 Good morning, and welcome to all of you who have braved the elements. My name is Stephanie Sanic-Costro. I am a senior fellow in the International Security Program here at CSIS, and until recently I was the acting director of the Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program. We were joking earlier that every time we have a Homeland Security-related event, we have a weather event that same day. So I'm both appalled and pleased to know that our track record is still stellar. But thank you all for braving the elements. If I could ask you to make sure that your electronic devices are set to silent or stunned, I would appreciate it. And we'll go ahead and get this session started. As you know, U.S. citizens and their elected representatives have long emphasized the importance of border security as a national security priority. The new 114th Congress promises to continue the ongoing public debate over a range of much-needed border security and immigration reforms. These reforms will take the shape both of policy shifts and practical changes in program implementation. Here at CSIS, we've been pleased to be part of that discussion, working with Congress, the executive branch, industry, and the entire community of stakeholders to unpack the issues surrounding border security and highlighting key focus areas for action. During our conversations, I have been especially impressed with the vision and real thought leadership coming from our Border Patrol colleagues. These men and women have experienced firsthand the ever-evolving security environment that lies along our nation's borders, covering almost 6,000 miles of Mexican and Canadian international land borders. This evolution is fast, based in part on a rapidly changing and adapting set of threats and risks. Of particular concern are transnational criminal networks which have grown increasingly sophisticated and which now have the potential to converge with terrorist organizations. The U.S. Border Patrol has worked to adapt its strategies and capabilities to meet these emerging risks and vulnerabilities. It's also worked hard to develop quantifiable and qualitative metrics that track progress towards desired outcomes instead of simply tracking investments. Today we will hear from two outstanding public servants on the topic of the Border Patrol's history, risk-based strategy, and methodology for measuring success. First off will be U.S. Border Patrol Chief Mike Fisher, who is responsible for planning, organizing, coordinating, and directing enforcement efforts designed to secure our nation's borders. Chief Fisher entered on duty with the U.S. Border Patrol in June 1987 and has held a number of operational and leadership posts from Arizona and Texas to Michigan and of course here in Washington, D.C. He was named Acting Chief of the Border Patrol in January 2010 and assumed his current position in May of that year. We at CSIS count him as a real friend of our Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Program and as a real thought leader for our nation's security. We'll then hear from Assistant Chief Robert Schroeder, who is the author of Holding the Line in the 21st Century, the three articles that were featured in the Invitation Frutates event for which there are hard copies down at the registration table. One of the articles focuses on the Border Patrol's strategic evolution, one on its risk-based strategy to track illicit networks and one on metrics and risk indicators. Finally, Agent Schroeder is a senior legislative fellow on Capitol Hill, where his colleagues surely benefit from his years of field experience. He has served on the Southwest border conducting surge task force operations, boat operations, air interdictions, excuse me, southbound operations, counter-smuggling operations as a K-9 handler team. He has also commanded two forward operating bases near the international border along the Arizona-New Mexico State Line. Here are two guests speak. I plan to ask a few questions and then turn to the audience for questions and answers. We will end promptly at 11 o'clock so that you can enjoy the snowy wonderland that is DC. Chief Fisher, thank you for agreeing to share your thoughts with us today, and I look forward to hearing your speak. Thank you, Stephanie, and to Dr. Hammery and everybody at CSIS. This is indeed a unique opportunity for me. But first and foremost, to you, your dedication to mission and the fact that you are actually here, given this weather, does wonders for my heart. So thank you very much. So I'm going to take you back to May of 2010. So I get a call to go down to the commissioner's office. At that time, that was Commissioner Berson. And he calls me in the office, and generally when you're new, which I was my first week as the chief, getting a call to go to the commissioner's office as I found out probably not a really good thing to do. So I go into his office and he walks up to me, and I figure this is it. I made a mistake. I'm not the guy, right? And he walks up and he has in his hand this badge. And he's pinning it on me and he whispers to me, I expect you to take the border patrol to the next level. And your expressions were about the same as mine. I didn't know what to say, other than, yes, sir. And then I was immediately dismissed. And I walked out and a couple of things struck me at that point. One is I had no idea what I just committed to and committed the organization to, and I had a very short turnaround to figure it out. So I did what perhaps many of you would