With fake IDs, GAO investigators  entered U.S. from both Mexico and Canada

August 2, 2006

Undercover investigators working for the U.S. Government Accountability Office , the investigative arm of Congress, repeatedly entered the United States from both the Mexican and Canadian borders this year. In some cases, Homeland Security agents didn't even ask for identification.

The undercover agents were never questioned on the authenticity of their documents at nine border crossings.

The information is contained within a GAO report released to the media on August 2. The investigators’ discovery, the report says “demonstrates a vulnerability that  potentially allows terrorists or others involved in criminal activity to pass freely into the United States from Canada or Mexico with little or no chance of being detected.'

The report was presented to the Senate Finance Committee, just as Congress considers delaying a 2007 deadline requiring passports or a small number of previously approved tamperproof ID cards from all who enter the U.S.

Homeland Security spokesman Jarrod Agen said agents are trained to identify false birth certificates, driver's licenses and other documents. Agents, he said, sometimes cannot verify more than 8,000 different kinds of currently acceptable IDs without significantly slowing traffic.

The probe follows a similar inquiry in 2003 and 2004, when undercover investigators crossed unhindered into the United States at least 14 times using counterfeit drivers' licenses and, in one case, an expired, altered U.S. diplomatic passport. During that investigation, however, border agents in New York and Florida stopped three undercover officials who were using expired and forged passports, drivers' licenses or birth certificates.

By comparison, between February and June of 2006, 18 GAO investigators breezed by border agents at checkpoints in California, Texas, Michigan, Idaho, Washington state, and twice each in Arizona and New York. In two cases along the Mexican border, in Arizona and California, border agents did not ask the undercover investigators for any identification.

In a third case, in Texas, investigators offered to show identification: a counterfeit Virginia drivers' license. The border agent replied, 'OK, that would be good,' but released the investigators before inspecting it.