HSDF THE PODCAST

Securing the Border: Technology, Innovation, and the Operational Edge - Part 1

• Homeland Security & Defense Forum

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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

Technology is revolutionizing how we secure our borders and facilitate legitimate travel, transforming the entire homeland security landscape. Our panel of leaders from CBP and DHS Science & Technology reveal this evolution and how it blends cutting-edge innovation with thoughtful implementation.

Featuring:

  • Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection
  • Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security
  • Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator)

This discussion took place at the HSDF’s Symposium Defending the Frontline on June 26th, 2025. 

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Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator):

Not yet.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

So really making sure oh, there, that sounds different Really making sure that all of our efforts and strategies are aligned to the administration's policies, and I think we are in a very good spot. I feel like in CBP we've kind of been built and designed for change. I don't think that's unique to CBP, to CBP, but certainly with our, you know, legitimate travel and trade right, making sure that we are covering our bases and continuing with our modernization efforts there, making sure that we're looking for the emerging technology in that space, pushing, you know, forward on our facial biometrics, leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning in our targeting models, but also in our administrative functions, then our non-intrusive inspection technology. A lot of the big programs that we have, some of them even started under the prior Trump administration. So carrying them through and just adjusting. I think the tempo with any administration change is always interesting as people get up to speed. A lot of new faces that we're encountering. But, knock on wood, I think you know going well for us so far.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

I sure will. So, as the primary science and technology research and development innovations arm for the department, we're used to change. That's what science does. It drives us forward and improves those operations In response to the administration's changing priorities. We have the ability to flex and adapt and so, as we saw the administration say, border immigration security being a top priority, we shifted our resources to focus there. Similarly, we've had a long-standing relationship with TSA, facilitating legitimate trade and travel, and so we really made sure that we bolstered those areas while not ignoring some foundational core areas that we can push forward cybersecurity, ai so making sure that we were really maintaining the scientific excellence to drive those missions forward. I would say S&T is also uniquely positioned to see across the entire department, looking at multi-component mission needs I'm seeing where those challenges really span multiple components and multiple missions and making the best use of our dollars. So if we talk about maximizing government efficiency and the investments, s&t can really do that, driving each dollar for critical solutions that benefit the entire department.

Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator):

I really like both of you emphasize the point that, frankly, dhs and its components. From day one we were formed at a time of incredible change. It has always been a place that never rested on. We're just doing it the same way we always have, continuing on this front. You both had very significant technology, robust plans, programs that you had under implementation. Talk to us a little bit about how you're reprioritizing, what are the ways you are thinking of adapting in this moment and, in particular, your thoughts on partnerships or where you are looking potentially for some of our audience to potentially think a little bit differently about what they come and talk to you about. They're going to start with me this time, and I'm going to start with you.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

You're looking great at me, Thank you. No, that's great. So I mean, one of the great things about science and technology is we do have the flexibility. We work hand in hand with our component partners. We make sure that everything that we do is in lockstep with what they're doing, and so you know the missions, even though some things do change, like the flux in, like what's the most important mission. Our missions are relatively stable, Pivoting quickly. Technology development isn't so easy, but we do our best. We have a number of partnerships. We have a whole Office of Industry Partnerships. We have international engagements. We work very closely with DOD, particularly for border missions, as DOD is becoming a reliable partner for CBP, making sure that we're integrating with those DOD investments as well. So Northcom, Southcom and other component partner, other interagency partners, to make sure that we're driving and leveraging their investments for the border.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

And I should have mentioned, even in the opening right, the tremendous partnership we have specifically with S&T at the department in helping us identify that. You know that emerging technology, looking for you know the gaps, helping us, you know, build out our requirements for the efforts that we have underway. You know, one area in particular that we are very focused on now is our airport modernization efforts and, again, facial biometrics not new right, but the technology where it is today is really enabling us to look at different ways to us and working on that strategy and really it does very much line up with a number of the executive orders we need to. We're not going to staff our way out of volume and workload right, and that's always going to ebb and flow. So, making sure that you know we really categorize the traveling public in particular in our air environment, into categories right, our trusted travelers, our known travelers, and then our unknown travelers. Right, our trusted travelers, travelers, global entry nexus, you know, the lowest risk passengers that have been vetted with information and data that's been provided by the travelers themselves and being able to use walkthrough at speed.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

We're doing an analysis on alternatives now for technology really to get to that space where we have individuals that are going to walk off or travelers are going to walk off the plane through the FIS without even necessarily encountering a CBP officer, even stopping to present their passport, very excited about that.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

