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Report: 21,000 In U.S. Illegally

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By EILEEN SULLIVAN, The Associated Press

Published: November 6, 2007

WASHINGTON - Some 21,000 people who should not have been allowed to enter the United States came through official border crossing points between Oct. 1, 2005, and Sept. 30, 2006, according to a government report released Monday.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks, the government reorganized its border security operations and increased security measures to prevent people from falsifying travel documents or using other deceptive methods to enter the country through such legal entry points as airports and border crossings.

Some of the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks entered the United States this way.

The Government Accountability Office found that Customs and Border Protection officers turned away 200,000 people who tried to enter the country through the 326 legal air, sea and land entry points during the 2006 fiscal year.

The numbers do not include people who unlawfully entered the country through other routes.

The GAO's findings are based on a statistical estimate of the number of people who could have passed through the entry points, Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Jayson P. Ahern said Monday.

In reality, the government does not know exactly how many people passed through checkpoints who should not have been allowed in the country.

"The point is that we need to actually do a better job," Ahern said.

Customs, as mandated by Congress, has stepped up efforts to make sure everyone who enters the country has a valid document, he said.

About 400 million people enter the United States through legal checkpoints each year, he said.
Staffing shortages and poor management at legal border crossings are among the reasons people got through improperly, GAO found.

A publicly released version of the GAO's report states that "several thousand" of these people made it past Customs and Border Protection officers.

However, an official with access to more detailed information told The Associated Press that the number is about 21,000.

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