WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department has barred border agents from carrying or using cell phones or pagers at federal inspection areas after a Democratic congresswoman complained about not being allowed to use her own cell phone at a major airport, officials tell WorldNetDaily.
The ban on such telecommunication devices had been in effect for foreign travelers. Now it covers federal agents in both customs and immigration services.
 Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. |
“Supervisors, inspectors, seniors and investigators are no longer allowed to wear or have cell phones and pagers while conducting inspections,” a U.S. immigration inspector at Los Angeles International Airport told WorldNetDaily. “We are not allowed to keep them in our pockets or on our belts, and we are not allowed to use them while performing ship inspections or private aircraft inspections.”
The strict order, which took inspectors by surprise, was issued earlier this month in the form of a memo by the Homeland Security Department.
“Supervisors have been assigned to daily check all inspectors for cell phones,” the inspector said. “And disciplinary action will be taken against any inspector found to have a cell phone on their person or in their bags.”
He says the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection is not providing government cell phones for use on ships or private aircraft.
“Headquarters has provided no reasons for this ban,” which affects all inspectors at every port nationwide, he added.
Asked about it, a Homeland Security Department spokesman explained that the ban is chiefly an internal security measure designed to prevent inspectors from colluding with immigrant smugglers, which has occurred at some major ports of entry in recent years.
“There may be one bad inspector out of the thousands,” said HSD spokesman Bill Anthony. “We want to make sure that nobody can use any kind of equipment to alert anybody in any of the lines as to what line they should go through.”
But another inspector claims the memo was triggered by a recent incident at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago involving U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.
“What happened is there was a congresswoman who came through our area and she pulled out her cell phone, and one of our guys told her, ‘You know, you have to put that up,’ and she wigged out, and she goes, ‘I’m going to bring this to the floor of Congress,'” he said. “And that’s what prompted the memo that nobody can have cell phones – not even us.”
A spokesman for Schakowsky insists she was not rude, but merely inquired about the regulation after arriving at O’Hare from a trip abroad.
“She vaguely remembers a conversation,” said Schakowsky’s spokesman, Nadeam Elshami. “She did not receive a satisfactory answer to why American citizens returning from abroad can’t make a cell-phone call on American soil.”
He added: “Jan would never be abusive to any employee, but she wanted to look into the issue.”
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