Center for Federal Accountability

CBP proposes mandatory advance passenger and crew data for every train crossing the U.S. border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection would require every rail carrier, passenger and freight, to send it 20 items of data on each person aboard at least an hour before a train leaves for the border, adding itinerary, seat, baggage, phone and email to what its voluntary program collects. The proposal names no privacy notice for the data, and nearly all of its $8.2 million in yearly net benefits rests on a passenger count CFA could not reproduce. Comments close December 14, 2026.

2026-10-14 · U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Department · Information · Docket USCBP-2026-0992

On October 13, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) proposed requiring rail carriers to send it advance electronic information on every passenger and crew member on a train entering or leaving the United States (91 FR 64840, FR Doc. 2026-20884, RIN 1651-AB60). Comments close on December 14, 2026, on docket USCBP-2026-0992. No comments had been posted as of October 13, 2026. The Office of Management and Budget designated the rule significant but not economically significant (91 FR 64850).

## What would change

Rail travelers today report to a CBP officer when the train reaches the border, and carriers send nothing in advance about the people aboard (91 FR 64843). Since 2005 CBP has run a voluntary program for advance rail manifests. Three passenger carriers have taken part, but only one does now, and no freight carrier ever has (91 FR 64850). CBP says voluntary data "is not always complete, valid, timely, or in an electronic format" (91 FR 64843).

The proposal adds a new subpart K to 19 CFR part 123. For every train with a traveler aboard, including freight trains and trains that only pass through the United States, the carrier would send a notice of arrival or departure at least 24 hours before the train reaches the border crossing (proposed 19 CFR 123.101). It would send the traveler data at least 60 minutes before "departure," defined as the doors closing at the last station before the border (proposed 123.100, 123.102(b), 123.103(b)). Each time someone boards or leaves, or any data changes, the carrier would send an update before the train leaves that stop (91 FR 64847). Carriers using an interactive system would also send a "close-out" list of who actually boarded within 30 minutes of departure (91 FR 64848).

Carriers would have to check each traveler's document against the data sent and confirm "the traveler is the person to whom the travel document was issued" (91 FR 64847; proposed 123.102(f) and 123.103(f)). CBP would reply that it accepted the transmission or that the carrier must call. If concerns remain, "CBP may recommend that the carrier not transport the traveler," though the carrier keeps the decision (91 FR 64847). Violations would carry civil penalties under 19 U.S.C. 1436, possible seizure of the train, and criminal penalties for intentional failures (proposed 123.106). Active-duty troops on a Department of War-chartered train are exempt (proposed 123.105).

## What data would be collected

For each traveler the carrier would send 20 items: name, date of birth, sex, citizenship, country of residence, travel document type, number, issuing country and expiration date, status on board, complete itinerary, U.S. address (except for travelers passing through), alien registration number, passenger name record locator, known traveler number, redress number, baggage tag, car and seat number, and the phone number and email address the carrier must ask for (proposed 123.102(c)).

That is more than the voluntary program asks for: name, date of birth, sex, travel document details, status on board, address "if available" and the arrival or departure code (91 FR 64843). CBP notes that at the border it does not generally collect a traveler's itinerary, seat, baggage, phone number or email (91 FR 64847, note 23). It also says advance data lets it use the Traveler Verification Service to "build galleries of photographs" of expected travelers (91 FR 64844). For comparison, air carriers send manifests 30 minutes before the aircraft is secured, and vessels 24 to 96 hours before arrival (91 FR 64845).

## The numbers

CBP projects 3,497 passenger and 70,215 freight train crossings a year for 2026 to 2030, the 2015 to 2019 average with no growth, and says these are "expected to be overestimations" (91 FR 64851). It estimates yearly costs of $58,430 for passenger carriers, $380,495 for freight carriers and $639,071 for CBP, and yearly benefits of $405,341 for passenger carriers, $701,638 for CBP and $8,170,861 for passengers, from saving each passenger half an hour at the border at $70.45 an hour. Net benefits are $8,199,845 a year, or $36.5 million over five years at 3 percent (91 FR 64857-64866). Security benefits are not quantified.

CFA recomputed the tables. The wage rates, time burdens, freight costs and passenger savings reproduce from their inputs. Passenger time savings make up 99.6 percent of net benefits, and they rest on 229,665 arriving rail passengers a year (Table 19, 91 FR 64860). That is about 131 per train, against about 103 per manifested train in 2015 to 2019 and 148,895 arriving passengers in CBP's 2025 estimate. The document does not show how the figure was derived. At the 2015 to 2019 rate CFA gets about 180,900 passengers and roughly $6.4 million a year in passenger savings.

Four other figures do not match. The text gives CBP's 7 percent present-value cost as $2,488,894; the rows of Table 14 add to $2,448,894 (91 FR 64857-64858). The paperwork estimate gives 198,821,756 total annual responses; its listed parts add to 186,821,756, while its burden hours do add up (91 FR 64866-64867). The crew count in Table 16 (14,960) does not equal the stated method, 4.46 crew times 3,497 trains, which gives about 15,600 (91 FR 64859). And the small-business section says the median small freight carrier would reach 1 percent of revenue after 5,122 crossings; its own figures, $2,576,000 and $5.42 a crossing, give about 4,750 (91 FR 64866). The analysis also counts a full year of costs and benefits in 2026, though comments close in mid-December.

## CFA's observations

These are CFA's observations from the published text.

The Privacy Act section says only that "If this rule is finalized, CBP will issue or update any necessary Privacy Impact Assessment and/or Privacy Act System of Records Notice(s)" (91 FR 64867). The proposal names no system of records notice, the public notice of what records an agency keeps about people and how it uses them, and does not say how long rail traveler data would be kept or with whom it would be shared. The privacy impact assessments it cites date from 2009, 2018, 2019 and 2021 and describe the voluntary program and the photo-matching service. CFA could not open them for this draft, so it cannot say whether they cover phone, email, seat or baggage data.

The rule would reach freight crews, which CBP says "typically cross the border multiple times per day with the same crew aboard" (91 FR 64861), at an estimated 70,215 crossings a year. Phone and email are listed as required data elements, but the carrier must send them only if the traveler gives them; the proposal does not say whether travelers will be told the answer is optional.

## CFA's records on DHS and CBP

The Department of Homeland Security holds a "Minor" grade on CFA's agency scoreboard, with a composite score of 85.65 based on 5 areas, for the October 2026 period. The grade does not measure this rulemaking, and CFA does not grade CBP separately. CFA's system of records analysis counts 773 DHS documents, up from 771, ranking it 9th among agencies with 3.5 percent of all notices. CFA's linkage report associates 35 Federal Register documents with CBP, a list that now includes this proposal, and has crawled no CBP privacy impact assessment pages, against 531 for DHS as a whole. CFA's own data therefore cannot show which assessment covers rail traveler data.

## What to watch

Whether CBP names the system of records notice and publishes an updated privacy impact assessment for rail data, including retention and sharing, before or with the final rule.

How the final rule explains or corrects the 229,665 passenger projection and the other mismatched figures.

Whether freight crews that cross several times a day must be reported for every crossing, and whether the 60-minute deadline changes after carriers comment.

The companion proposal for cross-border buses that CBP says it is drafting (91 FR 64849).

Comments can be filed on regulations.gov under docket USCBP-2026-0992. Comments on the information collection should cite OMB control number 1651-0088 (91 FR 64866).

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