Remarks at a Press Briefing on the New One-Stop Inspection System at Ports of Entry
I have just a moment. I asked Secretary Cohen, Secretary Freeman and Secretary Fowler and General Clark to bring together HEW, Agriculture, Immigration, and Customs on a one-stop inspection service to people coming into this country.
They have tried it at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. They have reduced the average time by clearing away the red tape and improving their procedures from 45 minutes to 13 minutes that you have to stay there.
The President doesn't have to bother about this. Even the White House press, if they follow the itinerary that we outline and don't come back a different route, can get cleared easily sometimes.
But they have tried this in New York and San Antonio. They are going to expand it in other areas. They will tell you about this, because last year over 200 million persons entered the United States through 400 ports of entry.
There are 3,000 inspectors of the inspection agencies. They provide the valuable service. They have modernized it and I am very happy that the morale in inspection service is high. They have found that they could reduce this time by a third.
The Commissioner of Immigration and the Customs Commissioner and others will discuss it with you, but I have given them the highest commendation this morning. We will have a chance to visit at some of these ports ourselves. We have New York and San Antonio already, but they will extend it to Seattle and Boston and others over the country.
I hope that we can have these officials in and personally commend them when I have a chance to see them.
Note: The President spoke at 12:32 p.m. in the Fish Room at the White House. In his opening remarks he referred to Wilbur J. Cohen, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, Orville L. Freeman, Secretary of Agriculture, Henry H. Fowler, Secretary of the Treasury, and Ramsey Clark, Attorney General.
Also present at the briefing were Raymond F. Farrell, Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, Lester D. Johnson, Commissioner of Customs, Robert J. Anderson, Associate Administrator of the Agricultural Research Service, Ernest Goldstein, Special Assistant to the President, and Robert C. Coulter, Executive Officer, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
The President's remarks were not issued in the form of a release but were included in the text of a press briefing made public by the White House Press Office.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks at a Press Briefing on the New One-Stop Inspection System at Ports of Entry Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238012
