I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 1294
To pilot the use of image technician positions in the U.S. Customs and
Border Protection Office of Field Operations.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY13, 2025
Mr. C
ISCOMANI(for himself and Mr. DAVISof North Carolina) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Security
A BILL
To pilot the use of image technician positions in the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLES. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Border Enforcement, 4
Security, and Trade Facilitation Act of 2025’’ or the 5
‘‘BEST Facilitation Act’’. 6
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SEC. 2. OFFICE OF FIELD OPERATIONS IMAGE TECHNICIAN 1
PILOT PROGRAM. 2
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Section 411(g) of the Homeland 3
Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 211(g)) is amended by 4
adding at the end the following: 5
‘‘(6) I
MAGE TECHNICIAN PILOT PROGRAM .— 6
‘‘(A) I
MAGE TECHNICIAN 1.— 7
‘‘(i) I
N GENERAL.—There shall be in 8
the Office of Field Operations, Image 9
Technician 1 positions, which shall be 10
filled in accordance with the provisions 11
under chapter 33 (relating to appointments 12
in the competitive service) and chapters 51 13
and 53 (relating to classification and rates 14
of pay) of title 5, United States Code. 15
‘‘(ii) C
ONDITIONS.—Image Technician 16
1 positions— 17
‘‘(I) may be filled by existing 18
U.S. Customs and Border Protection 19
employees; 20
‘‘(II) are not law enforcement of-21
ficer positions; 22
‘‘(III) may not be filled by inde-23
pendent contractors; and 24
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‘‘(IV) shall be assigned to a re-1
gional command center established 2
under subparagraph (F). 3
‘‘(iii) D
UTIES.—The duties of an 4
Image Technician 1 shall include— 5
‘‘(I) reviewing non-intrusive in-6
spection images of conveyances and 7
containers entering or exiting the 8
United States through a land, sea, or 9
air port of entry or international rail 10
crossing; 11
‘‘(II) assessing whether images of 12
conveyances and containers appear to 13
contain anomalies indicating the po-14
tential presence of contraband, per-15
sons unlawfully seeking to enter or 16
exit the United States, or illicitly con-17
cealed merchandise, including illicit 18
drugs and terrorist weapons; 19
‘‘(III) recommending entry re-20
lease or exit release for any convey-21
ances and containers whenever the im-22
ages of such items do not include no-23
ticeable anomalies indicating the po-24
tential presence of contraband, per-25
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sons seeking to unlawfully enter or 1
exit the United States, or illicitly con-2
cealed merchandise, including illicit 3
drugs or terrorist weapons, to the 4
U.S. Customs and Border Protection 5
Officer responsible for inspecting such 6
conveyance or container; and 7
‘‘(IV) recommending further in-8
spection of any conveyances and con-9
tainers whenever the Image Techni-10
cian reasonably believes that an image 11
of any such item contains anomalies 12
indicating the potential presence of 13
contraband, persons seeking to unlaw-14
fully enter or exit the United States, 15
or illicitly concealed merchandise, 16
such as illicit drugs or terrorist weap-17
ons, to the U.S. Customs and Border 18
Protection officer who is responsible 19
for inspecting such conveyance or con-20
tainer. 21
‘‘(B) I
MAGE TECHNICIAN 2.— 22
‘‘(i) I
N GENERAL.—There shall be in 23
the Office of Field Operations, Image 24
Technician 2 positions, which shall be 25
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filled in accordance with the provisions 1
under chapter 33 (relating to appointments 2
in the competitive service) and chapters 51 3
and 53 (relating to classification and rates 4
of pay) of title 5, United States Code. 5
‘‘(ii) C
ONDITIONS.—Image Technician 6
2 positions— 7
‘‘(I) may be filled by existing 8
U.S. Customs and Border Protection 9
employees; 10
‘‘(II) are not law enforcement of-11
ficer positions; 12
‘‘(III) may not be filled by inde-13
pendent contractors; and 14
‘‘(IV) shall be assigned to a re-15
gional command center established 16
under subparagraph (F). 17
‘‘(iii) D
UTIES.—The duties of an 18
Image Technician 2 shall include— 19
‘‘(I) carrying out all of the duties 20
described in subclauses (I) through 21
(IV) of subparagraph (A)(ii); 22
