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State of the Border Update - Part 1

• Homeland Security & Defense Forum

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Acting Deputy Commissioner Pete Flores provided his “State of the Border” update to kick off the 7th Annual HSDF Border Security Symposium.  

This panel explores the intricate landscape of border security, focusing on the evolving threats and the strategies employed to manage them while supporting economic growth. The episode delves into the balance between national security measures and fostering commerce amid a rapidly changing environment.

  • Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP
  • David Aguilar, Former CBP Acting and Deputy Commissioner and former Chief of Border Patrol (moderator)

This discussion took place at the HSDF’s Border Security Symposium on December 11th, 2024. 

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• David Aguilar, Former CBP Acting and Deputy Commissioner and former Chief of Border Patrol :

I just want you to know that. I asked Pete. I said do you have a preference on which chair you want to take? He said no, I don't have a good side. Good way to start. Good way to start, pete. Thank you again for being here. We've worked together for many years.

• David Aguilar, Former CBP Acting and Deputy Commissioner and former Chief of Border Patrol :

We've been in the trenches together and I can think of nobody better to basically kind of set the stage. Set the stage for the state of the border, what's occurring, as I said, cbp, ports between the ports, airports, maritime, all of these things Kind of set the stage for the industry is what you would like for them to hear of where we're at today and kind of any forward-leaning actions that we're undertaking.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

No, thank you, Thank you for inviting me here. It's always a pleasure to be here undertaking no, thank you, thank you for inviting me here. It's always a pleasure to be here. You know, when I think back 36 years in here, when we first started on the southwest border, down in a small port of Calexico and just where we were manpower-wise, you know separate agencies, departments, immigration, border patrol, customs, usda, agriculture and just kind of how we were lined up to complete the mission that we had at hand.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

And I think back then and I look at today on where we are and how much you know how far forward we have come from then and when I look at our problem set today. You know, back then when we saw a problem where we're dealing with whatever the threat was and we were attempting to mitigate that threat, we dealt with it separately Many times. We were dealing it on paper. We were dealing it with a little bit of time lag on how we were going to address it, what we were going to do. We were doing our ITU charts with sticky notes, post-it notes right on how we were doing this. And today I look at how we have evolved, but I look at how the threat has evolved. We have evolved. But I look at how the threat has evolved and anywhere in the world a package or a person could be at our border today. If they started today from anywhere in the world, they could be at our border and the threat is there for us to deal with.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

So, as I think about how do we do this right and the amount of traveler, the amount of commerce, the amount of things coming at our border, so 1.15 million travelers a day coming through our border every single day that's just northbound, coming into the United States. 1.15 million every day, $9.2 billion worth of cargo coming into the country every single day. So we think about that and we think about where are our threats. We've got all these travelers coming in, a number of passengers coming in, we've got all this cargo coming in in trucks and containers and vessels and all that. So how do we ensure that we are allowing commerce to grow, that we're ensuring that we're taking care of the economic prosperity of the United States while protecting the national security at the same time? And we think about information. So information for us is one of those drivers for us, the way we get information, the quality of information, and then how do we assess that information from a risk perspective? What are our opportunities there to do that?

• David Aguilar, Former CBP Acting and Deputy Commissioner and former Chief of Border Patrol :

So today I talked a little bit about what we've done in regards to I'm assuming you've passed on your numbers talked a little bit about carbon numbers.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

From a terrorism standpoint, a national security standpoint, we see that threat continue to evolve from us, from the eastern hemisphere and how they get into the western hemisphere and showing up at our ports of entry or in between our ports of entry. We see that continuously evolve for us. We see the threat of encounters along the southwest border, along the northern border and in our maritime. That's great. I've never been At the height of what we're dealing with, right 2.5 million encounters that Border Patrol is dealing with along the border Today.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

since June we have really seen those numbers start to come down for us. So since June, when I start to look at what our numbers are on encounters, that has come down about 55% since June. When we take June to the end of the year, the number of gotaways for us on Border Patrol has also come down about 60%.

• David Aguilar, Former CBP Acting and Deputy Commissioner and former Chief of Border Patrol :

I will, I will, I've come down.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

the number of gotaways have come down since June. When I look at our northern border, our northern border, the number of encounters on our northern border has also dropped since June to about 69%. So October of this year Border Patrol had about 61,000 encounters and that, compared to October of last year, is about 68, 69% drop of what we would have saw in October of last year, 69% drop on what we saw in October of last year. So as we look at those start to drop, on what we're doing which allows our men and women to start doing enforcement work, to be proactive, on what we're doing in between our ports of entry at our ports of entry, what we're doing on the roadways, how we're coordinating and collaborating with state and local and other federal partners. On what we're doing in regards to that Fentanyl over the last two years we've seized 50,000 pounds of fentanyl in the last two years. So just the amount of what that looks like.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

And we continue to see the threats of precursors, additives, xylosines. We continue to see that threat coming across our borders. So from a finished product and fentanyl, methamphetamine, coming into the United States. We see that coming in from Mexico. We know that threat, especially from a fentanyl perspective, it is Arizona and California where we see that threat coming in for us, that we're dealing with it and we have taken a number of proactive steps in order to deal with the fentanyl threat, very specifically in regards to coordination with state and locals. In regards to coordination with state and locals, in regards to coordination with our federal investigators and partners out there in coordination at the department level, at the White House level, on what we're doing in regards to proactively going after that threat. We've had a number of operations and we continue to interact with our investigative partners and Mexico. Which then brings me to the point of state of the border and what's important for us. So our border should be our last line of defense when we're really talking about what we're doing at the border. We have men and women who are on the border and they do a fantastic job every day of keeping bad things and bad people out of the border while allowing legitimate trade and traffic to come across our borders for economic prosperity. But that should be our last line of defense. So, as we continue to work with foreign governments on what we're doing with mutual recognition agreements and what we're doing with customs agreements out there, continue to push.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

