added growth in the trade environment with the addition of cargo processing at the Tornillo port of entry and recent expansion at the Santa Teresa cargo crossing,” said Mancha.
The total number of northbound cars, pedestrians and people also increased from a year ago. The number of northbound cars CBP officers processed during fiscal year 2014 was 13,142,923. That is a 7.8 percent increase from the 12,186,028 recorded a year ago. Northbound pedestrians went up from 6,509,239 last year to 7,106,010 this year – a 9.1 percent increase. And total people processed in FY 2014 was 30,687,772 which is up 8.9 percent from 28,186,196 a year ago.
CBP Officer process travelers at the El Paso port of entry.
“We attribute much of the growth to CBP’s ongoing All Lanes Open Initiative in which CBP staffs all inspection lanes during various periods of the day to effectively process travel and trade,” said Mancha. “In addition a year ago CBP and the city of El Paso entered into a public-private partnership in which the city pays CBP to keep more lanes open during designated periods at the Paso Del Norte and Ysleta crossings.”
DHS recently posted FY 2014 national trade and travel data. Nationally CBP processed more than 374 million arriving people in FY 2014. Approximately one out of every 12 people CBP processed nationally legally entered the U.S. at one of the El Paso area crossings.