do, is gather your smart staff that are more capable and a lot more intelligent than you are, and try to figure this out. And we had a very quick meeting. And after about 30 minutes, three things were apparent to all of us. Which is very rare for border patrol agents to come to consensus on just about anything. Heck, we can't figure out most of the time where to go to eat. It takes us 15 minutes to hash that out. But here's the three things. One, it was clear to us that the environment in which we operated had changed. Number two, our capabilities as an organization had changed as well. And three equally important was there was this convergence on transnational criminal organizations and terrorism. And we need to figure out how we were going to prepare the organization and prepare our defenses on the border against these emerging threats. And that's what started this strategic shift. And so as many of you probably saw, we published the strategy in the spring of 2012 and moved quickly at implementation. And actually, I know Rebecca may not be here anyway from GAO. One of the criticisms from GAO at the time was the border patrol doesn't have a timeline for implementation. They don't have a plan for implementation. What was happening is we were changing our operations as we were developing the strategy. We weren't going to wait as a procedure or process, which I know is somewhat antithetical in this town, but we wanted to move forward very quickly. And as we were learning about our strategic shift, we were making operational adjustments on the fly. And we did that throughout. So we didn't stop and have an 18 month planning session to do another 18 months of implementation. And so we quickly shifted over to that implementation. And it was right about that time in 2013, about towards the end of 2013, we felt that we were off to, we thought at the time was a good start of what we thought this strategy was going to look like. We had set at least in our mind the metrics that we believed made sense to us beyond the traditional apprehensions, for instance, about how we were going to assess the extent to which we thought we were successful in this endeavor. And so our baseline numbers were gathering all through 2013. We were kind of taking a pause. And there's one thing that occurred is the discussion during this whole process from 2010 to 2013, and as it turns out, into 14 really hadn't changed. Because I still get the questions, chief, is the border secure or not? And everybody looking at security is if we all understand what that means. And as we were trying to understand members on the hill and people at the department and what they thought the end stage should look like, we couldn't wait. And so we quickly, as we were devising the strategy and the implementation, we came up with our own. I'm not suggesting it was the right one, by the way. And hopefully we can have some of that discussion today. I'm just suggesting we had to set an end state and some objectives to get this thing started. Because like some of you may have heard, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. And so in 2013, it also occurred to me that we have not done a very good job articulating the narrative about what we just did to have those discussions. And so at that time, I had the opportunity to talk to John Staff Assistant Chief Robert Schroeder. I've read some of his work before. He happened to be assigned to headquarters and I gave him very little direction. He came into my office. I said, Robert, I've read some of the stuff that you've had published and I've got a favor to ask. And this was, by the way, he wasn't gonna be pulled from all of his other assignments. This was kind of those other duties as assigned. So don't let that stuff that you're supposed to do slip. But what I need you to do is tell our story. And he said, okay. He said, who's the audience? I said, I'll make it easy. It's for everybody. It's for internal consumption within the first line supervisors to the board of patrol agents that are just graduating from the academy to the chief patrol agents that are out there in the largest sectors that we have. It's for people up on the hills, for anybody that is interested in understanding what we're doing. And he kind of gave me a stare. He said, that's very difficult to do. And I said, oh yeah, by the way, we want it short. You know, so it's the old Mark Twain. He said, well chief, this would have been, I would have made this longer, but I didn't have enough time, right? So he had a very, in a somewhat truncated schedule, self-imposed timeline, is to come up as Stephanie indicated and try to tell our story. It doesn't suggest in that article anywhere that the border is more secure than it's ever been. What it is is to start a discussion. Perhaps a different narrative than we've had in the past about what it means to secure the border. And it's from our perspective, and it's told by Robert. And at this point, I'd like to have him explain how he went about doing this. Robert. Chief, thank you for the introduction. Thank you all for coming. I appreciate you braving the weather, especially the congressional staff that made it today. I know this is the first day and one of the busiest days for you on the 114th Congress. I appreciate your time. Chief introduced the, it was about telling our story. We had to tell our story. We had to get it out there. We had to tell why we changed, how we changed, and how we ultimately measured that over a period of time. So I'll have to prepare