CBP Outlines Manpower, Technology Plans to House Panel By: Mickey McCarter

03/16/2011 ( 1:00am)

Lawmakers Tuesday questioned officials at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as well as the head of the Arizona state National Guard as to plans to fill the gaps in manpower and technology along US borders.

The gap in personnel arose from concerns of reductions in manpower in early June, when the National Guard's Operation Phalanx will wind down due to a lack of funding. Presently, the National Guard provides about 1,200 personnel to support Border Patrol agents along the US southwest border.

Maj. Gen. Hugo Salazar, the adjunct general of the Arizona National Guard, said his governor, Republican Jan Brewer, would support an extension of that mission were funding available.

"We would echo the concerns of the governors that we need to do more to secure our border. And if that means utilizing the National Guard skill sets to enhance the current operations of law enforcement, I would agree with that," Salazar testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.

The National Guard provides readily trained personnel who have specialized skills in various technologies, specifically communications and surveillance, Salazar said. Some also have a great deal of experience operating and flying unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predators used by Border Patrol. Bringing those skills to bear in support of law enforcement along US borders augments agencies like Border Patrol, the general noted.

Unlike Operation Jumpstart, which ran from 2006 to 2008, each state is fielding its own Guardsmen to support Operation Phalanx. Operation Jumpstart drew National Guard troops from around the country to place up to 6,000 troops along the border. Forty percent of the National Guard force supporting Operation Phalanx comes from Arizona, Salazar said.

Those Guardsmen largely serve in entry identification teams, where they patrol on high ground to act as extended eyes and ears for Border Patrol agents, who would receive direction and apprehend trespassers entering the United States illegally on lower ground. Some Guardsmen also provide maintenance, engineering, and aviation support.

But Operation Phalanx, which only truly began last October, will end the first or second week of June because it has no more money, Salazar stated. An initial $135 million in funding was reduced to $110 million.

"We are not those who create the plans. Unless there is additional funding, the mission is going to end," Salazar commented.

The 560 Guardsmen in Arizona that will stand down at the end of Operation Phalanx eventually would be replaced by 500 Border Patrol agents under a deployment plan drawn up for 1,000 new agents to be hired under the border security supplemental appropriations act (Public Law 111-230) enacted in August 2010.

Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher could not tell Congress how far along CPB was in hiring, training, and deploying those new officers, however, because he lacked specific insights into Border Patrol hiring processes.

The Arizona National Guard will continue to supply 140 Guardsmen to support a longstanding counter-drug mission, however, Salazar said.

Salazar also discouraged the notion of placing armaments like Stryker vehicles along the southwest border. The Pennsylvania National Guard currently is training a Stryker Brigade, but Salazar feels it would not be productive unless the National Guard were actually operating to use force. The money would be better spent on entry identification teams, he said.

Technology mix

Mark Borkowski, assistant commissioner at the CBP Office of Technology Innovation and Acquisition, and Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner at the , fielded various questions about the plans at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to field border security technology, particularly in the wake of the cancellation of the Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet) program.

Borkowski described a technology toolbox to include mobile surveillance systems, remote video surveillance systems, unattended ground sensors, agent-portable sensor systems, and integrated fixed towers to monitor the 2,000 miles of the US southwest border.

Integrated fixed towers are the last piece of the border technology puzzle along the US southwest border, Richard Stana, director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at the Government Accountability Office, reported. DHS will begin to deploy them from 2013 and wrap up perhaps in 2016.

The entire mix of new technology would not spread across the entire southwest border until 2021 or 2026, Stana said.

Although DHS has a plan for the border along Arizona, where most illegal trespassers enter the United States, it has pushed back finalization of a plan for the entire border from March to July.

A CBP Joint Force Command in Arizona makes localized decisions on the ground on how to best defend the state's international border, Borkowski said, citing it as evidence of how CBP is changing the way it does business to boost its effectiveness. As a result of various initiatives (and the economic downturn), fewer illegal aliens have entered the country. Thus, apprehensions decreased 36 percent in the past two years, Borkowski said.

"We think we have been increasingly effective. Notice I said that carefully, increasingly effective. That does not mean we are completely done with the mission. That does not mean we are where we would like to be. We recognize that we have more work to do," Borkowski stated.

Borkowski and Kostelnik insisted that CPB was not neglecting the US northern border, despite the tremendous focus on the US northern border. CBP will officially open an operations integration center (OIC) next week, they noted, which will provide a common operating picture from aviation and marine assets as well as other sensor feeds.

CBP acquisition officers collaborated closely with Border Patrol to meet its needs when procuring the OIC, Borkowski said, representing an evolution in the way the agency was meeting its mission.

Kostelnik stressed that CBP Air and Marine had opened five new branch offices along the US northern border in the past six years. CBP also operates a significant marine capability in areas like the Great Lakes.

The OIC opening next week will tie together feeds from CBP aviation and boat assets, Kostelnik said, representing an exciting advance forward for the agency.

"Today, we can see live streaming video from our Predators in devices you can hold in your hand and likely on Blackberries in the coming weeks," Kostelnik remarked.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in general represent a significant advance for the agency, Kostelnik continued. The nuclear reactor disasters in Japan demonstrate a situation, for example, where it is too dangerous to deploy a manned aircraft to survey the situation. UAVs, however, can enter such disasters and provide critical real-time intelligence and unparalleled situational awareness.

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