‘‘(II) receiving intelligence from 23
the National Targeting Center regard-24
ing tactics, techniques, and proce-25
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dures being used at ports of entry and 1
in the border environment by malign 2
actors to facilitate the unlawful entry 3
or exit of contraband, persons, or illic-4
itly concealed merchandise, such as il-5
licit drugs or terrorist weapons; and 6
‘‘(III) reporting new information 7
to the National Targeting Center re-8
garding tactics, techniques, and proce-9
dures being used at ports of entry and 10
in the border environment by malign 11
actors to facilitate the unlawful entry 12
or exit of contraband, persons, or con-13
cealed merchandise, such as illicit 14
drugs or terrorist weapons. 15
‘‘(C) S
UPERVISORY U.S. CUSTOMS AND 16
BORDER PROTECTION OFFICERS .— 17
‘‘(i) S
UPERVISION.—All image techni-18
cians shall be supervised by a Supervisory 19
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Offi-20
cer. 21
‘‘(ii) D
ISCRETION AND DECISION-MAK-22
ING AUTHORITY.—The appropriate Super-23
visory U.S. Customs and Border Protec-24
tion Officer, while working with image 25
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technicians, shall retain the discretion and 1
final decision-making authority— 2
‘‘(I) to release conveyances or 3
cargo for entry; or 4
‘‘(II) to refer such conveyance or 5
cargo for further inspection. 6
‘‘(iii) T
RAINING.—A Supervisory U.S. 7
Customs and Border Protection Officer 8
who supervises image technicians shall re-9
ceive additional training in accordance with 10
subparagraph (D). 11
‘‘(D) T
RAINING REQUIREMENTS .—All 12
image technicians shall receive annual training 13
and additional ad hoc training, to the extent 14
necessary based on current trends, regarding— 15
‘‘(i) respecting privacy, civil rights, 16
and civil liberties, including the protections 17
against unreasonable searches and seizures 18
afforded by the First and Fourth Amend-19
ments to the Constitution of the United 20
States, as applicable and as interpreted by 21
the Federal courts; 22
‘‘(ii) analyzing images generated by 23
non-intrusive inspection technologies or 24
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any successor technologies deployed by 1
U.S. Customs and Border Protection; 2
‘‘(iii) identifying commodities and 3
merchandise in images generated by non- 4
intrusive inspection technologies or any 5
successor technologies deployed by U.S. 6
Customs and Border Protection; 7
‘‘(iv) identifying contraband, persons 8
who are seeking to unlawfully enter or exit 9
the United States, or illicitly concealed 10
merchandise, such as illicit drugs or ter-11
rorist weapons, in images generated by 12
non-intrusive technologies or any successor 13
technologies deployed by U.S. Customs and 14
Border Protection; 15
‘‘(v) tactics, techniques, and proce-16
dures being used at ports of entry and in 17
the border environment by malign actors to 18
facilitate the unlawful entry or exit of con-19
traband, persons, or illicitly concealed mer-20
chandise, such as illicit drugs or terrorist 21
weapons; and 22
‘‘(vi) any other training that the Com-23
missioner of U.S. Customs and Border 24
Protection determines to be relevant to the 25
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duties described in subparagraphs (A)(iii) 1
or (B)(iii). 2
‘‘(E) A
NNUAL ASSESSMENT .—All image 3
technicians shall receive annual testing with re-4
spect to their— 5
‘‘(i) accuracy in image analysis; 6
‘‘(ii) timeliness in image analysis; and 7
‘‘(iii) ability to ascertain tactics, tech-8
niques, and procedures being used at ports 9
of entry and in the border environment by 10
malign actors to facilitate the unlawful 11
entry or exit of contraband, persons, or il-12
licitly concealed merchandise, such as illicit 13
drugs or terrorist weapons. 14
‘‘(F) C
OMMAND CENTERS .—As part of the 15
pilot program established under this paragraph, 16
the Executive Assistant Commissioner of the 17
Office of Field Operations shall establish 5 re-18
gional command centers at land, rail, air, and 19
sea ports in which image technicians shall re-20
view non-intrusive inspection images. 21
‘‘(G) R
ULE OF CONSTRUCTION .—Nothing 22
in this paragraph may be construed to affect 23
the discretion and final decision-making author-24
ity given to U.S. Customs and Border Protec-25
