Border Security

Broadcast on August 10, 2006 on WFED 1050 AM Washington, DC and FederalNewsRadio.com

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Panelists (from left to right)

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Today’s show explores the many aspects of border security. During today’s show we will discuss critical issues facing government and industry leaders as we move forward to secure our nation’s borders. With me today on the show are Greg Giddens, the Executive Director for the Secure Border Initiative, Department of Homeland Security; PT Wright, the Deputy Director of the US VISIT program at DHS; Rod McDonald, the CIO of Customs and Border Protection at DHS; Judge David Neal, Chief Judge at Executive Office for Immigration Review, Department of Justice; and Elaine Dezenski the former Assistant Secretary for Policy at DHS.

Let’s get right into today’s issues and go right to our panelists. Let’s start the show by asking each panelist to give our audience a little overview of their involvement in the Secure Border Initiative. Let’s start with Greg Giddens. Greg can you fill us in on your role in this particular issue?

GREG GIDDENS, DHS

Good afternoon and thank you very much for having me here. It’s an honor to be here and especially to be associated with my colleagues here to talk about the critical item of securing our borders. Our role within the department is to really transform the way that we look at this issue.

We are not going to be able to solve this issue with old thinking. We need new thinking to address this problem. And we need to do that in a way that really recognizes the commonalities that we have within DHS and within our partner organizations. The last thing we want to do is to take the good work that’s been done and not draw on that for the future.

One of the things that we tried to do as we looked at this problem set is to try to understand the different continuums on which it operates. And as we look at that continuum we see three different areas that we need to focus in on: one is beyond the border.

We need to understand and to help build and mold the right relationship with our international partners in both the public and private sector to really understand the dynamics of people and goods as they begin their journey in the US. Another part of the continuum is really at the line, at the border, and we really need to focus to make sure we get the right capabilities and capacities with the right mix of skills of the agents and officers from the staffing perspective and also from the technology and the infrastructure to get the right balanced solution at the line.

And also the continuum continues into the interior where we have millions of people who are living and residing within the United States without our nation’s permission. And we can’t address this by working with only one of those aspects of the continuum; we need to really link those together.

And that’s really what our charge has been, to provide the integrated framework to allow all the component agencies and partners to see where they fit and then use that to build an information management center that will allow us to really make better informed decisions on the way forward, both from the policy perspective as well as from the resource investment perspective.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great to see you looking at the big picture and pulling all the pieces together. Rod McDonald, the CIO over at Customs and Border and Protection, I guess this is a major priority for you too. Can you give us a sense of your involvement in this?

ROD MACDONALD, CBP

Certainly, Jim. Thank you very much for including me on this excellent panel on this very important topic. CBP is the primary border security agency, Greg mentioned that role at the border on the front line, that’s CBP’s role. Both between the ports, where we have border patrol agents, both on the northern and southern borders, as well as in the ports, we have the same mission: to secure and control the border. To support the SBI initiative, we have set up a program

management office so that we can really bring all the right resources to bear across the agency to improve how we support those troops on the front line.

We are also, from my particular office, Information Technology, we are going to make sure that we bring the right IT infrastructure, information, daily integration to bear again to get it to the front line. All of us are focused on that we are currently the lead for the SBInet acquisition and we are working very hard to get that contract in place. We are getting the right support from the private sector to help us to deal with this very challenging problem. I should say that border controls, securing the border, is a mission that’s been with us for many years, it will continue to be with us, and I can say from having been on the border recently, we’ve really got an excellent group of people facing the challenge every day and I have a lot of confidence that we are going to improve this in the future.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP Great, I know there’s a lot of energy around this issue so it’s good to know.  I think that what the American people don’t see is the morale and the enthusiasm going on down at the border.

PT Wright, the US VISIT program. US VISIT is a program that has been around for some time and most people identify it as one of the key programs that deal with border crossing issues. Can you give us some ideas of what you do there P.T. and the issues that you are facing today?

P.T. WRIGHT, US VISIT, DHS

Sure and I think that what is important to remember is when we are talking about border management it has three different areas that impact the country. It’s not just at the port of entry, it’s between the ports of entry and of course it’s beyond the ports of entry and that’s both interior into the United States as well as foreign.

