Police organisation
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
The United States federal agency responsible for the country’s borders and ports of entry, within the Department of Homeland Security, combining customs, immigration inspection and border security in one body.
At a glance
- Official name
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
- System
- United States
- Level of government
- Federal
- Kind of body
- Border or coast enforcement body
- Status
- Currently operating
- Official website
- https://www.cbp.gov/ — confirmed against the organisation’s own pages on 17 September 2026.
- Facts last checked against sources
- 17 September 2026
What it is
CBP describes itself as the largest federal law enforcement agency within the Department of Homeland Security, and as protecting the United States by preventing terrorists and their weapons from entering while facilitating lawful trade and travel. The combination is the point: in many systems customs, immigration control and border policing sit in separate agencies, and here they sit in one. A reader who maps CBP onto a European border police will miss the customs and revenue half of what it does, and a reader who maps it onto a customs service will miss the immigration half.
What it covers
The borders of the United States and its ports of entry, by subject matter rather than by a bounded territory.
Broad responsibilities
- Inspection and control at ports of entry
- Border security between ports of entry
- Customs enforcement on goods entering the country
- Immigration inspection of travellers seeking admission
Who it answers to
CBP states its own placement within the Department of Homeland Security. The page read does not name the statute that created it, and none is claimed here.
Elsewhere on this site
- Who polices what — how United States is structured, against other systems
Where this connects
Institutions: Border and customs.
Sources
About CBP — U.S. Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Customs and Border Protection · Institutional (self-description) · link verified 2026-09-17
SCOPE: U.S. Customs and Border Protection only. The agency's own about page, read directly. Supports the official name, CBP's placement within the Department of Homeland Security, and its own description of preventing terrorists and their weapons from entering the United States while facilitating lawful trade and travel. The page carries a workforce figure, which is NOT published — a staffing number is a claim about the present that decays without notice. Establishes nothing about any other DHS component.