CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) is the U.S. agency that controls the ports of entry, processes commercial freight crossing into the United States, and runs the ACE e-Manifest system and trusted trade programs like CTPAT and FAST.
CBP, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is the Department of Homeland Security agency that controls U.S. borders and ports of entry. On the freight side, CBP is the counterpart every northbound truck answers to: it receives the ACE e-Manifest, processes entries filed by U.S. customs brokers, decides which trucks go to secondary inspection, and operates the trusted trade stack, CTPAT for companies and FAST for drivers. CBP also publishes live border wait times by port and lane type.
Its Mexican counterparts split the role: ANAM operates the aduanas, while the SAT owns the tax and fiscal-document side.
Every northbound crossing is, at its core, a CBP transaction, and CBP's rhythms set the tempo of border operations: staffing levels and lane openings drive wait times, agriculture inspections spike in produce season, and enforcement priorities (cargo security, immigration status of drivers, in-bond compliance) shift with the news. Operationally, treat CBP data as infrastructure. Wait-time feeds should inform daily dispatch at busy crossings, and manifest accuracy is the cheapest insurance there is: trucks arriving with clean, matching manifest and entry data flow through, while mismatches get pulled aside. When a carrier tells you a load 'is with CBP,' ask whether it is normal queue, document mismatch, or exam; those three have very different clocks.
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