brief remarks for you. Holdin' the line of the 21st century includes a series of three articles written to provide a brief overview of Border Patrol's long journey and gradual evolution to our current risk-based strategy. And to illustrate why a new strategy was necessary. They were written for both internal and external audiences, as Chief has pointed out. Everyone. These articles touch on numerous events and elements relevant to our evolution, but center around one of the most significant periods of change in the Border Patrol's rich history, which began with the release of the 2012-2016 Border Patrol Strategic Plan, officially began. As you noted, it really began before that, the thought process and the planning. Historically, activity levels coupled with the ever-increasing deployment of resources guided our deployment and planning activities. Today, resource deployment planning activities are guided by a much more holistic view of border security and the border security environment, one in which there is a greater reliance on intelligence, capabilities, and focused, targeted enforcement against individuals and networks responsible for a majority of the crime in a given area. Instead of just reactively plugging holes in the border, our planners started looking for the best ways to work with interagency partners to combat the greatest risk to border security, national security, and public safety. While the 2012-2016 Border Patrol Strategic Plan provided a blueprint for the Border Patrol to effectively transition to a more comprehensive assessment and planning approach, it was a statement made in 2010 during a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security, which paved the way for a creation and adaptation of the new approach. It was a tipping point of sorts. And throughout our history, I'm sure that we'll look back at that point as a point which has started to change for us. During the hearing, border patrol leaders testified the U.S. Border Patrol had spent $3.5 billion on border security between the ports of entry alone, yet controlled only 3%. Now, to give you a perspective of what that would have looked like under resource-based strategy, that means we would have needed 77,000 Border Patrol agents or a budget in excess of $100 billion. Today, we have a little over 21,000 Border Patrol agents. The statement made my Border Patrol leaders at the House hearing indicated that either the Border Patrol was one severely underfunded or the Border Patrol needed a better way to convey what was happening along the border. I knew from personal experience and working on the Southwest border and with my fellow agents that the 3% number that we reported didn't relay the good work that Border Patrol agents were doing for the American people. The three articles we discussed there today should help convey some of what was happening along the border. Each covers a different segment of the Border Patrol's history. In writing them, I wanted to draw on real-world examples that illustrated what we were doing not only made sense, but it worked in the past in both public and private industries. The first article in the series titled A Strategic Evolution was designed to provide readers with information on the Border Patrol's simple and humble beginnings, and to illustrate why a change in strategy was necessary and inevitable, given the complexity of the modern border environment. The resource-based strategy included by the Border Patrol in 1995 and later in 2004 was a step in the right direction, but proved unsustainable over the long term. Lessons learned from these strategies included a realization that in order to truly address the complexities of border security, the Border Patrol had to examine all elements of current and potential threats and consider all available options to proactively address them. Within the first article, lessons learned from the U.S. military during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and by NASA when designing and developing and deploying the International Space Station were examined to draw parallels between critical elements of our risk-based strategy and risk management approaches taken by other government agencies. The second article in the series of risk-based strategy was written to show how the U.S. Border Patrol made that shift, specifically how the Border Patrol leveraged the Department of Defense, intelligence community, and other inter-agency partners to develop and adapt planning tools needed to effectively implement the new strategy. First of these tools was threats, targets, and operational assessment. This was completely designed to address the capability gaps, to understand the capabilities of both the adversary and our own capabilities. While friendly assessments helped identify inter-agency knowledge and capability gaps, as well as the potential action to mitigate those gaps. The intelligence preparation of the operational environment was the second tool. Those with a DOD history will know that that was heavily borrowed from the joint publication too. It also addresses the courses of action adversaries are likely to take in the future. The IPO methodology was heavily influenced by the Department of Defense. And finally, the Border Patrol planning process, or BP3, was developed to help leaders more clearly define mission objectives and specific problems within their areas of responsibility and to develop appropriate courses of action to achieve those goals. Historically, Border Patrol operations were