The Border Patrol will fly a second unmanned aerial vehicle over the Arizona desert beginning this June, according to David Aguilar, the agency’s chief.
The decision to deploy an additional aircraft was made after the first Predator B flying south of the Tucson area assisted in nabbing more than 1,000 illegal immigrants and 400 pounds of narcotics in the 2005 fiscal year.
The second aircraft will give the Border Patrol coverage from El Paso, Texas, to the edge of the El Centro sector in California, and will fly 16 hours a day, seven days a week, Aguilar said at a Market Access border technology conference.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has also said in recent months that he wants to employ more space-based intelligence gathering capabilities along the border to prevent the smuggling of humans and contraband.
DHS now must consider an issue with which the military has grappled: space-based versus sub-orbital remote sensing systems.
“We want to go with a system of systems that address our needs,” Aguilar said. Satellites could periodically fly over an area such as the remote Sonora Desert and pick up new trails being formed by smugglers, Aguilar said. UAVs, meanwhile, can provide real-time intelligence about border incursions.
Such technologies may not be useful on the northern border where thick forest canopies are found. High-tech listening devices might be better suited for such areas, he added.
David Mosher, senior policy analyst at Rand Corp., told a gathering of military reporters that space is a difficult and costly environment to operate in, and should be used only for unique and hard to replace capabilities.
“U.S. photo reconnaissance satellites fly over the U.S. all the time, but there are tasking issues,” Mosher said. DHS will have to determine where and when space-based assets are looking. If DHS is to use military satellites, they might enter a turf war.
“Within the intelligence community there are huge battles over where you task an asset,” Mosher said.
A UAV or a blimp might be better suited for finding illegal aliens coming in under fences, given that satellites don’t provide real-time streaming video, he said.
However, Chertoff and Aguilar have both said they want to extend their intelligence gathering capabilities further into Mexico. That means tracking illegal aliens, contraband and weapons of mass destruction before they reach the border.
“I don’t only want to know what just crossed,” Aguilar said. “I want to know what’s coming at us.” The chief considers the terrorist threat the number one mission for the Border Patrol.
Meanwhile, the expanded use of UAVs may result in another turf war, this one with the Federal Aviation Administration, which has the ultimate control of where UAVs fly.
“The first time we wanted to fly a UAV, [the FAA] wanted us to … have a helicopter follow it wherever we went,” Aguilar said. “That’s not what we want to do.”
DHS Vows to Reform Disaster Response
With hurricane season fast approaching, Department of Homeland Security officials are promising to apply lessons learned from last year’s Katrina disaster by putting key reforms in place before June 1.
At the top of DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff’s list is replacing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s outdated computer and commodity tracking system.
“FEMA’s logistics systems were not up to the task,” Chertoff told a National Emergency Management Association conference.
A FEMA official told National Defense last year that the agency struggled to track commodities such as ice, water, food and medicine. The Washington, D.C., headquarters was unable to locate shipments or do last minute redirecting of trucks to send supplies where they were needed most. Global Positioning System cargo tracking, common in the private sector, has yet to be integrated.
DHS will also end the practice of entering into ad hoc trucking contracts through the Department of Transportation. Such contracts will be sorted out well ahead of the hurricane season, Chertoff said.
Chertoff, who came under harsh criticism for his Katrina performance from White House and congressional reports, admitted that at the time Katrina struck there were still turf battles within the relatively new department. Chertoff and former FEMA Director Michael Brown spent most of February in a tit-for-tat blame game.
FEMA will also end its reliance on volunteer organizations such as the Red Cross to gather information. The Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, and other DHS agencies will be called into duty, Chertoff said. The information will be fed to a unified, virtual command center in Washington.
Acting FEMA Director Dave Paulison said the agency is already stocking up on food, ice and medicine to ensure there are no shortages. The public and media see the timely delivery of such commodities as a key indicator of whether the agency is doing its job.
Both DHS and FEMA will be scrutinized like never before this season, Paulison said.
“Americans want to know if we’re going to be ready for future disasters,” Paulison said.
Chertoff vowed that the short-term reforms will be in place by June 1.
McQueary Leaves DHS, Touts Accomplishments
Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Science and Technology Charles McQueary announced his resignation effective March 25, making him the latest holdover from former Secretary Tom Ridge’s administration to depart.
Only Undersecretary for Management Janet Hale remains from DHS’ birth in 2003 to serve on Secretary Michael Chertoff’s core staff at the Nebraska Avenue headquarters.
