The U.S. Border Patrol recently released a new strategic plan –
the third in its nine-decade history. Rather than clarifying the agency’s
strategic focus, the new plan underscores the agency’s lack of strategic
direction.
The previous strategic plan, published in 2004, stated ensuring
“operational control” of the U.S. border as its primary objective. “Operational
control” was defined as the ability of the Border Patrol to “detect, identify,
classify, and then respond to and resolve illegal entries.” Facing intense
criticism for their failure to ensure such security measures over large
sections of the southwestern border, the Border Patrol released the 2012 – 2016 Border Patrol Strategic Plan.
The agency issued its latest plan amid mounting criticism of its
billion-dollar high-tech programs, excessive and cross-border violence, and
continuing failure to provide performance and cost-benefit evaluations of its
various new border security initiatives. While intended to put critics’
concerns over these problems to rest, the 2012 – 2016 Strategic Plan instead
ignores them entirely.
Framed as a military-type strategy and replete with references to
border risks and threats, the 2012-2016 plan fails to indicate on what grounds
risks will be assessed, how risks will be evaluated, and how new spending will
be determined. It fails to make even a single reference to its predecessor’s
former goal of operational control or include any performance measures.
Nowhere to be found in the document is even the slightest hint of a
commitment to make border security programs more transparent, accountable, and
cost-effective. This lack of
transparency and accountability is a mounting problem that the Border Patrol
has continued to ignore.
Criticism on All Sides
Over the past several years, the U.S. Border Patrol has faced
increasing and widespread criticism from all political factions. Some critics,
particularly on the right, charge that the Border Patrol is not doing enough to
“secure the border,” while those left-of-center lambaste the agency for abusing
immigrants and intensifying a failing drug war.
Perhaps the harshest criticism has come from the government’s own
auditing agencies. The Government Accountability Office (GOA) has issued a
series of scathing reports faulting the Border Patrol for mismanagement, waste,
and lack of strategic focus. Despite the increasing disapproval, the Border
Patrol has continued to benefit from a bipartisan consensus to “secure the
border,” resulting in a doubling of funding for Border Patrol operations over
the last ten years.
The Border Patrol is a division of Customs and Border Protection
(CBP), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) charged with
securing U.S. ports of entry (POEs) and the northern and southwestern land borders. CBP is the largest DHS agency, receiving 21%
(currently $11.5 billion) of its total funding. Over the last ten years, DHS
has spent over $100 billion on border-security operations, yet the Border
Patrol still struggles to formulate a practical and politically viable strategy
to guide the spending of this new border security bonanza.
The term “border security” largely replaced references to “border
control” in official statements following the creation of the Department of
Homeland Security in March 2003. The 2012 - 2016
Strategic Plan is the latest attempt to define the meaning of
the term while formulating a strategy to guide border security operations.
CBP routinely explains its “border security” mission as
obstructing the entry of “dangerous good and dangerous people,” and stations
customs officers at land and coastal POEs, while Border Patrol agents patrol
the land border between the POEs. However, the new strategy fails to alleviate
any of the persistent concerns about the Border Patrol’s strategic focus and
operational efficiency.
The GAO and leading congressional members concerned with border
policy have expressed skepticism about the Border Patrol’s resolve and capacity
to address concerns about cost-effectiveness and strategic focus, while faulting
the agency for not including performance measures in its new plan. In an
attempt to refute these concerns, acting CBP Commissioner David Aguilar said
“the Strategic Plan sets a firm foundation for the continued evolution of the Border
Patrol as an integral part of CBP’s overall border management and homeland
security enterprise.”
Public Relations, Not Serious
Strategy
Though claiming to be both “risk-based” and “intelligence-driven,”
the new plan includes no methodology for assessing risks or for leveraging
intelligence to meet identified threats to homeland security. The Border Patrol
also fails to explain – either in the new strategy or elsewhere – how
risk-management will determine the directional focus and budgetary specifics of
border funding.
The 2012 – 2016 Border
Patrol Strategic Plan is not a serious document.
It includes repeated references to vague tactics such as rapid response,
intelligence, community engagement, whole-of-government approaches, and
inter-governmental integration. Full of platitudes, patriotisms, military
jargon and abstractions, the strategy plan is essentially a public-relations
statement. The “firm foundation” that CBP Chief Aguilar sees is manifestly
flimsy and unprofessional. The Strategic Plan has no real plan, no timelines, no summary of the evolving
geopolitical context for border control, no strategic focus, and no baselines
or metrics to measure the Border Patrol’s progress in securing the border.
The Border Patrol’s Strategic Muddle describes the agency’s policy conundrum and chronicles how the
Border Patrol got stuck in its current strategic mess. The report offers
common-sense prescriptions for extricating the agency from this muddle and
offers recommendations for setting new directions.Key
Findings
As the nation transitions away from its post-9/11 fears and wars,
U.S. border strategy needs to be overhauled and updated. A new strategy for
border control should be closely linked to a penetrating review of
counterterrorism, the drug war, and immigration policies.
The time is auspicious for such a revision. New budgetary and debt
concerns, escalating critiques of immensely expensive and shamefully
ineffective border security programs, and expanding critiques of the drug war
have opened up new political space.
Recommendations for new strategic directions for the Border Patrol
include the following:
*
DHS must define what it means by “border security,” and the Border Patrol must go back to the drawing board to
formulate a more comprehensive and cogent strategy, along with closely linked
performance measures.
*
The Border Patrol must demonstrate that its “metrics” are indeed based on
closely considered threat assessments and risk-management processes. As part of its strategic plan, the agency must do the following:
categorize risks and threats, prioritize them, justify this prioritization,
mount programs to target these prioritized threats, and establish a methodology
to measure performance.
*
The Border Patrol should immediately desist in making escalated threat assessments
about illegal drugs and drug-smuggling
operations. The crossing of illegal drugs has long characterized the border and
will continue to do so as long as there is a U.S. market for these substances.
*
Administratively, DHS could, and should, mandate that the Border Patrol end
what is, in effect, its strategic focus on the marijuana drug war. Marijuana is not a security threat, and there is mounting
momentum for its legalization or decriminalization on both sides of the border.
Nearly 95% of the Border Patrol’s drug war activities involve marijuana.
*
As part of its stated determination to pursue risk-based border protection, the
Border Patrol should deprioritize immigration enforcement. A credible risk-management process cannot justify operations that
make no distinction between truly dangerous individuals and ordinary immigrants
seeking work and family reunification. The Border Patrol should instead target
border bandits who prey upon vulnerable immigrants and smugglers of truly
dangerous illegal and prescription drugs.
*
The Border Patrol must respond to GAO recommendations that the agency undertake
serious cost-benefit evaluations of each programmatic
component of its border security operations. Congress and the U.S. public
deserve to know in detail the costs and associated benefits of
multimillion-dollar expenditures on each of the various tactical infrastructure
and high-tech projects.
*
The Border Patrol must establish transparent procedures that will allow Congress, government auditors, and the public to
evaluate the effectiveness of its many new operations and initiatives in
successfully targeting the threats to the homeland on what the Border Patrol
calls “America’s frontline.”
To read the complete Border Patrol’s Strategic Muddle report, including references, please visit:
http://www.ciponline.org/research/entry/border-patrol-strategic-muddle
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