We've had some initial iterations of testing that with some kiosks and now looking for how are we going to get that camera placement in our FIS to, you know, and a lot of work with our industry partners, both vendors as well as at the airport authorities and even the airlines, to affect that. And then enhanced passenger primary is also again leverages the facial biometric where there's the auto capture as individuals are walking up to speak to our officers. This is for our known travelers but not our trusted travelers, people that we can really spend, you know, just the time to engage, determine intent, increase situational awareness. And right now we have rolled that out at a number of airports and the population now that's able to leverage enhanced passenger primary is US citizens, the very well-known travelers for the most part.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

But we're going to be expanding that very much, like we did with mobile passport control and some other efforts that we've had underway. So can I add on to this Just to say an example of how S&T supports this mission. We have a Maryland test facility which is a key facility for testing biometrics so that facial recognition where we invite in industry partners. We have the flexibility to bring in all sorts of different passenger types so that we can really characterize how systems work. We can make those modifications to ensure that they work in operational settings to allow passengers to walk through as quickly as possible.

Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator):

Excellent and, I have to say, one of my long-standing views of a truly successful industry engagement is, in fact, s&t's biometrics work just the challenges to industry. That has really, I think, grown the maturity and brought a lot more companies in. It's always been one of my favorite examples of like no, no, that's how we should do it. Continuing on this front. Maybe let's talk a little bit about where we are in terms of other calendars. So we are about to embark on my favorite topic, the decade of sport, starting with FIFA, moving on to the Olympics and a number of other really major events where we will be hosting here in the United States. Talk to me a little bit about what you see as exciting in this space and what you're really looking forward to in terms of both those partnerships again and where you have the opportunity to test out new things in the operational environment.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

First where we landed with the airport modernization understanding and we have been underway with this effort in kind of the strategy and planning, for a number of years understanding that these events were coming. Now it's we're almost quite at game time had some very successful arrivals and engagements with the Club Cup that recently kicked off a number of the teams, but the coordination directly with you know the enterprises that facilitate and sponsor these large scale events and we learn from every single one of them. But certainly leveraging, like our private air facilities, where typically you know small private aircraft but because of the technology that's available for us today, we can process large groups of people that have already been vetted in what's a much smaller footprint. And then taking that frankly and exploiting that for how we're going to reconfigure the FIS, the FIS of the future. Do we need booths in front of us? But very excited that we are where we are with the initiatives that we've been rolling out because, look, I don't want it to land like we're not worried, right, we're always looking for things that could potentially happen, but, I think, situated very well for these, you know, increases in arrivals or the impact of some of our airport locations, but it's also going to be at some of our land border locations. So making sure that we are full steam ahead with testing the facial biometric technology in our land border environment. We certainly got it in the pedestrian, still working to find the right, you know, not just the technology itself, because I think the technology is there. I think it's the con op really that we need, you know, and kind of the you know the infrastructure to support the technology for vehicle facial biometric right. I think we've got the technology that's going to get through the windshields, get through the glare and now it's figuring out how does that work in our space. But I think, set up well, we just had a great meeting with our partners in TSA just yesterday. We're engaged on a regular and recurring basis with looking at all of the opportunities we have, frankly, to share lessons learned. I think we just had a great conversation of the opportunities we have, frankly, to share lessons learned. I think we just had a great conversation.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

We are embarking on, you know, an effort where we've tested receiving baggage x-rays from an airline overseas. Our first location to test that was an American Airlines flight, sydney to Los Angeles and great success in getting those baggage x-rays in advance of the flight arriving, because that means that those bags don't necessarily have to come into the FIS. Again, we're leaving yet another choke point in the process Atlanta and Dallas. Atlanta from Korea and Dallas from London Heathrow are the next two locations that we're hoping to have online in the near term.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

Again, it's small at this point with just the three you know locations, but we believe with the proof of concept we'll be able to scale very quickly as we learn, like who knew there was going to be an issue with privacy with respect to bags and x-rays? But there is and we've gotten through that. Now it's really figuring out what that workflow is. And then again, it's a benefit to CBP, it's a benefit to TSA, certainly a benefit to the carriers and, most importantly, doesn't compromise security, because all of our efforts start with security. They're not about customer facilitation but if we execute the security properly, the immediate byproduct because we're focused on the threats and the high risk is passenger facilitation.

Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator):

I'm happy to move to a slightly different question.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

I have a good response for this. So, while CBP and TSA are working on welcoming in all of our visitors, s&t is really looking at how we deploy assets to protect this critical infrastructure in the stadiums and all the sporting events, all of the events surrounding America 250. And we do this in a number of ways. One we have a very robust counter UAS program. We work very closely with the DHS headquarters and CBP on this actually Secret Service. So we will, you know, get kit, get equipment, expertise, deploy those out to the sites.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

We have plans to protect all 11 of the event sites through our CUAS program. We also have a physical security program where we deploy a variety of different technologies, from protective barriers to wands that can screen. I think the CONOPS is the question there, right, because we can't go scanning everybody. I think the CONOPS is the question there right, because we can't, like, go scanning everybody. We have some other efforts that are related really to critical infrastructure owners where we can either certify facilities or certify the technologies. That's through our safety act to really make sure that everything is safe and the people are protected once they're in those facilities.

Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator):

Excellent, so I'll go on to my next question Now. Both of you have also sort of alluded to the change in threat landscape that we are in. So, looking at some of the not only trends in terms of some of the flows, but also some of the changing threat environment, talk to me a little bit about sort of how that reorients your thinking or focuses on the next problems that you want to add to the list or reprioritize.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

So, from a science and technology perspective, we do keep track of intel and understanding how that impacts, how the technology that's currently deployed may be defeated. So, for example, if there's a new explosives threat, what does that mean for the scanning equipment at airports and ports of entry mean for the scanning equipment at airports and ports of entry? We look at emerging technologies. Those provide tremendous opportunities for us to enhance operations, but it also poses some really great risks to operation, and so we need to make sure that we fully understand what those emerging technologies are and how they are going to impact our operations.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

From there we work very closely with our partners industry, academia, international, governmental to make sure that we are leveraging the best and brightest to advance those, to insert those into operations, and so we're really keeping track of the threat landscape from the technological perspective, more than the bad actors that may be coming in and how that might impact and change what we need to develop and how we need to develop that and partnership, being absolutely critical to meeting any threat and making sure that we have, you know, exploited all of the capabilities you know when, as you know, we see an emerging threat, making sure that we are doing that pulse check and and squaring up on that landscape to make sure that we are leveraging all of the information that we have available to us internally and then making sure that we are lockstep with our partners and have a great understanding of what their capabilities are.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

I also think that's where, certainly at the department level and with the S&T right because they have the visibility across all of the components right what is the technology, what is the information sharing and the things that you know we can gain from their insight into what's going on across DHS and even beyond DHS, for sure.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

But the key things for us is the information sharing agreements, and not just within USG the federal partners but with our state and local partners, but also with our foreign partners. But with our state and local partners, but also with our foreign partners, a number of you know efforts underway to really lock down. We have the automated targeting system, global right, our ATSG agreements. These are the information sharing agreements with a number of our allied countries to make sure that we are enriching their data, giving them visibility on the derogatory holdings right. They have information that they bounce against our systems and we provide that feedback to them. You know, making sure that we are and I'm going to go back into biometrics right, the biometric sharing partnerships that we have with a number of our partners, that we have, you know, good, solid platforms and technology deployed foreign that they are able to leverage again to ensure that we are identifying the threats, frankly, long before they get to the homeland, but also provide our partners the ability to insulate themselves from the threats.

Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator):

Excellent. I'm going to turn, of course, to our favorite topic that no conference can be without these days AI, because everything must be around artificial intelligence. So obviously we know it presents great opportunities and some not insignificant risks to think about how and where DHS will be using it. Going forward, going forward. Obviously, there's a significant emphasis right now underway of how do we change things up to move things a little bit faster, reprioritize and emphasize where AI can be immediately brought to bear. Can you talk to me a little bit about how each of your organizations are thinking about what are the right use cases to move quickly? Where would you like to see your process change as a result? Because, frankly, managing AI is just different, but I'll just let you take it whichever way you want to go.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

Happy to start on that one and a lot of work over the last two years. First one that comes to mind because I talk about it almost on a daily basis in the office. There's always a meeting regarding the artificial intelligence, machine learning that we're deploying to the non-intrusive inspection technology along the southwest border. A lot of lessons learned along the way. I've learned quite a bit about the integrated platform, systems integration. I feel sometimes like our OIT team cringes when I speak to the technology itself or the software part of the technology itself. But you know great success that we've seen with the models that have been deployed. But what we also understand is that it's not one model right, it's not just a handful of models. We really have to open the aperture.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