During one of his final appearances before Congress, McQueary told the House Science Committee that DHS’ efforts to speed new technologies to the field is on track.
The bulk of research dollars has gone toward applied research, 79 percent, and developmental research, 19 percent, two categories where technology is further along in their evolution. Only 2 percent of the office’s budget has funded basic research, where discoveries may take a decade or longer to reach fruition.
“We are beginning to see knowledge emerge that will provide the foundation for strong and resilient homeland security,” he told the committee.
The Bush administration has requested $1 billion for the S&T directorate in 2007.
Among the directorate’s accomplishments during the past three years McQueary highlighted are:
• Establishment of the cyber security R& D center designed to coordinate efforts with academic and industrial research communities;
• Completion of phase one of the advanced container security initiative, which seeks to create shipping containers that can not be breached in transit to the United States;
• Development of a joint program between the Coast Guard and the Navy on an anti-swimmer system to protect assets from underwater attack;
• Inauguration of the national bioforensics center, which will be the nation’s lead facility identifying perpetrators of biological attacks.
Jeffrey Runge, DHS’ chief medical officer, will serve as the acting under secretary for science and technology until McQueary’s replacement takes office.
Intelligence CIO Seeks to Consolidate Authority
Dale Meyerrose, the first associate director of national intelligence and chief information officer, is putting all the task forces, oversight committees, councils and working groups that operate in his domain on notice. Their days are numbered, he said.
He counted more than 100 organizations in the intelligence community that oversee procurement and management of information technology systems.
“We’re going to eliminate almost all of those, and streamline that down to something somebody can list on a single sheet of paper or count on the fingers of both hands,” Meyerrose told the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
The “committee approach” to solving IT problems is a thing of the past with the formal creation of the intelligence CIO position, Meyerrose said.
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004 mandated the creation of the intelligence information technology czar. The Senate accepted his appointment after a closed-door confirmation hearing.
Meyerrose — who began his tenure in December after serving more than 30 years in the Air Force — is tasked with “managing activities relating to the information technology infrastructure and enterprise architecture of the entire intelligence community,” according to the law. That includes research and development and the procurement of all information technology. That’s a tall order to fill, he said. His first task will be narrowing down that definition.
“If you want to be really expansive, you can say almost 100 percent of the intelligence budget is information technology,” he said.
Meyerrose wants to change the information technology acquisition process, taking it from big concepts and big systems that take years to implement to fast, small-scale rollouts.
“I see spirals in terms of 16-week intervals, not months and years,” he said.
A key concern of senators in his confirmation hearing was the privacy of U.S. citizens, he said. “We need to design privacy into those parts of our information gathering networks just like we design security,” he added.
He cautioned against protecting information to the “nth degree.” “The purpose of information is not to protect it, but to use it.”
Immigration Looking for More Resources
Among the agencies looking for a boost in resources in 2007 is the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is responsible for apprehending and deporting illegal aliens when they make it beyond the Border Patrol’s reach.
Leonard Kovensky, deputy assistant director of ICE’s office of detention and removal, painted a portrait of an agency overwhelmed by sheer numbers
There are 21 teams looking for aliens who have orders to leave the country, Kovensky told a border conference organized by Market Access. There are an estimated 400,000 such aliens, and their numbers grow by 5,000 per month.
“Twenty-one teams cannot even cope with the 5,000 per month,” he said.
By the end of the fiscal year, there will be 44 teams in place, and 52 by the end of the calendar year. The Bush administration’s 2007 budget request calls for an additional 18 teams in 2007. Each team has a goal of apprehending 1,000 fugitives per year.
ICE should start making some headway “after a year or two,” Kovensky predicted.
Once those breaking immigration laws are apprehended, there are several obstacles before repatriation can be carried out. Obtaining travel documents and permission from foreign governments are two common problems that slow the process, he said.
The ICE transportation system is strapped, and the agency is requesting funding for an additional plane, Kovensky said. Commercial airliners rarely want to accept a large number of deportees on one aircraft. The European Union, for example, will only accept five deportees per day. Air France insists on three escorts taking passengers to Sub-Saharan Africa.
ICE must also see that criminal aliens leaving prisons with deportation orders actually depart the country. That doesn’t always happen.
“If we don’t put a detainer on them, interview them and hopefully get a flight order while they’re in prison, then they may just walk after their release,” Kovensky said. ICE is working on placing officers in major penitentiaries and jails to ensure alien criminals don’t remain on U.S. soil, he added.