HSDF THE PODCAST

The Future of the U.S. Border Patrol with Border Chief Jason Owens - Part 2

• Homeland Security & Defense Forum • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Today’s program is the second in a two part series that features U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens and former CBP Commissioner David Aguilar discussing border security threats and requirements.

In this episode, Chief Owens outlines his top border challenges and priorities for 2024.  This discussion took place at the Annual HSDF Border Security Symposium in Washington DC on December 12th, 2023.

Discover the untold frontline stories as we wrap up our intense conversation with US Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens and former CBP Commissioner David Aguilar. They take us behind the scenes of the complex challenges and evolving threats that agents face daily, from the strategic use of technology to combatting cartel tactics. Chief Owens sheds light on how AI and biometrics are revolutionizing border security operations and agent safety, while physical and virtual barriers aid in extending critical response times. Learn about the sobering realities of drone warfare at the border, and why sophisticated countermeasures are essential in this high-stakes game of cat and mouse.

Feel the weight of responsibility shouldered by our border patrol agents as they navigate the harsh, often isolated landscapes that are their beats. This episode goes deep into the unseen battles against violence, the harsh elements, and the dangers of fentanyl exposure. We examine the complexities and strains of detention and processing, discussing why streamlining custody transfers is vital to operational effectiveness. Plus, a special acknowledgment to our industry partners whose innovations in communication and technology are unsung yet integral to safeguarding our nation's borders and the brave men and women who protect them. Join us as we honor these heroes, both on the front lines and behind the scenes, who are dedicated to keeping America secure.

Follow HSDF THE PODCAST and never miss latest insider talk on government technology, innovation, and security. Visit the HSDF YouTube channel to view hours of insightful policy discussion. For more information about the Homeland Security & Defense Forum (HSDF), visit hsdf.org.

Announcer:

Welcome to HSDF the podcast, a collection of policy discussions on government technology and Homeland Security brought to you by the Homeland Security and Defense Forum. Today's program concludes a two-part series that features US Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens and former CBP Commissioner David Aguilar discussing border security threats and requirements. In this episode, chief Owens outlines his top border challenges and priorities for 2024. This discussion took place at the annual HSDF Border Security Symposium in Washington DC on December 12, 2023.

Chief Jason Owens:

I don't think you're going to find or you'd be hard pressed to find many other agencies out there that have as much or have access to as much information as CBP. Think about this. We are the front line that make all the contacts both legal and illegal. We have access to all the databases and systems. We have the more expensive biometrics and camera technology out there the ability to process that and analyze it and crunch it into meaningful information that can be used to leverage operations and officer safety. That's where AI starts to come into play. That's where, when it arrives to our men and women in a processed and not a raw format, helps make them safer.

Chief Jason Owens:

We talk about the expanse and I talked about the thousands upon thousands of miles of border, but we also talk about away from the border as well. Our theaters of operation are not just at the border and done. We have egress rats that we covered down on with checkpoints. We work the ranch lands away from the border. We work south of the border, using that autonomous capability for the surveillance to identify and be able to determine if it's actually a threat or if it's traffic or not, instead of having a person have to sit in front of every monitor. Those are meaningful force multipliers that make sure that I can get more border patrol agents where I need them the most, which is out on patrol. Those are some of the things I think are important.

David Aguilar:

One of the things that is still capturing a lot of attention is the so-called FENSE smart FENSE FENSE infrastructure supported by appropriate technology. Where are we on that? Do we need more of it? How do you see that working into the script that you gave of data video communications? To what degree do we need to extend that?

Chief Jason Owens:

Most of foremost, if you think of a hub and spoke, concept everything, everything, everything revolves around the men and women that wear this uniform, that are out there in the field. Everything else is a force multiplier. Without them, nothing else matters, whether we're talking about a physical barrier, whether we're talking about a virtual FENSE, whether we're talking about infrastructure that enables them to respond to these remote areas. Where they're talking about detection, of surveillance capabilities, those are all force multipliers and, used in the right place at the right time, are of great benefit. So there are areas along the border where I will tell you and I think any chief or any agent that's ever worn this uniform will tell you yes, a physical barrier makes perfect sense right here. Why? Because it extends that vanishing point. It gives us more time to detect and respond to that traffic, which increases the certainty of arrest. If you put that same fence out in the middle of nowhere, it won't be as effective. Out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I need roads to respond and I need the camera technology to detect it because, because the nature of the location, I may have hours to respond to and interdict that trap. So this idea that there's a panacea or that there's an all or nothing silver bullet that's going to solve all of our problems. No, and if you hear this same comeback, that show me a 30 foot fence, I'll show you a 31 foot ladder. True, but nobody's saying it's going to stop the traffic. The idea, as a tool for Border Patrol agents, is to extend that time that we have to detect, respond to and interdict that traffic. It makes it more difficult. So you see, in that way, everything revolves around that agent being able to leverage that tool and respond to and interdict. The same can be said when we're talking about the very remote locations, the desert lands of South Texas, the ranch lands of South Texas, rather, where, in that situation, because of the vegetation and the environment, altitude is your friend, the ability to be able to look down and see what's going on, and vector in our agents and they have a meaningful response capability to get to that traffic. That's going to be much more meaningful than a physical barrier.

