In October, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn., wrote in a letter asking the Government Accountability Office to conduct a “top-to-bottom” investigation into how CBP used the $1.9. Since 2018, it has received billions of dollars to increase border enforcement. That investigation is being conducted by the GAO, according to a spokeswoman for the watchdog.
In the letter, Republican lawmakers complained that while CBP has received almost $2 billion to increase scanning, the percentage of private vehicles scanned is only 2%.
Miller said CBP still needs $200 million or $300 million to put in place the equipment it purchased.
He said CBP scans less than 5% of private vehicles and wants to be able to scan 40% of private vehicles by the end of 2025.
Miller said it’s impractical to try to scan 100% of vehicles crossing the border because of the volume of traffic. With 1 million people crossing the US-Mexico border every day, he said scanning every vehicle would “shut down legitimate trade and travel.”