Customs and Border Protection caught off-guard by travel ban
WASHINGTON — Customs and Border Protection was caught off-guard by President Donald Trump’s travel ban despite being the entity responsible for implementing it, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general said.
In letters sent Monday to members of the Senate, the inspector general’s office said the CBP leadership had “virtually no warning” the executive order was coming and “was caught by surprise.”
And it says DHS and CBP leaders didn’t know the answers to basic questions, such as whether the order would apply to green card holders. CBP’s inability to issue “definitive guidance in the early days” of the order’s implementation, the office found, “contributed to significant delays” at ports of entry.
The report also found problems in the government’s compliance with court orders lifting the ban, including wrongly preventing passengers from boarding planes to the U.S.