predominantly based on activity levels and tactical intelligence garnered from arrest. Again, we were plugging holes and fences. If it was busy, we put agents there. The Border Patrol planning process helped planners conduct a more thorough mission analysis and adopt a more comprehensive and proactive approach to operations. Third article in the series, measuring security, answers the question as to how we know we're winning, if we are indeed winning, and measuring progress towards that end. In the end, a secure border is one of low risk. The Border Patrol considers an area to have low risk when we have a confidence in our situational awareness and understanding of imminent and emergent threats and confidence in our A&R agency abilities to address those threats. While we had a way to generally define low risk, we still needed a way to measure our progress toward that end. We needed a way to measure outcomes of operations and campaign plans. They went beyond the typical inventory of assets, seized or subjects arrested and detained. Recognizing that no single metric to be taken individually can prove success. We developed a preliminary set of risk indicators to analyze elements of risk along our border and evaluate the progress we were making in relation to our goals. Before 2012, if you asked a Border Patrol agent if we were winning, he would say, absolutely. And he would point to number of arrests and seizures to show you that. Regardless of whether they went up or down, we were winning. We had no other way to explain it. This isn't to suggest we weren't succeeding in our mission. We just didn't have the capabilities needed to understand and demonstrate what was actually happening along the border. As we all know, metrics are only as good as the data used to develop them. So the Border Patrol had to first build a foundation of consistent and reliable data on cross-border incursions. Not simply data on what we were catching, when possible, we also had to incorporate data on what we were not catching and the unknown. Today, the Border Patrol does not describe borders controlled or uncontrolled, but instead uses a variety of indicators, intelligence estimates, capability assessments, commander judgment to assign areas with risk category of high, medium, or low. The Border Patrol also continually validates and reevaluates these risk determinations to ensure operational postures are consistently based on current risk. In closing, I'll leave you with a few thoughts on Border Security that became very evident as we wrote these articles and I spoke with dozens of agents representing over 1,000 years of Border Patrol experience. Border Security is not an in-state to be achieved and revisited every five or 10 years. Rather, it's a constant battle we fight every day in one which we must be vigorously engaged. There is also no panacea for Border Security. No silver bullet is out there. Horst Riddle and his definition of a wicked problem explains it best. There is no solution. There is only better or worse. There is only the system and that's what Border Security is, a continual struggle. Resources will be needed to secure the national border. However, using a risk-based strategy to guide our operations will ensure Border Patrol maintains a realistic view of Border Security and continues to work with interagency partners to combat the greatest risk to Border Security, national security, and public safety. And ultimately, the articles answer those big three questions. Why we changed, how we changed, and how we measure if we're winning or not, making progress towards it. And with that, I'll turn time back over to Stephanie. Thank you. Well, thank you both. I'm gonna exercise the moderator's prerogative and ask each of our guests one question first before opening it up to the floor. The first question I have is for Chief Fisher and that is regarding your hopes for this trilogy of articles. As I mentioned earlier, I've been very impressed with thought leadership and establishing vision and having a strategy for the Border Patrol. But the question I have is when, I can understand from an audience perspective, I'm not in the Border Patrol, I can take these articles using my own experience, but your hope for what folks in the field will take away from these articles, what was your intent from a Border Patrol specific perspective? Thank you, Stephanie. Well, for the Border Patrol agents, my intent was for every Border Patrol agent, regardless of how long they've been in the organization or where they currently are stationed, and regardless of what rank they may or may not hold, is to read it first and foremost, which was mandatory by the way for all the Chiefs, and have a better understanding of what we as an organization are asking them to do, first and foremost. Secondly, I would hope that they could envision that which they are doing plays a much larger role in border and national security, because many times and often times when I talk with Border Patrol agents in the field, we talk about kind of network operations and we talk about the threat of terrorism, and yet to a Border Patrol agent who's been out on the line, say for instance, in Calexico for five years, will raise his hand and say, Chief, I've never seen a terrorist here, what are you talking about? And making them understand that what we're asking them to do day in and day out plays into a much larger, very complex security system that we're not gonna solve on our own. And so for the internal audience, it was really for