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tion Officers to release conveyances or cargo for 1
entry or exit or to refer such conveyances or 2
cargo for further inspection.’’. 3
(b) E
FFECTIVEDATE.— 4
(1) S
UNSET.—The amendment made by sub-5
section (a) shall cease to have effect on the date that 6
is 5 years after the date of the enactment of this 7
Act. 8
(2) T
RANSFERS AUTHORIZED .—Upon the ter-9
mination of the pilot program established by section 10
411(g)(6) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, as 11
added by subsection (a), individuals occupying 12
Image Technician 1 or Image Technician 2 positions 13
in the Office of Field Operations may transfer to 14
comparable positions within U.S. Customs and Bor-15
der Protection or the Department of Homeland Se-16
curity. 17
SEC. 3. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. 18
(a) S
EMIANNUALREPORTS.—Not later than 180 19
days after the hiring of the first positions described in sec-20
tion 411(g)(6) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, as 21
added by section 2, and every 180 days thereafter, the 22
Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in 23
consultation with the Executive Assistant Commissioner 24
of the Office of Field Operations, shall submit a report 25
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to the Committee on Homeland Security and Govern-1
mental Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Home-2
land Security of the House of Representatives that identi-3
fies— 4
(1) the number of Image Technician 1 and 5
Image Technician 2 positions filled during the re-6
porting period; 7
(2) the number of Image Technician 1 and 8
Image Technician 2 positions currently employed by 9
the Office of Field Operations, disaggregated by— 10
(A) port of entry or field office; 11
(B) image technician position; and 12
(C) command center, as applicable; 13
(3) the daily average number of images scanned 14
by each Image Technician 1 and each Image Techni-15
cian 2; 16
(4) training methodologies utilized to train 17
image technicians; 18
(5) assessment passage rates of image techni-19
cians; 20
(6) the impact of image technicians on interdic-21
tion rates at ports of entry and international rail 22
crossings at which image technicians are stationed 23
or from which image technicians review images, in-24
cluding— 25
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(A) throughput increases or decreases at 1
such ports of entry and international rail cross-2
ings; 3
(B) increases or decreases in waiting times 4
at such ports of entry and international rail 5
crossings; 6
(C) average wait times at such ports of 7
entry and international rail crossings; and 8
(D) increases or decreases of seizures of 9
contraband, persons seeking to unlawfully enter 10
or exit the United States, or illicitly concealed 11
merchandise, such as illicit drugs or terrorist 12
weapons, broken down by type of seizure and 13
port of entry or international rail crossing; 14
(7) the impact of image technicians on U.S. 15
Customs and Border Protection’s capability to re-16
view non-intrusive inspection images of conveyances 17
and containers entering or exiting the United States 18
through a land, sea, or air port of entry or inter-19
national rail crossing; 20
(8) an assessment of the effectiveness with 21
which image technicians carry out the duties de-22
scribed in subparagraphs (A)(iii) and (B)(iii) of sec-23
tion 411(g)(6) of the Homeland Security Act of 24
2002, as added by section 2(a), compared to any 25
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who 1
are assigned such duties. 2
(9) the progress made in establishing command 3
centers under the pilot program established by such 4
section; 5
(10) any infrastructure or resource needs re-6
quired to establish such command centers; and 7
(11) the ports of entry and international rail 8
crossing, as applicable, that are supported by such 9
a command center. 10
(b) B
IANNUALBRIEFINGS.—The Executive Assistant 11
Commissioner of the Office of Field Operations shall pro-12
vide biannual briefings to the Committee on Homeland Se-13
curity and Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the 14
Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Rep-15
resentatives regarding the information described in the 16
latest report submitted pursuant to subsection (a). 17
Æ
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