President Bush would like to see one U.S. border agency in order to improve security at the nation's borders.
Ensuring security while not hampering the movement of commercial truck traffic across the borders has become a major concern of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Numerous published accounts cite anonymous sources reporting that during a Tuesday meeting of the Homeland Security Council, the President put forth three options on how to proceed with coordinating efforts between the U.S. Treasury's Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service:

• Form a new border agency, combining Customs and the INS. This would form one of the largest enforcement agencies in the federal government.

• Leave the agencies separate, but divide the INS into two groups, one to focus on enforcement and one to serve immigrants.

• Leave the agencies as they are, "which is not a viable option," according to one source.

Homelad Security Director Tom Ridge has been pushing for a single agency since he was appointed last fall, but there's no guarantee he would be the one chosen to head a combined agency. The proposal could give momentum to efforts in Congress to create a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.
A decision won't be made until Bush gets back from a trip to Latin America.