I think the comprehensive approach that the department is taking clearly is spelled out by SBI and US VISIT. And US VISIT was the first spearhead it’s often described as, in making a technological leap forward in addressing border security and border management. Primarily using biometrics it has introduced what I think many people have seen as a sea change in how the world approaches individuals, travelers, as they arrive either off site to get their Visas overseas aren’t actually arriving at the port of entry. It starts allowing better decision making processes,  and what’s critical is that the US VISIT program is developing an entry/exit system for the United States that will ultimately be able to give good accurate data with regards to what are the overstays, what is the illegal population in the United States? These are very critical in any policy decisions because you have to have those basic numbers to understand.

And clearly it’s always been, as Rod said, a process we’ve worked from for years with regard to securing the border.  I think an understated element has been that our best assets, our best chance to intercept someone, is to drive them to the border, to drive them specifically to the port of entry where you can marshal your resources. So I think there’s a very concerted effort to do that. Once you do have someone at the port of entry, you want to be able to make a quick decision on them. So I think that’s one of the key elements that US Visits brings to the process is a way to begin identifying the individuals and assessing their threat.

That’s terrific and I know that we are all monitoring and watching the biometrics and fingerprints and coordination across government I know there is some talent there which we will get into in a little bit. Judge Neal over at the Department of Justice you have responsibility for immigration, you have some very huge challenges that you face every day. Can you share with us some of those challenges that you face, the issues that you face in your office?

JUDGE DAVID NEAL, EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW

Thank you Jim for inviting me to participate in this conversation. In a fashion, my agency on the policy side is in the periphery of the Secure Border Initiative. But operationally we are on the front lines. The immigration courts have a trial court in the Executive Office of Immigration Review which is a component within the Justice Department.

We are known by our acronym the EOIR. We have 50 some courts through out the country and a number down on the border. And our role at SBI is more or less on the backend while the Department of Homeland Security is responsible for apprehension and retention of aliens and, if appropriate, for their removal fromthe United States, it is our agency’s responsibility to make the determination whether that alien should be removed.

We have an accurate recording if the alien contests. Sometimes the alien has no legal standing, has no legal recourse, no entitlement to stay in the United States. Other times the alien may have some avenue to status. And it’s our role to make sure that in the process of the removal of an alien we are doing everything in the right way. It’s very challenging for us because we want to assist the SBI fully in promptly deciding cases and assisting in the initiative, but at the same time making sure that we are attending to the aliens’ expectations and to the expectations of law.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

The constant changing in policy around immigration and the major political issue which now leads us into our next panelist Elaine Dezenski who was the former assistant secretary for policy at DHS and I guess there are some challenges in trying to set policy in this area. Elaine, can you come with your thoughts on this to us?

ELAINE DEZENSKI, FORMER DHS ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT

I left the department about 12 months ago after serving for three and a half years in various policy capacities. My last position, as acting assistant secretary, was to help set up a new policy office within the department. I think it’s worth noting that the Secure Border Initiative as a policy framework started about a year ago.  The idea was to try to rationalize our resources and our mandates as it relates to border security. And I think it can be summed up by looking at three different aspects of the problem: technology, personnel and infrastructure.

And I think what we hear today is the department taking strides to really find a balance between those three elements. Again, going back to the policy framework, the strategic objectives for the Secure Border Initiative were in fact to rationalize how the government is addressing those issues, particularly at the Southwest border. So I think it’s a tremendous leap forward to see for the first time, really in the history of the government, a more united, and ultimately more effective approach to looking at enforcement efforts at the borders.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great, thanks Elaine. What I’d like to do is shift a little bit over to talk about some of the more difficult challenges. We’ve been working border issues for quite some time, we’ve got the department, and we’ve got the policy. I’d like to hear from your perspective. Why don’t we start in the middle here with PT Wright at US VISIT. You’ve been working the program for quite some time, what do you think are the biggest challenges you face each day when trying to move forward on these programs?