hopefully they can understand one, where we are, where we're going and their contribution to that overarching mission. I appreciate that. Agent Schroeder, I have a question regarding the risk-based strategy that you outlined in the second of your three articles. You mentioned in your remarks just now that it's not a resource strategy because throwing resources at this set of challenges won't necessarily lead to the outcome that we're trying to pursue. And so can you talk a little bit about the risk-based strategy, its limitations? You mentioned also there's no panacea or silver bullet short-term fix that this is really a long game. This is the longer-term strategy. There are gaps, there will be vulnerabilities. So how does one think about a risk-based strategy? How does one wrap one's head around the idea that there will be gaps and eventually we'll try to address those gaps, but first things first, what's the strategy? Situational awareness, A number one. The resource-based strategy we talked about through resources at the border, it based completely on activity levels. In the articles we talked a little bit about the deployment of the International Space Station. I wanted to draw real-world parallels to what was going on and what we were doing. So the space station was designed in specific areas, thicker in some areas, thinner in other areas to specifically combat risk of impacts. And in the same way on the border, the articles are probably the first step. Reading those articles, understanding those articles, understanding the risk-based concept in that we address the threats, we use those three tools. We, the intelligence, the analytical process and the planning process, it's not an end state. It's an enduring state. It's a continual process in which we're going to struggle and the border environments change for us. As the articles talk a little bit about prohibition, it talks about smuggling alcohol. We don't smuggle alcohol anymore. We don't have that. It's drugs and alcohol and other aspects on the border, but things change over time and the border patrol had to do something better to dictate or to articulate how it was actually changing. And the articles kind of hint towards that. The follow-up question then would be measuring that. As you try to quantify risk and you try to quantify, you know, and I know from a Hill perspective, the demand is always, you know, what metrics are you using? So how can we figure out whether we're getting to where we need to be? So what is your reply to folks on the Hill or elsewhere who say, you know, the metrics of the past, you know, we're not useful because if the numbers were high, you were winning. If the numbers were low, you were winning. You know, it didn't really tell you anything. What's different about the system going forward that you can actually measure success? So measuring success for us is different in that we take the border environment holistically. We compare everything, not just the apprehensions. It's kind of, we go back to the articles, we talk about the inventory of assets and the reactivity of what we were doing. Sure, if we were apprehending, we were doing everything that we could, but there were things that we knew were getting past us. There were capability gaps that we knew, but we never considered that in our planning. Typically the border patrol before this, we would look at traffic, we would look at activity in a given area and then we'd create an operation specifically for that traffic just in a reactive posture, but looking at the border patrol holistically, we needed to understand apprehensions alone meant nothing to us. If you're apprehending 1,000 and 10,000 are getting away, what did you really accomplish? So we needed a way to understand the entirety of the border environment and the TTOA and our analysis tools do that for us. I would now like to open it up to the floor for questions. Just a couple of reminders. If you would wait for them, I will call on you. If you would wait for a microphone to come to you, state your name and affiliation if you have one and please do ask a question. I encourage you to make short statements, but at the end of the day, ask our guests a question that they can answer. So first up, anybody willing to, if we could go to that gentleman in the back. Thank you, Britt Mitchell, Renaissance Institute. Just as an outsider's question, when the thing happened with the children last year at Brownsville, I'm fairly familiar with your operation, but I just was really curious to find out, did the border patrol back off on methodology in order not to turn away thousands of kids or how did these kids get over at that Brownsville crossing? Well, when we started seeing the trend increase in the spring and it peaked right around June of last year, and really, I mean, it's happened before. We haven't seen it at least in South Texas and in that greater numbers as it related to individuals from other countries in Mexico, for instance. Our methodology didn't change. We were still making the apprehensions once the detections were met. If you haven't been to, you know, Brownsville, Texas and get up on the levee and look there's a river there, and so a lot of what a lot of people think about the border is different in that area. And so preventing people from ever crossing the Rio Grande Valley, at least in that area, is just not practical. What we wanna be able to do is ensure that we're able to, once we detect them, is make the apprehension and do that in a higher proportion than