HSDF THE PODCAST

From the Battlefield to the Homefront: Evolving Threats, Leadership Lessons, and the Strength of the Interagency - 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

In this episode, General Laura Richardson (Ret.) pulls back the curtain on the complex geopolitical chess game happening in our own hemisphere. Drawing from her distinguished 40-year military career, including command of US Southern Command covering 31 countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, she offers rare insights into the factors driving migration to our southern border.

Featuring:

•Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command
•Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service 

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

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Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

We are honored to be joined by General Laura Richardson, retired US Army, and Dr Jerry Alston-Meggett from the US Secret Service. Let's give them a warm welcome. Well, good afternoon. Okay, we can do better than that. Good afternoon there we go, welcome, welcome.

Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

welcome to our fireside chat on From the Battlefield to the Homefront Evolving Threats, leadership Lessons and Strength of the Interagency. As you heard, I am Gerri Austin-Meggett, very happy to be here. I'm currently serving as the Deputy CIO for the United States Secret Service. I see some former Secret Service and UD officers in the crowd, as well as some current Secret Service officers, so thank you so much for joining us. Our very special guest today is General Laura Richardson. Her biography is available on the Homeland Security Defense Forum event page and I highly encourage you to read it, if you haven't already. To set the stage for our fireside chat, however, I will highlight a few of her accolades that will inform our conversation today.

Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

General Laura Richardson is US Army retired, a native of North Glen Colorado Excuse me, a native of North Glen Colorado, excuse me. She's a graduate of Metropolitan State University of Denver, colorado, and the National Defense University. She was commissioned into the US Army as an Army aviator. She is the former commander of the United States Southern Command and has previously served as the commanding general of the US Army North at Fort Sam Houston, deputy Commander of the US Army Forces at Fort Bragg, military aide for Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney and served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. General Richardson is the first woman appointed to command US Army North, the second woman to attain the rank of four-star general in the US Army and the third woman to lead a combatant command. Clearly she is a highly skilled and well-decorated soldier and knows what she's talking about, so let's jump right in.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

So, general Richardson, I have prepared for you three questions, which I'd have to say they're kind of meaty questions, so please take them at your pace and then, if time allows, we'll take some questions from the audience. Thank you, first of all, for being here today and for your 40 years of service. We are honored to be here listening to your sage, wise words of wisdom, based on your experience commanding the Southern Theater, which covers a vast geographic area that includes 31 countries and over a dozen sovereign entities and waterways within Latin America, central America, south America and the Caribbean. What can you tell us, in this unclassified environment, about the drivers of migration to our homeland and the immigration crisis?

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Well, thank you, geri, and thank you for your service and the many decades of service that you have given our nation as well. My pleasure to be here, nice, to meet everybody today as a combatant commander. The Department of Defense splits up the globe into six geographic areas. I had one of those six areas and it included Latin America and the Caribbean. So 31 countries to work with the militaries and public security forces, because some of the countries don't have militaries. Panama, for example, has a public security force, you know, a border force, not a military. So, but work with all of them, as well as our Caribbean partners, on security cooperation, contingency planning, training. We have 28 like-minded democracies in that region and it's important that this region stay that way as part of team democracy, as we've seen others slide from that direction, like Venezuela, like Venezuela, nicaragua and Cuba, and so working with them, you know, championing human rights, the rule of law, the importance of their country's constitution really what does that mean? And just all of that education, training. But you know you learn a lot from being around your peers and your colleagues, right, and so I tried to be with them as much as possible. And so the drivers of migration. So this is the hemisphere with which we live. This is the Western Hemisphere. Like I can fly. My headquarters was in Miami, so I can fly to 80% of the region quicker than I can fly to my hometown of Denver, colorado. Right, and a lot of people don't, you know, don't realize how close that region. You know that's our neighborhood, we call it our neighborhood and so it was my honor to serve there.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