P.T. WRIGHT, US VISIT, DHS

Well, one of the greatest challenges is to be able to articulate how the technology is going to be used to improve processes and not just simply technology being introduced because it’s technology. When US VISIT first stood up there was great consternation about taking the biometric, taking the finger scan for example, there was concern within the United States about wait times, there was great concern overseas.

Once the process was implemented and because it was defined as a needed tool, not just as some luxury to have, it was seen immediately the value that it brought. So now you have the European Union, you have the United Kingdom, you have Japan, many countries are all lining up to do their own version of the biometric identification process.

With regards to actually traditionally confronting stovepipes of agencies, I don’t like to use the term stovepipe because every agency had its own mission and were doing it and they are important missions, but what US VISIT tried to do was take the best of all these elements, bring them together so that there was actionable information, actionable data that an ICE agent, a CBP officer could take, for example, that someone working on status of immigration could take and use. And I think that’s been one of the great challenges, to bring that together in a form that serves the process and enhances the process but did not introduce something that made you have to do the work just because you had this new tool.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Good point. Judge Neal, what do you think? What are the challenges from your perspective in trying to secure the borders?

JUDGE DAVID NEAL, EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW

Well, from the courts’ perspective, obviously logistics and communications are the biggest concerns. Immigration courts are more than a person in a robe with a gavel and having some law books. Immigration courts require, often times a televideo presence, a judge for grievances, we have television cameras, we have tape recorders because we have to record virtually all of our proceedings and sometimes we need telephonic interpreters if we have a language that’s difficult to obtain, or it’s difficult to get interpreters there on site.

So for us, having people in place and having the technology and infrastructure to support them is the biggest challenge. It’s a difficulty when you are talking about a set location, but when you have a temporary location; it’s a challenge to coordinate with other folks.  

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

I want to hear from Elaine, Rod and Greg on this too, but we need to take a short break.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Welcome back. When we left we were talking about some of the challenges and we heard from a couple of our panelists. Greg, you are right in the middle of all this, and I guess when you took over this job, one of the things that you had to bump into right away were some of the challenges. Can you share with us what you see as some of the major challenges facing you as you try to make progress in this area?

GREG GIDDENS, DHS

I’d love to and what I’d also like to do is touch on some areas that really aren’t challenges perhaps not what we expected them to be when we formed the office up last fall.  One of the challenges we do not have is that the professionalism and competency of the men and women that work in DHS or any other agency to accomplish the mission. They are out there doing it every day, day in day out, night and day getting the job done with the tools they have. So that’s really not an issue with us and whether those people are in the field or they are working at headquarters, the staff are people who are dedicated and sacrificing to get the mission done. And that definitely helps to make our job easier.

Another challenge we didn’t have was really obtaining good partnership. We started this off and we were humble enough to know that we could not do this within our own office or even within our own department. And when Judge Neal started he somewhat down played the critical role of the EOIR and I think the relationship that we have with the EOIR shows what the government can do when they really want to team together to tackle a big problem. When we started meeting with the EOIR at the SBI office, they were not told that they had to work with us. That’s really what good government is all about, is getting good organizations together working on a common goal and making it happen. So those are some of the other things that we thought coming in, particularly the partnership and alignment issue that’s really just been a multiplier for us.

The challenge that we haven’t made is contacting a very complex system of border security and immigration and really laying that out in a way that everybody can really understand the relationship. We think that’s very critical. We do not want to structure this so that it’s a headquarters driven enterprise and the decisions get made at headquarters. Our job is not to make decisions; our job is not to facilitate commerce, or to prevent someone from coming into the country illegally. Our job is to build a framework so that operating agencies within DHS and within our partnering organizations outside of DHS can understand the system, the dynamics, the interplay, the interdependencies, the synchronization needs of that and they can make good decisions and maybe this is Pollyannaish but I truly believe that if we can lay out a system approach and people can see how we fit, they will make good decisions and headquarters will not have to make all those decisions and I’m not sure that within the beltway we always make the best decisions.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

 Well said and the optic (sounds like) here with all of us here at the table is a good one. Sharing the coordination and what’s going on across the various agencies. Rod McDonald, former customs, now CBP, you’ve been working with border issues for quite some time so I guess you’ve experienced a lot of the challenges but I’d like to move forward with the SBI initiative. What are some of the challenges with the SBI Rod?