perhaps we've done in the past. And with the department really learned from that, and I give the secretary a lot of credit for this. When the numbers started going down in July, we just didn't say, woo, I'm glad that's over, right? We said, okay, let's look at this and find out what we need to do. And the secretary, even in the spring, was talking about the unity of effort. Some of you may have heard that. And if some of you were here a couple of months ago, the secretary laid out, I thought, quite clearly a really good case and he introduced the Southern Border and Approaches Campaign Plan. And then introduced a couple of weeks ago, the task forces that are gonna stand up that effort, all of that was part of this learning process. And so it wasn't just, hey, the kids are coming across, what are you gonna do? I think what Robert talked about, that was our typical reaction. What's really important is when the numbers go down, the question should be, now what are you gonna do? Right, because we tend to go from crisis to crisis, and that's not a pejorative, that just, in some organizations, that's, and especially in the environment in which we operate now in terms of information, the instantaneous, everybody understands what's happening in the field, whether you're at a municipality or you're at the border. And people get very reactive and that somehow feeds and is very contagious at times. And that's just my own personal experience here in Washington, but that's not an organizational position. That's just the reality in which we have to operate. But we have to stop going just from crisis to crisis and really think these through. And the secretary and his team have done a really good job of pre-positioning the department in the future, whether the unaccompanied children come back or not. This is just another incremental evolutionary step to do integrated counter-network operations better than we have before. But thank you for that question. I can call on this gentleman up here. Thank you very much. Excuse me, Ted Alden with the Council on Foreign Relations. Well, that's a question about metrics. You noted that there's an internal and an external face to that. There's what you wanna measure within your organization in order to get the kind of results you want. And then there's the story you wanna present to the public. Is it critical that the metrics that you're using be the same for internal and external purposes? I mean, is it okay to have kind of one set of internal metrics that you don't share? And then another set of external metrics. I mean, putting aside things like national security confidential information which you might wanna keep internal. But putting that aside, is it important to have a single set of metrics for both internal and external facing purposes? Well, Ted, that was a question I was gonna ask you in about a week or two. So I'd like to get your answer to this, by the way. You know, we're still, we're having that discussion now, right? And I've heard both sides of the argument. I'm kind of gonna hold off my vote until I get a little bit better informed. I come from the school of give everybody everything, right? Which just freaks a lot of people out. Just give it to them. Whether they can understand it or not. If they misinterpret it or use it to bash the organization, that's certainly their prerogative. But it shouldn't limit those that are really interested, right? And I think if we do more and more engagements like this or have a session like we've done before, Ted, when you sit around and say, okay, well tell me again why you think the average apprehension per recidivist, which is one of the 12 measures indicators that we've identified. Why is that important? And tell me, first of all, explain to me why it's important. How is that different than just an apprehension? And then tell me mathematically how you calculate that. I mean, I'm not a math genius by any stretch. I've got some very smart folks who walk folks down. But we shouldn't just don't give it to people because they won't understand it. But I also heard that, you know, if in fact you give everybody everything, I mean, the security notwithstanding in terms of we don't want to divulge everything, you know, tactics, techniques, and procedures. But when it comes to the actual numbers, a lot of it, if it's too confusing, then nobody really understands. So part of that external message is, geez, I don't care about the numbers. I don't care how you calculate the Z score or why it's used, right? And if you say standard deviation, one more time, chief, I'm gonna slap you, right? I just want to know, is the border secure and how do you assess that? And so there's some ways you can, maybe just do a home page, right? And for those that are interested and want to delve a little bit deeper into that, there's a certain forms for that. I think we just, we have to stop doing this all or nothing, right? And we start looking at the specific audiences and try to tailor what that message should be. But we're still having those discussions and any insight into that would help in the cause, for sure, thank you. Gentlemen across the aisle from him, please. Ben Ball with CrossMatch Technologies. I'm wondering, you know, you say, you don't want to pin the metrics on one particular metric, you want to spread that out. Great, and you're going on a risk-based strategy, but that sort of begs the question, what's an acceptable level of risk? That is an excellent question. You know, let's take a look at the different