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PILGRIM: Still to come, Senator Bob Graham says the hardest part of intelligence reform is still to come, and Senator Graham is my guest.
And shocking new concerns about the ability of our border protection agents to keep criminals and terrorists out of this country.
And the new Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, talks tough as he tries to rebuild his party. We'll have a special report.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PILGRIM: Tonight, grave new concerns about who is trying to sneak into this country illegally and how they are doing it. The Homeland Security Department says that stolen passports are far too often making it past immigration agents.
At the same time, new technology used by border guards has caught 23,000 suspected criminals trying to sneak through our borders in the last three months.
Christine Romans reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even when the government is on the lookout for a known stolen passport, there's a good chance its holder will still get into this country.
A government review of five years of immigration and customs data found 136 entries with stolen passports. Seventy-nine were with passports that were not yet flagged as stolen, but 57 were with passports the government knew were stolen.
And, unbelievably, after September 11, 33 people used stolen passports that this government was looking for and still made it into the country. This review covered only passports from six European countries. There's no telling how many more passports from other countries made it through.
The inspector general's review suggested that Customs and Border Patrol better scrutinize foreigners whose passports are flagged as stolen and keep better records. Officials say they are making progress.
WILLIAM HEFFELFINGER, CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION: We're doing a great deal of work to identify everyone who comes in and out of this country. So, if there's some way that someone might attempt to get in using stolen passports, we want to address that, and we have.
ROMANS: A separate Border Patrol initiative shows reason to fear many of those people illegally crossing our borders. New technology used by the Border Patrol detected an astonishing 23,000 dangerous criminals trying to sneak into this country, and that's just from September to November this year.
Using a high-tech fingerprint database, border guards identified 84 foreigners suspected of murder, 37 for kidnapping, 151 wanted for rape, 212 for robbery, 1,200 for other assaults and 2,600 for dangerous drug crimes.
All these suspected criminals tried to enter this country through our porous land borders, mainly the border we share with Mexico, but also Canada, 23,502 criminals in just 91 days this ball. Border Patrol agents arrested all of them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: It's impossible, Kitty, to know how many more slipped through the cracks.
PILGRIM: It's shocking about the passports. What are they doing to try to stop this?
ROMANS: A couple of things, technology, trying to automate more of this, but also an awful lot of common sense. Some of these immigration customs agents are simply asking questions, saying you're on a lookout list, I have a list here that says this is a stolen passport and then letting them through if the person has a good enough explanation. That's not going to be allowed anymore.
PILGRIM: Talking their way through. That's pretty...
ROMAN: Talking their way through in many cases.
PILGRIM: Thanks very much. Christine Romans.
We'll have much more ahead on protecting our borders and national security. Senator Bob Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will be my guest.
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