ROD MACDONALD, CBP

Well, I’d like to talk about the primary challenge, looking at the borders and the sheer scale of the problem. Between the ports of entry we’ve got 6000 miles of border that have to be managed and controlled. And we are talking a border that has the whole range of terrain, climate, remoteness, as well as we have city, urban areas, rural areas. This is a tremendous challenge for the border patrol agents who patrol that area to detect those illegal incursions within these vast environments.

Within the ports, the challenge is again one of scale and in this case it’s the volume of legitimate vehicles, travelers, cargo, that’s coming into the country and how out of that volume do we detect those that do pose a threat to the United States? So that’s the challenge we have and again SBI (and SBInet) is very much focused on that and hoping to bring to bear technology, infrastructure, response vehicles to address that challenge.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

I wanted to get back to Elaine, from the policy perspective when you were in DHS, how do you see some of the challenges, some of the major issues that need to be addressed in terms of constraints or challenges to overcome?

ELAINE DEZENSKI, FORMER DHS ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT

I think from a policy perspective the biggest hurdle has already been overcome, which is pushing through the traditional stovepipes that exist within the government to get to a more rational, holistic, balanced approach again on how we spend our resources and how we move forward as a government.

But as we move forward I think there are two issues to keep in mind. The first is funding. Clearly the funding needs to follow to ensure that the Secure Border Initiative can move forward and be effective. If we look at previous immigration reform efforts, the funding wasn’t always there to implement as programs were moving forward. Now the good news is that the commitment is going to be there. Certainly the administration is planning to spend over a billion dollars and Congress is likely to come through with significant funding as well. But we need to make sure that the money is well spent and provides value for the American dollar that investment we are making.

And that leads into my other point which is the procurement which has to be an unqualified success. People will be watching very closely and SBInet in particular is really the cornerstone in the administration’s technological approach at the borders and it is very important that the systems be interoperable and that the technology work both at the ports of entry and between ports of entry in the field and that a very effective technological solution comes out of it.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great. I appreciate that and there’s a lot of energy around the procurements and so forth. But personally I think DHS has it right. I like the idea of a performance- based approach which brings the best minds in industry into play to lay out a series of objectives and to procure a result and bring the best minds in industry to the table. I look forward to some great solutions coming there.

But you brought up stovepipes. And that brings me to the question. A few years back, when I was the technology advisor to Tom Ridge, I had the honor to do the first Enterprise Architecture presentation in the West Wing. I remember we identified literally dozens and dozens of federal, state and local and private sector entities that were in some way involved with the border crossings.

And so my question to the panelists is how do you go about getting all those relevant stakeholders involved or energized, and the complexity of working across all these multiple layers of government. Let’s start with Greg. Greg, what is your approach to trying to get all the stakeholders in the same room on the same page here?

GREG GIDDENS, DHS

 I think you first have to honestly try to put the mission on the table first. And help people see that they have a role in that. Not to do that in a way that is arrogant, that we’ve already got it figured out, but really with sincerely ask for their partnership to look at the mission and potential solutions for that. Within the department, there’s the CBP, ICE, CIS, Coast Guard, Intel, Counter Narcotics, most of the organizations in DHS are critical to our success in securing the border, if not all.

But outside DHS, State, Justice, Social Security, DEA, there are just so many players that you are right, you have to just constantly put that at the forefront. But without that sense of partnership we don’t believe we are going to be successful. But showing them the systems view and how they fit and how critical they are.

You can look at this system like you look at a car and you can put a lot of money into the transmission of a car but if you don’t have a battery, it’s not going to be of a lot of use to you. So all the parts really have to work together in a way that, the whole reform, as you mentioned earlier about reform, it gets results.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Let’s come down to Elaine, from a policy perspective, working at DHS, and knowing that the Department of State, Department of Justice and working down the list, Agriculture, Census, everybody has some type of a role. How did you address that issue? How did you figure out how to get all the stakeholder people involved?

