U.S. Customs and Border Protection CBP

Customs and Border Protection is a 2003 creation built from two of the government's oldest jobs. The Customs Service, established by the fifth act of the First Congress on July 31, 1789, collected the tariffs that paid for nearly all of the federal government for its first century. The Border Patrol was founded in 1924 to enforce new immigration quotas along the land borders. When the Department of Homeland Security opened on March 1, 2003, customs inspectors, immigration inspectors, agricultural inspectors, and the Border Patrol were combined into one agency responsible for everything and everyone crossing into the country.

CBP works in three settings. At 328 ports of entry, land crossings, airports, and seaports, officers of the Office of Field Operations inspect roughly a million travelers and tens of thousands of cargo containers on a typical day, admitting citizens and visitors, seizing drugs and counterfeit goods, and assessing duties on imports. Between the ports, about 20,000 Border Patrol agents patrol nearly 6,000 miles of land border with Canada and Mexico and 2,000 miles of coastline. Air and Marine Operations flies aircraft and runs boats in support of both.

With about 60,000 employees, CBP is the largest law enforcement agency in the federal government, and it collects more revenue than any agency other than the IRS. Duties and tariffs, which ran around 80 billion dollars a year before 2025, rose sharply after the administration imposed broad new tariffs that year. The Commissioner is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The agency also runs the trusted-traveler programs, including Global Entry, and the electronic travel authorization system for visitors from visa-waiver countries.

Southwest border crossings drive CBP's politics. Apprehensions between ports of entry rose to record levels in 2021 through 2023, exceeding two million a year, then fell steeply in 2024 and to the lowest levels in decades in 2025 after asylum restrictions, the closure of most asylum access at the border, and expanded enforcement. Supporters credit enforcement policy for the drop. Critics argue that the restrictions on asylum violate domestic and international law and push migrants toward more dangerous routes. The agency's use of force, its treatment of detained migrants, and the construction of border barriers are recurring subjects of litigation and oversight.