Department of Homeland Security, Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Department/Agency: Department of Homeland Security

Position:

Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Executive Schedule: Executive Level III - Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation

Major Responsibilities:

Secure the nation's borders and ports of entry
Facilitate the flow of legitimate travel and trade
Protect the borders from terrorists and terrorism
Apprehend those who attempt to enter the U.S. illegally
Intercept both illegal drugs and illegal merchandise
Keep agricultural pests out of the country

Key Competencies and Preferred Qualifications:

Law enforcement background, especially police or prosecutorial work
Senior management experience in public or private sector
Familiarity with strategies to fight terrorism
Keen grasp of both the political and policy complexities of efforts to rewrite the immigration laws

Insight:

The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) calls itself "America's frontline." Every day more than 1 million people, 330,000 vehicles, 85,000 shipments of goods and 70,000 cargo containers enter the United States through 327 ports of entry under the watchful eye of CPB agents. They face the herculean task of facilitating all that trade and traffic while keeping terrorists and illegal immigrants at bay and intercepting illegal drugs, contraband and agricultural pests. Twenty thousand Customs officers and Agriculture Specialists are deployed at airports, seaports and land crossings, and 18,000 Border Patrol agents guard the country's 7,000-mile borders with Mexico and Canada and, with the Coast Guard, thousands more miles of coastline. Its agents, operating from 144 stations with 34 permanent checkpoints, patrol this vast territory in SUVs, by aircraft, boat and even on horseback. Its agents and officers make 4,000 arrests and interdict 40,000 pounds of illegal drugs each year.

The dimensions of the job are staggering. Commissioner W. Ralph Basham, a former director of the U.S. Secret Service, said of his $9 billion agency: "Every year, CBP processes nearly half a billion people, 130 million trucks and cars, and 20 million cargo containers at ports of entry. We screen for potential threats to the United States, determine eligibility to enter, and collect any necessary taxes, duties, and fees. While our nation's economy depends on the fast movement of people and goods through the (ports of entry), our nation's security demands that not one of the people or cargo elements admitted pose a threat." The United States imports more than $1.5 trillion of goods and services annually and Customs collects $28 billion in duty payments on those incoming goods. While keeping watch for criminals, undocumented entrants and contraband, the agency also must speed the legitimate travelers and goods across the border to keep the U.S. economy moving. Customs agents clear more than 70 million passengers and crew arriving on international flights each year and conduct pre-clearance operations at 15 international airports in Aruba, Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, and Ireland. But three-quarters of those entering the country arrive not by air or on ships but at one of those land crossings, including some of the busiest in the world.

The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, perpetrated by terrorists who for the most part entered the country legally, overnight changed the difficulty and importance of the work of Customs and Border Patrol agents. As The 9/11 Commission Report noted, "For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons." That panel said that in the decade before hijackers felled the World Trade Centers and struck the Pentagon, border security "was not seen as a national security matter .... [O]nly smuggling of weapons of mass destruction carried weight, not the entry of terrorists who might use such weapons or the presence of associated foreign-born terrorists." With greater vigilance, the commission said, U.S. border authorities might have intercepted 15 of the 19 hijackers.

During the campaign, candidate Barack Obama pledged to strengthen the security of U.S. borders. His campaign web site said, "Americans know that our national border security system is broken, leaving our country vulnerable. Barack Obama will support the virtual and physical infrastructure and manpower necessary to secure our borders and keep our nation safe." When President-elect Obama announced his national security team on Dec. 1, 2008, including Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano for secretary of homeland security, he said that, "As we learned so painfully on 9-11, terror cannot be contained by borders nor safety provided by oceans alone." Napolitano took a tough stance as governor on protecting the border. Speaking after Obama announced her selection, Napolitano promised to protect "our homeland with constant vigilance and relentless work to prevent terrorist attacks." She added. "our domestic response to all hazards (will be) fast, sound, levelheaded, and effective. Americans deserve no less."