ELAINE DEZENSKI, FORMER DHS ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT

There is actually a policy process within the federal government that does help to push towards technical consensus that was needed for moving forward in something like the Secure Border Initiative. It’s informally called PCC or policy coordinated committee process. It’s usually handled at the assistant secretary level where various departments will send representatives. The process is overseen by the White House and it’s interesting because jurisdictional lines typically become very clear in this policy coordinating committee process but there’s always a push to get to a consensus. And then typically the issues then are pushed up one more level to the deputy secretary level where final decisions can be made. Again it can be very time consuming but it does force the various departmental entities that have some sort of jurisdiction or “dog and fight” if you will, to really come to a consensus early on before the implementation starts.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Thanks. Rod McDonald with the program office setting up in CBP, I’m sure everybody said oh boy we’ll jump right on board and so forth, but I’m sure you faced some challenges there. How do you go about getting all the relevant stakeholders to have a say and feel like they are part of the process?

ROD MACDONALD, CBP

Right, that is a challenge. Within CBP we recognize that and we’ve created an executive steering committee with all the senior managers from the different components that are involved (including)both the operational offices, port control, field operations and our air and marine organizations, as well as those organizations that provide support with technology, infrastructure, recruiting more staff, and that’s been a great help.

But I really have to look to Greg Giddens and the Program Executive Office. He’s been a tremendous help in supporting us and in supporting collaboration across the department and outside the department. I really think that without Greg’s support from the Program Executive Office we wouldn’t have got as far as we have so far. But I want to say that there are a number of other bodies, there’s a Joint Requirements Council within DHS where all of the components meet regularly every 2 weeks and SBI is now a regular topic with that group. Then finally, and I know this will be familiar to you, we have a CIO Council again focused on technology where again now SBI is a regular part of that agenda. So we have a number of places where we are able to make sure we have that discussion with all the involved parties.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

 Judge Neal, can you comment on that? How do you get the relevant stakeholders involved with your decision making, into the mix?

JUDGE DAVID NEAL, EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW

Well, obviously we are a much smaller operation and most of our decision makers are in the same building so it is easier for us. But from our perspective, it comes down to four quadrants: mission, communication, national and local. And the reason why my department is working so well with Greg Giddens is because he has that precise approach. When Greg first met me off the bat, he explained what the mission was, what they needed to accomplish and what we might be able to do to help in that mission. And the next step was we put all our decision makers in the room with Greg and company, we brought people from the courts and they now take care of the mission up front before anything rolled out and they were able to participate in the mission from the get go. And I too commend Greg for his leadership on this because that has made it easier for my agency, my chain of command, to quickly come to bear on all these issues.       

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

P.T., you’ve been working with this issue for quite some time and the requirement to get all the stakeholders to the table and work together collaboratively. How did you go about that with the US VISIT program?

P.T. WRIGHT, US VISIT, DHS

I think one of the keys was to early on form interagency partnership meetings in which the various departments as well as the various components within DHS were invited to the table to talk about the requirements of their mission and how the requirements of their mission could be folded in to others’ operations to enhance their operations. I think it was an opportunity for the Department of State, the Department of Justice as well as the various components in DHS realized that a lot of the dreams that they had could come true if they could work together towards a common goal.

We sometimes call it the virtual border, a common enterprise, these terms are used often times to describe the atmosphere in which a CBP officer now actually sees the information that is collected by the Visa officer overseas. The Visa officer overseas when they are preparing the Visa is able to now see if this individual has previously overstayed in the United States. An ICE officer out in the heartland of the country is able to identify whether or not an individual has overstayed and that it is the individual that they are concerned with because of the biometrics for example. All these things are very positive improvements in the mission and I think that once the various agencies were able to start seeing that there could be improvements and through cooperation and coordination with each other achieving greater efficiencies, it made it a lot easier.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Well said. We are going to continue to talk a little bit about governance and some of the things around that and the other challenges as well as getting the relevant entities within DHS working together but right now we’re going to take a short break.

Break

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Welcome back. We were talking about some of the issues in bringing stakeholders to the table and I know a number of panelists Greg mentioned your name as a key player in rounding up the stakeholders and I’m curious if you have some type of a governance structure that you think about and I guess at times you have to be a referee like a priest or a rabbi. Having been part of those discussions in the past when you bring all these folks to the table, everybody has their own ideas of where to go. How do you go about trying to resolve these disagreements or bringing people to a consensus? Is there some type of governance structure that you use to drive the decision-making?                 