Chief Jason Owens:

Now, that's the traditional traffic that we're talking about, and I'm guessing that you're going to ask me about the emerging threats. I'll let you get there, go right into it. So now we have a very capable and nimble adversary in the cartels who, as I described before, are very well funded. They are starting to leverage things like unmanned aircraft drones in a very scary way. Some of the videos that I've seen that we we have a counter UAS program, that that that needs to continue to develop and get better to keep up with the adversary.

Chief Jason Owens:

The counter surveillance that they do on us is something that keeps me up at night. The way that they can use these drones to move contraband across our border keeps me up at night. So we're not just talking about a physical wall, we're talking about the ability to deal with threats like that that they come up with. We have our own unmanned aircraft capability. The board patrol does and it's very effective in and providing us our own air support, but with an adversary that that has a mind.

Chief Jason Owens:

And I actually saw video of cartel on cartel violence where they used the grappling hook device that was at the bottom of the drone and dropped homemade bombs on another cartels camp. At the same same video segment, I saw one of their drones hovering above one of the CBP helicopters who were providing air support to my men and women on the ground. How hard would it be for that little drone to fly into that helicopter or worse, do something to our men and women on the ground. These are very, very real threats, and the number of incursions that take place weekly would scare you. That's the type of threat that that we need to be thinking about today, because it's already here.

David Aguilar:

So, chief, one of the one of the things that you've covered was the amount of money that's being made in just one sector. Multiply that by the nine southwest border sectors and northern border sectors, maritime, puerto Rico everything else will work. I go back to the day that we start taking our border back. The threats that you just described are going to become more real, more real, more real time industry. You have to be thinking about this. You have to be thinking about this because that's what our men and women are going to be facing. Is there anything that you would add to that?

David Aguilar:

Because one of the things I've talked about in the past, unfortunately and I believe this is correct not in a bad way, but we have now grown a generation of Border Patrol agents since about 2012-2013. The UAC started family units, asylum and everything else that, frankly, don't know the border the way that we used to train them, because we've got them focused on what they need to be doing. The day is going to come that we're going to ask those men and women to do the job that used to be done and we're going to train them up. To me, training is a big part of what's coming down that pathway 100% and remind me to talk about fentanyl.

Chief Jason Owens:

The job of a board patrol agent is it almost blends the law enforcement with the some of the the infantry type functions they go out into, like I said, the most remote and austere terrain in the country, if not in the world. Most times they're backup. If they know where they are, are several minutes from responding. Those of you that have been law enforcement or firefight you know that seconds matter. So they're already in a bad situation. And when you're talking about back in the times when we were out there every day, the advantage we had is that we knew the terrain, we knew the area. We could use that to our advantage, at least initially. That's not going to be the case. As we start to get back out into these areas and generally when you start to push back on a phenomena or thing that has been happening for quite some time, the level of resistance goes up. But we get the word it's, it's, it's, it's, it's worse before it gets better. They'll start pushing back, the violence will start to escalate before we actually start to take control of it again and we start to see it come back down. Well, if you add the fact that that that increased resistance is going to be there, with my men and women trying to learn the area again and dominate that area again, the recipe for the potential of something bad happening is very real. And so, on the personal protection side, you know, knowing that the uh, that and this is what made me think of the fentanyl piece Knowing that they're going to be out there in these conditions, we're not going to get 20,000 more borb troll agents to add on to as much as I would like to. It takes too long to hire them and the, the candidate pool for law enforcement, unfortunately is just not there right now. So they're not going to be a substantially greater amount of borb trolleys out there doing the job. They're still going to be in remote locations, they're still going to be in uh in very extreme temperatures and they're going to be faced off with a very frustrated and dedicated adversary. So we have to think about the fact that they're going to be in extreme temperatures and they're going to need ballistic protection. They're going to be exposed to the environment just like everybody else. What can we do on that end to keep them safe?

Chief Jason Owens:

Uh, brad, I want to talk about fentanyl because that also reminded me. You know it's again. It's not, uh, actual foley with his knife digging into a package and you know to test if it's cocaine or meth, and you all know this. It's not marijuana anymore, it's fentanyl. We're just a few grains. Just a few grains can be lethal. We have to carry Narcan on us now and hopefully somebody gets to you in time before something that we've lost canines, police officers, that's the threat today. That's how. That's how amped up. If you wanted to, if you wanted to compare and contrast yesterday's threats with the day's threat, look at marijuana and look at fentanyl. That's the complexity that has been added to the environment. So now, whether they're stopping a vehicle to checkpoint or pulling somebody over, they have to be careful whenever they're taking uh, taking, taking a part of vehicle and looking. They can't inadvertently rip into the package, because that could be deadly, not just for them but, if it gets airborne, everybody in that checkpoint or port of entry. We have to start thinking about those protections as well.