You know, and we've had great success with empty trailers crossing the southwest border, even in vehicles when we have, you know. We know typically there's only so many places that you can hide something in a car or build. You know, a compartment. Right that you're trying to sneak something past us at the border. Right that you're trying to sneak something past us at the border, but like homogenous loads. These are the, you know, the commodities that are coming off in trailers and how do we, you know, identify the threats in there. So some great industry partnerships that have helped us, but I think there's some lessons learned also from TSA and the great work they've done in baggage right. What have we been able to learn? Yes, we have to identify, look, weapons, kilos these are things that we know what they look like, right. But also, you know what else you know in leveraging AI to help us identify anomalies and, you know, certainly it's having the images right. So, building that library of images and, frankly, sharing that with our foreign partners as well, one of the things that we have been working with OIT on is building out a library where vendors can leverage and opening it up like a marketplace where vendors can come in and leverage the information that we have. Data labeling, if anyone can help us with data labeling, like that's, you know, been, again, another significant lesson learned Unified file format. I know a little bit more about that than I care to, frankly, but these are the you know things that we are working through, I think, in AI in the passenger space. Again, just going to, you know, I think TSA gained a lot from our work in facial biometrics and we are absolutely taking advantage of the work that they have done with AI in bags, but also in our targeting models. We've been leveraging artificial intelligence, machine learning even though we didn't call it AI ML at the time since 2017 in our targeting and it's really sophisticated now and you know some great success in targeting kind of anomalies on the Southwest border and we're building it.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

It's the human in the loop architecture. You know an officer is always making a decision on the information that's, you know, available to them. But it really feels like it's just putting terabytes of information at the fingertips of our officers just to make sort through that data very efficiently and quickly so they can make more informed decisions today. Now, moving from the passenger land border environment to transition that into the air passenger environment I mentioned earlier, like, do we have to talk to every passenger that comes and arrives to the US? No, it's inefficient because we have so much information that can tell us more about that passenger than we can get through in a minute and 30 seconds of talking to that individual. And we have AIML that's going to help us sort that out.

Diane J. Sabatino, Executive Assistant Commissioner (Acting), Office of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection:

And even with and this is where triggering our officers they're trained for unscripted conversations right when an individual comes up to them, they're going to start to try to determine intent, but what they don't necessarily have is, immediately in the moment, the visibility, because they could see passengers from 15 different countries, you know, just in the matter of you know, 15 to 20 minutes, right. But that kind of trigger on you know, like whether it's a handheld device on the screen, we're trying to get them out of booths, it's going to kind of prompt them like this is where the individual is from, this is where they've traveled, because we have this data available and maybe suggest some questions, right, so that they can take the conversation in the direction that they need to to really determine if there's a threat and the noise and augment the human in the loop.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

So S&T is driving forward really in understanding AI models, making sure that it's secure and safe and that data can be exchanged across systems.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

We've worked very closely with all of our components to put those models into systems, making sure that it's not the AI taking over and making the decision about what can come into the country or not, but empowering that officer or agent who's there looking at the data, to make the best decision. We also were looking a lot at how the human and the AI can team right. So what does that look like? What does that look like in the field? And how do we make the officer or agent who knows how to do their job very well, how do we make them comfortable and trust the system and I think that's maybe a lesser exciting topic, but it's really important right, because these men and women in the field they know how to do their job and they do it very well and certainly don't want a computer telling them what to do, but it can be a very powerful force multiplier, making decisions quicker and driving decisions where maybe the data isn't quite as accessible.

Rosanna Anderson, Principal Director (Acting), Science & Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security:

You mentioned a number of use cases where, obviously for immigration. There's a lot of languages, so language translation maybe. There's a lot of reporting that has to happen and so helping generate reports. So I think there's a lot that we can do in this space, which is just to automate some of the more routine and mundane parts of the job in a powerful way.

Patty Cogswell, Former TSA Deputy Administration (moderator):

I love that whole idea of the human-machine interaction and appropriate trust, but also appropriate knowing when to override the machine right. I think we all have our stories of like, early days of like, where things didn't go well A really, really, really long time ago. I remember some of our first biometrics tests with border patrol and realizing that it was not great to show them a score of how good the match was because they didn't know how to interpret it right and realizing you needed to do it a different way so that they understood like. This is where you should ask more questions. This is where there is no question. It is the person and this is where it's highly unlikely it's the person right, just translating in a way so that the human knew what to do with the information I always thought was so powerful.