GREG GIDDENS, DHS

That’s pretty much a loaded question with something of this magnitude. One thing that we clearly understand is what our role is not and our role is not to be between the Secretary and the Deputy in operating components within DHS. It’s not our role to get in that line of command.

It is our role to help facilitate good decision making. I was out on the border 3 or 4 weeks ago, which is always refreshing to go out to the border ports of entry as well as to the interior and really get some time to spend some time with people on the pointed end of the operation of business. I had the opportunity to read the book ‘The World is Flat’ by Thomas Friedman and there’s a couple of pages in there that talks about the changes that are undergoing between organizations that are having a hierarchy of command and control to a hierarchy of collaboration and connection and I read that and dog-eared the page and underlined it and that is meant for us.

That’s really what SBI is intended to do. We are not to have a command and control relationship, we are there to help build collaboration, provide a framework, a model of representation, and in fact our S&T organization within DHS is very instrumental in that, so that we can connect the dots. So that people really don’t have to be told to make a decision and which decision to make. They have the information in order to make good decisions from the start.

Clearly that has its issues in that through that process you are not going to be able to get to a common end state. That’s where the Secretary and the Deputy,  that’s why they are there and that’s why they make the big money and sit in those chairs, are able to have those organizations come to them and make their case in a very professional and respectful manner and then get a solution that everybody can salute to and move forward. And there are those that are very supportive and very engaged and at SBI and they stay current and we get those kind of issues and we’ll frame them up accordingly, but so far we’ve been able to use good information management and the collaboration has been such that the organizations themselves are making good decisions. And in fact CBP and ICE working together to really approach catch and release is a recent good example of how you can use good decision making and good metrics so that organizations can collaborate, connect the dots and really do great things.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great, thanks Greg. What I’d like to do is talk a little bit about the relative roles played between CIOs, policy folks, program officials. This issue seems to involve technology, people, processes, governance, all kinds of issues and I guess what makes it particularly challenging too is that as we sit here, we have our Congress debating immigration reform which means as we move forward with these programs, we are working against a very dynamic moving target.

As Congress passes laws, directions can change and policies can change. So I’d like to take it from the perspective of each of the panelists, how do you see the coordination of policy folks, program folks, IT folks? Is this an IT issue or is this a program issue? Let’s start with Rod. Rod, you are a CIO so obviously you are coming at it and understanding the IT initiative but how do you position your IT strategies within the framework of overall Secure Border Initiatives?

ROD MACDONALD, CBP

This is a mission-led program, it’s not an IT led program. IT is one part of the tool set that we want to make available to those who are trying to carry out the mission. I think we’ve recognized that in both the Program Executive Office that Greg runs and the program office that we’ve set up within CBP, IT reports to the Commissioner, it’s not in the IT organization; it’s led by a program manager. Also border patrol is very much involved representing the mission as well as the field operations and our air and marine, if we want a very strong operational focus, but we also have IT there.

Again, as Elaine mentioned, a tactical infrastructure, barriers, fences and so forth, lights are a key part of the solution we think as well as the fundamental things that we take for granted here but out in some of our remote areas are not there (e.g.) roads, and response vehicles to be able to get to the sight when we have an intrusion across the border. So we need to have all those disciplines represented, really in equal part, and then a very strong dose of policy because as you mentioned, policy has to override this in terms of what exactly is that mission that we are trying to address.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Right and then policy takes us back to Elaine. When I hear policy I think of asking you the follow-up question and I guess you are faced with the same thing, you have congress moving in certain directions with policy and other agencies and the state department and so forth and the reciprocal arenas of other countries. How do you address that issue of coordinating policy with all these other elements involved?   

ELAINE DEZENSKI, FORMER DHS ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT

That’s a great question and there are so many facets to the immigration reform debate that it’s hard to keep track of where these various parts are going. I think the good news with SBI is that it’s very difficult to argue with a policy rationale for a better approach at the border. In fact I don’t think there’s been much discussion at all within Congress for example about SBI being a flawed approach.

