Looking Ahead on Border Security Operations and Staffing

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By: D. Rick Van Schoik

In an article in the online publication, Homeland Security Today, D. Rick Van Schoik discusses next steps after the cancellation of SBInet.  After "almost ten years of significantly ramping up the hiring, training and deployment of Border Patrol agents, some observers of U.S. border policy have hypothesized that parts of the border are approaching overstaffing," writes Van Schoik. 

Once new funds become available for border security in areas other than staffing, NACTS will have ready "medium- and long-term policy options for the borders and borderlands...for operations other than security operations between the ports of entry."  Taking  human security into account for comprehensive border security operations or "sustainable security" considers "the realities of food security, readiness, a response and recovery from floods and fires, anticipation of pathogens such as the pandemic avian influenza and the ever-present vigilance for exotic and invasive species arriving for the first time."

Read the full article here.