But the drivers of migration, all kinds of things going on, right, I'll start with COVID, because I came in in October of 2021 into command. I had three years in command. I broke that three years down into 12 quarters. Look at things. And how do you operate? Well, the three years seems like a really long time, but it's really not. And so when you look at how our Department of Defense budgets, you know we have a five-year program of budgeting and really to make things happen and to deliver results and deliver capabilities you know you're talking. You're lucky if you can deliver something within a year You're really looking at two or three years. So how do you speed that up? Right, you've got presidents in the region, in these 31 countries that are in the seat generally for one term of four years. They're looking to make a difference for their people in like a couple months, not a couple years. They don't have time to waste and if you can't, you know they're just looking for whatever is out there. Like I said, I came in in October of 2021. We were coming. You know, covid was still alive and well.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

This region is about nine months to a year behind and the GDP impacts that COVID had on this region because this region relies a lot on tourism right was anywhere from 8.5% to 18.5%, depending. That's huge, a huge detriment to their economies. Then you had this crime wave that discovered that they could just flourish in this region, and you have countries that have just been just really a lot of turmoil, that they're just flourish in this region, and you have countries that have just been just really a lot of turmoil that they're dealing with. We also have a lot of US companies in the region and we don't want those US companies to leave. Right, we need that economic investment, we need that impact, and so I quickly realized that economic security is national security for this region and that we needed to keep this investment and keep our US you know what is going to keep our US companies the strategic competition off the charts, right with China. 23 of 31 countries have signed on to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, colombia being the latest one, unfortunately, like a month ago, and so you have a lot of that's a lot of investment in infrastructure, critical infrastructure, which is not good deep water, ports, space, safe city, smart city, technology, 5g. Why is all that investment in the region under the guise of economic investment by a communist country, with the state-owned enterprises that the government controls, and all in critical infrastructure? So you have a lot of things that are going on.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

I mentioned the crime wave. You have Venezuela, where 8 million people, 8 million Venezuelans, have come out of Venezuela into a region that has already hit hard with economic issues and they're having to take care of migration. You have a 1,000-mile drought corridor that impacts this region as well, through Central America. You just have a lot of things that are happening all at once. Right. I would say that this region has been feeding and fueling the world for about 10 years now. There's a lot talked about that in about the 2014 timeframe, with the agriculture 50% of the world's soybean comes from this region, 30% of the sugar in the corn. You got the Amazon right. The Amazon touches eight countries in that region. The biodiversity is off the chart. Off the charts 31% of the world's fresh water. You have the lithium triangle that's in this region 60% of the world's lithium in Argentina, bolivia, chile. Chinese just built the first megaport in South America, just north of Lima, peru. Why did they do that? Like I worry from a military perspective about the you know this being able to flip the application and what looks like you know civilian use and flip it to a military use very, very easily, and so that's what I worry about. But that cuts down 15 days of transit back to China, just north of the lithium triangle. The rare earth elements gold, silver, copper, cobalt fastest growing economy.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Guyana and no, guyana is not in Africa. Guyana is right next to Venezuela, and that's why Venezuela has been threatening Guyana right Because, oh, by the way, just happens to be the offshore oil that was discovered. They want half of it, and that's that disputed region that President Maduro continues to talk about Today in the news. It doesn't hit our national news, but I still watch all the news for the region I was talking about. The governor that Maduro appointed as the governor for the disputed region, which is half of Guyana is delivering 5,000 desks to the people in this disputed area, right, the governor of the Essequibo region, again, which is Guyana, it's not Venezuela, right? So, anyway, you have.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

I've been to the migrant shelters in Colombia, panama and in Guatemala. I've talked with families, families getting ready to make that very dangerous trek, that journey through the Darien jungle. Since then, you know you heard about all this migration through the very dangerous jungle Panama, with a relationship of our administration Trump administration, with the new administration from Panama, have shut down migration through the Darien jungle, which is, in my opinion, great, and the reason why is because it was very dangerous for families. You had the drug cartels that were, that were threatening the families or making them take drugs and things like that, but not just families. You know you used to have a lot of single movers and migration, but now you see the families. But you know, as I talk to these people, these families, you know families with little kids, pregnant wives, you know, getting ready to make a journey through a jungle.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Why are you doing this?