So that I think is very positive and will allow the department and the administration to move forward more effectively. When you get into other parts of the immigration reform debate, whether it’s the temporary worker program or other aspects, sometimes those discussions aren’t as clean and you know that the House and the Senate are hopefully going to come to some compromise but have very different views on interior enforcement on temporary worker type programs.

Getting back to the policy IT link, which I think is very important. Rod really hit it on-the-head, the policy is the overlay which helps push towards a better solution. If the policy framework isn’t there to support systems integration, to support the right technical approaches to support building out a system that doesn’t become antiquated before it’s actually out in the field, then we have a problem. But I don’t think that’s the approach, I think SBI does have the right policy foundation to get to the right solutions from an IT perspective.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

PT, with the US VISIT program, how does that coordinate between policy and IT issues and program issues?

P.T. WRIGHT, US VISIT, DHS

Well, at US VISIT, the cornerstone to US VISIT is technology. But critical to that is the fact that it was built on processes that the mission owners brought to the table and said this is our process, this is what we want to achieve from the process, how can technology aid us in that?

Policy directed the introduction of biometrics but once that policy decision was made we worked with the owners of the processes to define how this tool will revolutionize their process rather than be something that could be a burden on the process. I think in the department, the department strategy with regards to broader border management and broader and better immigration control, US VISIT defined its mission with regards to securing the citizens and visitors to the United States, by facilitating legitimate travel and trade, improving the immigration process and giving it greater integrity and in protecting the privacy of those individuals that go through the process. I think those four fundamental goals of US VISIT allow us to always be directly aligned with the policy because that directly speaks to the department’s broader vision as well as meets so many of the goals that the Congress and the administration has to deal with with regards to immigration and border reform.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Greg, can you comment on, is this an IT led effort or is this more of a program led effort or sort of a combination? How do you see this initiative in terms of moving forward?  

GREG GIDDENS, DHS

I think Rod dealt with that and I even jotted it down, the term he used was mission-led. I think that sums it all up. It’s all about the mission and we should be supporting the mission and putting that in the forefront and getting good results from the taxpayers’ resources that have been entrusted to us. I think Rod’s answer is that it’s mission-led.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

I think you’ve coined the correct answer Rod, you’ve nailed it. I think that’s good and I think that’s true. And again, I don’t want to belabor the idea but performance based approaches puts the mission out there in the front and says now this is what we are trying to accomplish without trying to say what is the IT solution to accomplish it. Let’s bring the greatest minds to the table and figure out the best way to get this done. When we come back we’ll ask the panelists what is their view for the future and what we can expect.  

Break.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Welcome back. I want to ask each of the panelists in order to give us their last thoughts on the subject and perhaps their vision for a modernized border infrastructure. Is this something you could expect in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years or where would you like to take the vision here? I’m just going to go down the line of the panelists here. Greg Giddens, the executive director for the Secure Border Initiative at DHS, Greg, what is your vision for the next few years here for this program?

GREG GIDDENS, DHS

Our vision is to create that framework that will allow us to make well informed decisions and get us to a place where we have a secure border and not only a secure border but a safe border, and a border that facilitates the legitimate flow of commerce and people in and out of this country. That allows us to address the issues beyond the border, at the border and in the interior. And I think this is a great time to be working this issue.

There are a lot of people who have struggled and worked this issue in the past when it was not the national issue that it is now. Clearly with this administration and with congress this issue is at the forefront and the Congressional oversight and the support that we get from both the house and the senate is honing us and is making us do better as we move forward. Their requirements and their focus on plans as we execute, as well as their support and their investment in this from a resource perspective really makes this an alignment that we can’t afford to squander. We have to make real progress, and I think we will, we’ve got a noble mission, we’ve got great people and terrific partners.          

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Yes, I think you are right. I understand the stakes are high on this one to get it right, it’s important to the country. Rod McDonald, CIO for the Customs and Border protection for DHS, give us your thoughts for a vision for the future on the border issues.

ROD MACDONALD, CBP

Sure Jim. Well our immediate goal is to get some of the best minds from industry and their capabilities in here to help us. Over the next few years to put some tools, technology, infrastructure out into the hands of our employees on the front lines so they can do a better job, they know what’s facing them and they can respond appropriately.