David Aguilar:

Chief very quickly, because of the numbers we're seeing literally every day on the news, the numbers you you described a few minutes ago. For the near term anyway and by near term I mean probably two, three years from now there's going to be a continuing need of what I refer to as immediate border and counter detention requirements. Unfortunately, the Border Patrol that's one of the jobs that they've been given also so encounter, apprehend process, hold, detain, care and then hand off at some point to either NGOs, ice or whoever we transport them on. How do you see that going forth, especially in a situation where these pathways may go into rural and remote areas? Is that type of support, everything from south side of fertility medicals triaging? Is that going to come into play? Do you think that that's going to?

Chief Jason Owens:

So the reason why I said that our mission has become a bifurcated one is because of what you're talking about. You can call a thing a surge for so long and then after a while it ceases to be a surge and becomes steady state operations. I don't know when this particular surge is going to dissipate or change, but for right now the logistics involved with that piece of it are the biggest drag on our operations. So I will tell you that I don't want the ability to hold the same amount of people as ERO or as ICE, because it's if you build it, they will come. If I have the capacity to hold 20,000 people, I'm gonna end up holding 20,000 people. That's just the nature of it. I do need the Agility to flex in those holding capabilities where I need them if the adversary chooses. For, for example, for tomorrow it's no longer gonna be at Lukeville, we're gonna move to Big Bend sector.

Chief Jason Owens:

If that happens, the ability to break down a move, I'll tell you a big piece. It's always our Achilles heel and this is not just board patrol, but this is ERO and everybody. Transportation, the ability to Move folks from the field to the, to the processing areas. Do as much processing while and route. Taking advantage and Maximizing every second of time in custody Possible is is also key. But if asked, I will tell you and this is just kind of for your information I Would rather be able to fix the leak, then get a bigger bucket to bail the water. And what I'm looking at right now is if we have the pathways in place and the ability to Execute on those pathways in a way that gets these folks out of our custody and over to ERO or the NGOs quicker. That's more meaningful because that means then I can focus on getting my agents out on patrol, where we all need them. So the agility for the, for the, the holding and the transportation is key. I'm not really looking for a lot more of it.

David Aguilar:

Okay, I know we're running out of time here, but one quick question also you we talked about earlier pushing out the border. What does that mean to the chief of the board of patrol? What is it that you need in order for us to get a better feel, understanding and Leading indicators to know what's coming at us at point of origin, transit, pubs and things that nature?

Chief Jason Owens:

This is gonna be no surprise for anybody in the room, but the ability to be predictive instead of reactive in nature. It's crucial to operations that are gonna be effective. Simplest example is If I know there's a caravan coming when it's in Panama and in, as opposed to knowing right when it arrives in El Paso, I'm gonna be able to respond to that and manage that better. I'm gonna have more time to prepare for it.

Chief Jason Owens:

We already have men and women that are deployed at the attache offices in different points Throughout the world really a bit, especially in the Western Hemisphere. Their ability to collect on information as they, as they conduct interviews to help those host nations to bolster their border security capability To identify the bad actors, to keep them from getting to us in the first place that doesn't just help us do our job better, that keeps everybody safer. A wise person, whenever they were chief of the border patrol, talked about how increasing the border security of our partners was beneficial to our own border security. Because they couldn't use those countries as transit points. It stopped the flow from ever getting to us. That still persists and exists today. We just have more of a footprint internationally. I need to be able to leverage that better.

David Aguilar:

Yeah, okay, chief, very insightful. We really appreciate the time you spent with us and, just to let you know, we're going to sit industry down and they're gonna be in the hot seat because we're gonna be posing some of these things that that you talked about. What can industry do in the communications arena? Common operating fixer, emerging threat, the pushing out the border and Common operating picture to the degree that shows us those leading indicators. Thank you, appreciate you being with us.

Chief Jason Owens:

You guys don't ever hear thank you enough, but I, you know what you do is is truly important and we're it not for the industry leaders out here that were coming up with these ideas that actually helped us do our job better and Got my men when home, women home, safe at the end of every shift, we wouldn't be where we are today. So you may never see your actions pay off. Know that they do. Know that these things that you help us, these force multipliers that you come up with, you're saving agent lives, you're saving American lives and you're helping keep this country safe, your partners to us, and I want you to know that, that we see that and we thank you for it, thank you.

Announcer:

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