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Where are you going?

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

We're going to the United States.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Why are you going to the United States? Because I want to have a home. I want to have be able to have healthcare, I want to be able to buy food, I want to have a car, I want to be safe, I want my family to be safe. And so it was really, you know, as part of the instruments of national power, diplomacy, information, military and economics. You know, obviously I'm the MPs so wanting to make sure that everything that we were doing for the military, foreign military sales, foreign military financing but that doesn't happen so fast. That's way too slow. We're trying to speed it up, but what else was out there to show investment? What else was Team USA doing to help with investment? We're doing a lot of things. We just don't brand very well. We don't talk about it, we don't brag about it, we don't put our flag on anything. We don't brag about what Team USA is doing for our hemisphere with which we live. We need to do better, but you know.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Again, a quick realization about how do we make the American dream, the America's dream, right. How do we make the American dream the America's dream? How do we have people just feel safe, stay in their country, be able to get a job? Ronald Reagan said the best social program is a job right. People just want to be safe and be able to raise their families. So, anyway, and I think we can do that, I don't think that's too tall of an order, especially with everything that this region has to offer, and then you add tourism on top of that. I think we can do it Right. Right, not too tall of an order.

Dr. Gerri Alston-Meggett, Deputy Chief Information Officer, U.S. Secret Service (moderator):

And I think we have the right people in the room to help us do it. Okay, thank you for that. Question number two, regarding your experience commanding Army North I've had the pleasure of seeing you in action up close, with support to DHS, fema, ep and HHS, cdc and NIH, whether it was the COVID response, hurricane response, fire response or securing our southern border. How would you describe Team USA and the interagency coordination required to protect our homeland? More specifically, which camp are we in? Teamwork makes the dream work or does not play well with others.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

Gotta play well with others, absolutely. We're so lucky to have a national response framework right. Dhs updates this document but when I was in Army North, the and every combatant command, I described what a combatordinate command from every service, including the special operations. And so, for example, if it happens over the land, you know, if it's a disaster, response, covid, whatever it was then the Army command generally got that right. If it was in the, if it was over water or something like that, then the Navy command got that. So we had a lot happen during the period of 2019 and 2021.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

And so all those things about being able to respond and being able to employ active duty military or mobilized reservists or mobilized National Guard right under Title 10 authorities to help with whatever the crisis was, and so like, for example, with COVID, that had to be a request. That was a request from the governor for help, because their capability was overwhelmed. They had already employed their National Guard and it was just too much. And so you know, like with COVID, the first response we had was sending an Army field hospital and actually setting it up inside of the Javits Center in New York City and setting another Army field hospital to Seattle and setting that up inside of the empty event center. But we have a. We have, I mean, there's just two examples right of being able to move out very, very quickly on something that you know to help states be able to handle that situation. And then also that you have the states that have emergency agreements with other states right, and then they'll help too with capabilities and things like that. But we are very lucky to have this, have thought through all of the technicalities, have thought through all of the technicalities. Now, obviously it's a living and breathing document, so it gets iterated and changed as we learn lessons and things like that. But that was extremely helpful to have that national response framework.

Gen. Laura Richardson, U.S. Army (Ret.), Former Commander of Southern Command:

You've got the emergency support function ESFs is what they call them, 15 of them. So, like transportation, communications, healthcare, you know whatever and certain interagency governmental agencies are responsible to participate in those emergency support functions, right. So it requires the interagency to work together, and so I will tell you that I think we've learned a lot from COVID, from Operation Allies Welcome, from the vaccine sites to hurricane response. I went to Southcom then. You know it was crazy, as the National Guard State Partnership Program, our National Guard, have partnerships with other countries. All the same adjutant generals I worked with pretty much during the COVID and OAW. I was working with in SOUTHCOM too, because they had this decades-long partnership with the countries and the region. But the ability of our nation to come together and to overcome disasters and things like that and the recovery and have the interagency we're really powerful, as Team Yo say, when we work together, when we use all of our instruments of national power, we are really, really powerful.