I do think within the next 3 years or so we will pass some of the more critical parts of the border control. Beyond that we want to expand and I think there is a lot of debate about what is going to happen with immigration policy reform. But our focus is really on securing the border. Whatever the policy, the laws end up being, I think the American public is really looking at us to know what is crossing the border and being able to respond to that. And that is really our goal for the next five or ten years is to have that in place so that we can really say that our borders are secure.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

PT Wright, the deputy director of the US VISIT program at DHS, share your thoughts PT for the next couple of years here.

P.T. WRIGHT, US VISIT, DHS

I think we stand on the verge of where we see all the potential that technology can bring and when you have the forces now within the administration and within the Congress to take action with regards to immigration and border improvement, the opportunities are before us, truly for the first time to give us the chance to have a viable and healthy entry and exit system, which is the basic foundation for any immigration process that has integrity.

I think being able to build on that, being able to build on cases where you had home runs like the US VISIT program being used by both the CBP and the Department of State the officers in the field say it’s the greatest thing in 30 years of improvement. That same capability is out there for us to address some of the very critical border issues that have been there pre-9/11 with regards to the facilitation, how do you do that and at the same time introduce greater security measures and truly be able to say that you are going to be able to do both of those and accomplish both of those at the same time.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great thanks it’s good to hear that emphasis on the field folks too. Judge David Neal, the chief judge at the executive office for immigration and review, at the Department of Justice, give us your view on the next couple of years of your vision for this program.

JUDGE DAVID NEAL, EXECUTIVE OFFICE FOR IMMIGRATION REVIEW

Certainly. It’s not our mission to be forecasting the future, so much as reacting to the present. But I will say that even at it’s most predictable moments, that immigration flows and border crossing trends are a moving target. And the way to deal with the policy and projection level with that is to have comprehensive thinking; the sort of comprehensive thinking that’s taking place now. If cooperation, and coordination and communication are included in the metrics for this endeavor and anything we do in the future,  I think that will tell us how successful we can be. 

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Great, thanks. Elaine Dezenski, give us your view on this for the next few years on this program. You’ve seen it evolve over the last several years and give us your thoughts on this.

ELAINE DEZENSKI, FORMER DHS ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT

Well, I think the most important vision as we move forward is to be able to say perhaps within five years, maybe it will take longer, we hope not, that we are able to detect and deter any terrorists that are coming into the US. Certainly that must be the top priority. That was a big part of why SBI was created and I hope that in the near future we are getting to the point that we can say that we have stopped the capability of terrorists to come in to our country through our borders.

Secondly I’d like to see us be able to get more than 90% of the illegal aliens coming into this country, either by putting them into a system or a temporary worker program, or working with foreign governments to be able to build their own infrastructure so that that illegal alien flow is dealt with more effectively.

And finally, on a related note, we should be able to say within five years that we have substantially cut down on drug smuggling and human smuggling and trafficking, which is a major issue at our borders. It’s certainly something that should not be tolerated. So at the end of the day, the vision should really be one where our system is attracting and retaining those who share the American dream, who are here to contribute effectively to our society and a system that keeps out those who wish to do us harm.

JIM FLYZIK, THE FLYZIK GROUP

Well, thanks Elaine, you put it into perspective so well there. I guess I’ve got the final word. I think my observations here for the panel, just seeing the group, the optics here, the various elements and the coordination is a very, very positive thing for our country to see the coordination going on. I think the panel is constantly talking about the concerns for that field person out there, the online person, who rolls up their sleeves every day out there doing the job and the importance of always having that in mind as well as the comments from Rod about the focus is on the mission and keeping the focus on the mission and the importance of the mission.

I want to thank our panelists for taking time, they all have extremely important jobs, for taking time out to share their ideas with us. I think the challenge for our listening audience is to step up and do what it takes to make sure that these folks are successful and the security of our country, perhaps one of the most important issues facing our country right now in terms of homeland security, is this issue about security of the borders and these folks at the table today are the people who play a key role. I think it’s incumbent on all of us to step up to make sure we do what it takes to make sure that we create the environment that allows them to be successful.