How do we share information, expanding our footprint worldwide? We've expanded our footprint in Mexico. We expanded our footprint in our Central America countries. We continue to expand our information sharing and information flow to other countries. I was just in Saudi Arabia last week in regards to talking to them about how do we expand information flow between us, right, how do we get individuals there in a joint security program? How do we share information on travelers on cargo? How do we implement different programs that we're vetting against hot list and vetting against terrorism and betting against compliance? How do we start to share information there? After I'm done here, I'm flying into Mexico City, so I'll be in Mexico City once I leave here to go talk to Mexico. But how do we continue our partnership? How do we continue to interact with each other from an enforcement, from a compliance right? We have individuals embedded in vetted units and at airports and at different places across Mexico to ensure that we're sharing that information, that we're getting some help on the front end in regards to deterrence, in regards to repatriations from foreign countries.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

People not getting on planes are allowed to go forward based on risk and threat, to be able to do that and be able to push what we have out From a technology standpoint. There are a lot of opportunities, I think, for us from a technology standpoint and I think when we get into that conversation, you have a lot of smarter people in the room from CBP that will be talking about some of this. But when we talk about technology, we talk about AI. We're really talking about data integration. When you have an agency of 66,000 people with a mission set as complex as we have, our ability to not silo technology a camera, an AST, an NII, to not algorithm, to not silo those things right, I need to bring all of CBP together. That's our best opportunity.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

When we talk about risk and we talk about stopping a threat, our best opportunity is to use all the data that we have available to us, and that's just what CBP's data is. When we talk about people, cargo, biometrics, biographics, all the data that we collect every single day then how do we then ensure that we're working with the right partners, our IC investigators, that we're bringing all that information together in order for that officer, in order for that agent right to make the best possible decision in a timely manner on what do we do with that person that's standing in front of me. What do I do with that piece of cargo I'm standing in front of? Or do I have an opportunity to prevent from somebody from getting on a plane or coming to the country, or a piece of cargo from loading on an aircraft or a vessel? How do we then start to really funnel that down to using the right type of AI, using the right type of technology to make those assessments? 1.15 million people a day.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

We're going to make an assessment on Does a traveler come in? Doesn't come in? $9.2 billion worth of cargo. We'll make an assessment on Does a traveler come in? Doesn't come in $9.2 billion worth of cargo? We'll make an assessment on every single day. Does it come in? Does it not come in Right? So how do we do that? I think there's a lot of opportunities for growth. We also in that in using AI and using technology. For us, we always want to have a human in the loop process for this. So we want an officer and agent making that final decision right on whether or not we're going to go do something with that anomaly or potential anomaly, whether we're going to react to that sensor, whether we're going to react to an anomaly on NII. So there's a lot of opportunities there for us, I think, as we really talk about what the state of the border is today and what potentially the future is for us, tomorrow and within the next five years or so.

• David Aguilar, Former CBP Acting and Deputy Commissioner and former Chief of Border Patrol :

So one of the things that you mentioned was all CBP together. One of the things that's important for industry to understand is that CBP is the executive agent for a multitude of other agencies, so can you talk a little bit about that responsibility and that data coming in? Some of the challenges associated with the differentiating data structured, unstructured, and how that goes.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

So over 500 laws that we enforce for other government agencies. Right, that includes, I think, 47 or 49 other government agencies that we're responsible for. So we are America's right unified border security force. That's what we do every single day, that's what our men and women are doing, and so our ability then to collect data not only for our own purposes but for other government agencies and other regulations, becomes important. So, whether or not we're talking and I can talk specifically to cargo, this is really for us right, when we talk about trade and we talk about ACE and we talk about ACE 2.0, we talk about trade modernization. We talk about 21st century framework on what we're doing in regards to modernizing trade information, modernizing trade laws.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

For us, I think the last time we really had a holistic trade modernization from a regulation standpoint, from a legislative standpoint, is probably a little over 30 years ago. Legislative standpoint is probably a little over 30 years ago. So we're battling right the change of industry, the change of the way products are made and move and get to the United States, and we're behind the times on what our legislation and our regulations are. So modernizing that piece becomes an important aspect of how do we become more efficient and effective at allowing commercial trade to come across our borders but also mitigate the threat that we see in it. De Minimis, small packages it's an industry that you know a couple of years ago that we didn't see that one coming right when we saw the De Minimis and we saw what that, what that looks like today over a billion packages coming into the united states last year, four million, four million a day coming in, and not just in air cargo, not just, you know, in express anymore, coming in in all modes, coming in on truck on our borders, coming in in containers, air, seaports just we're seeing the growth there and the volume of what that looks like.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

And when we think about what that is and what the threat is from, from all aspects, right, whether that's a terrorism threat, whether that's a narcotic threat, whether that's a health and human safety threat on products coming in that shouldn't be coming in, that's a big vulnerability for us.

• Pete Flores, Acting Deputy Commissioner, CBP:

So as we look to ensure that we're collecting the right information, to ensure that we're getting the right information to the right partners, to make those determinations on a product should come in or shouldn't come in or should be inspected, and then our own enforcement authorities collaborating on that piece and I think we're thinking about it the right way. We want information to funnel into one place and we're taking the lead on that, and then we're going to give the information to those agencies that have the authority to have that information for them to make that decision protecting privacy, and then have that information come back, that decision protecting privacy, and then have that information come back and then we control whether or not that shipment is released, is held, is inspected, with the partnership of the other agencies, but funneling it down to a single point where a decision is coming from a person that the trade recognizes and we've partnered with for a long time in order to develop that relationship on how we do business at the border.