She will be presiding over a Department of Homeland Security that recently delayed until June 2009 tighter rules for travelers crossing the borders from Mexico and Canada. Although Congress ordered the stricter rules requiring travelers to present a passport or other document to prove citizenship, border state lawmakers and business groups pressured the Bush administration to delay enforcement of the stricter identification rules, fearing that they could play havoc with travel, tourism and trade. Now the new administration must decide how to balance these concerns about commerce and civil liberties with the need for vigilance against terrorists.

They also must recalibrate the course for the Secure Border Initiative that DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff unveiled in 2005. Hundreds of miles of fences have been built along the Southwest border, and DHS has let multi-billion dollar contracts for radar towers, cameras, sensors and other equipment along the borders. The Boeing Corp. won a contract worth as much as $2 billion to build the high tech surveillance system. The Border Patrol has been beefed up with thousands of new agents since 9/11. The agency began flying unmanned drones along the border with Mexico in 2005, and its first drone arrived in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in December 2008 to patrol the border with Canada. The so-called SBInet costs $1 billion a year.

Congressional investigators and the news media have questioned well Customs and Border Protection is doing its expanded job, even with high tech equipment. As a National Public Radio series put it, "Radiation-detection equipment at ports is better at detecting kitty litter than dangerous weapons, critics say. Borders are so porous that congressional investigators carrying simulated nuclear materials have walked across unchallenged."

Building those hundreds of miles of fences along the border with Mexico has also generated controversy. Arizona Governor Napolitano, now the DHS Secretary-designate, was among the skeptics. "You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," she once said. By June 2008 CBP had completed construction of more than half the 670 miles of fences planned along the Southwest border.

The next commissioner of customs and border protection will have to keep the border traffic flowing, even with more stringent security checks of both travelers and goods. He or she must worry not only about Americans' homeland security, but their economic security. Some experts believe cargo, not people, pose the biggest threat to national security. The then-U.S. Customs Service launched a Container Security Initiative (CSI) in January 2002, just months after the 9/11 attacks. Then-Commissioner Robert C. Bonner. testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in 2005, said, "We must perform all missions without stifling the flow of legitimate trade and travel that is so important to our nation's economy. We have ‘twin goals': Building more secure and more efficient borders." That will remain a priority for the CBP commissioner in the Obama administration and beyond.

Key Relationships – Within the Department or Agency:

Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Chief of Staff
Administrator, Transportation Security Administration
Director, Citizenship and Immigration Service
Assistant Secretary, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Director, U.S. Secret Service
Commandant, Coast Guard

Key Relationships – Within the Government:

Director and Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice
Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Administrator, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, Department of Agriculture
Commissioner, Food and Drug Administration, Health and Human Services
Administrator, International Trade Administration, Department of Commerce
Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Justice
Deputy Secretary of Defense, Defense Department
Under Secretary of State, State Department

Key Relationships – Outside the Government:

International Police Organization (INTERPOL)
Executive Director, National Association of Attorneys General
President, National Crime Prevention Council
International Association of Chiefs of Police
CEO, Security Industry Association
President, American Association of Port Authorities
Immigration Rights and Reform Groups

Nomination Referred to:

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Current Position Profile:
1. Alan D. Bersin (Confirmed: March 27, 2010). Prior to his current service, Bersin served as chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. He was previously California’s secretary of education and superintendent of public education in San Diego. Bersin was nominated by former president Bill Clinton as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California.

Recent Position Profiles:

2. W. Ralph Basham (Confirmed 2006). Career Secret Service agent, director 2003 to 2006. Chief of staff at newly created Transportation Security Administration. Oversaw hiring of federal security directors for the nation's 429 airports. Former director of Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

3. Robert C. Bonner (2003-2005). Director of U.S. Customs Service and former head of Drug Enforcement Administration. Led Customs transition from Treasury Department to Homeland Security. Former federal prosecutor and judge.