types of threats, right? So if you say what is acceptable in allowing a terrorist into the United States along the Southern border? That level of risk is very small, in my mind, right? We have to do everything and anything. And which, by the way, the reason why, when we look at how do we assess that risk, right? First, we take a look. If anybody asks me, chief, is the border secure or not? We transition that to what is the state of the border? So, okay, let's take a geographic section. If you're talking about the Arizona corridor, let's have that discussion about Arizona. Because what I'm about to explain in Arizona may or may not apply in a place like South Texas. So the first thing we do, and this is a continuous process, by the way, is we'll take a look at what the intelligence estimates are. We'll take a look at the current intel. What is intel telling us in terms of the intent and capability of any particular adversary, regardless of who they are in that spectrum, and to find the threat for us? That's not the border patrol doesn't do that. We don't own that, we're the consumers of that. Then we assess vulnerability and consequence on our side and we try to identify what the risk is. So that's one whole section, right? The second section is understanding those risk indicators that we were just discussing, about 12 or so of those. What do they mean in a geographic area in comparison to other corridors? And third, as Robert mentioned, was our situational awareness. How well do we think we know what's happening in the environment? Then we can really discuss and assess that level of risk. But the level of risk for allowing a terrorist into this country is a lot different than allowing 6,000 unaccompanied children coming through South Texas. And we have to really start thinking about threat differently because they're not all equal. And yet throughout history, again, it's just because as we're evolving this, we used to just look at the border because not only was it resource-based, we took the approach that we're gonna grab and hold terrain. Independent, it was just get them on the line and once we've got a piece of that dirt, we're gonna hold onto it. Well, lo and behold, there's a lot of dirt to hold onto, so what now do you do? And so that was part of it. Not all risk is equal, and again, we're not espousing that we're the experts in an understanding risk and mitigating risk. There's a whole host of those, and perhaps some of you in the audience that can help us in the out years trying to understand how we actually implement and manage this. We're really at the infancy in understanding this new shift in our strategy and how do you assess risk? And by the way, the border patrol's not going to be the only one dictating what is acceptable. There's a whole bunch of voters out there, and I'm sure are gonna have a voice in this. Actually, if I could follow up on that and ask Robert a question regarding, not all risks are created equal, and when you have a risk-based strategy, you have to take several factors into consideration. One of your articles talked about a traditional approach and traditional capabilities and technology, and so could you talk a little bit about capabilities in approaching the risks as identified in a strategy and the sort of integration of traditional and technology as methods to approach this kind of risk? Sure, so when we talk about traditional and technological assets or capabilities, traditional as we be talking about a sign cutting, border patrol is an art. It's literally the tracking of individuals across the border. It's the flashlight you see on border wars, it's the TV that you see, it's the gung-ho border patrol agents out there in green uniforms that are actually tracking them down and putting hands on individuals, and that's the way typically it's been done for the majority of our history. Chief talked about the border environment and our capabilities are changing. That comes along with underground sensors, fixed towers, radar trucks, all types of technology. Specifically, we talked a little bit about UAS and the capabilities that they bring, especially in the change detection area. I mean, it flies over, takes a picture of the board, flies back, takes another picture, and we compare those two. That kind of situational awareness is something that we've never had the ability to do that. So that in and of itself has given us better situational awareness, which has led us to the metrics that we have today that allow us to understand what's happening on the border in a more consistent manner. You mentioned unmanned aerial systems or UASs, and I know a lot of the technology has been developed for the military that's being applied now for the border patrol, but some things have been developed specifically for border patrol or for law enforcement, generally speaking. So it's not always military style technology. One thing that I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about is sort of interagency partners. You mentioned the border patrol is one piece of it, and as you use technology and you talk about interoperability, not only a common threat picture, but also being able to work together with whether it's Office of Air and Marine or if it's other pieces of CBP versus working with the U.S. military and National Guard comes to mind in some instances in the recent past. So could you talk a little bit about, you mentioned interagency partnerships, but expand upon that in terms of how that impacts the articles that, the thoughts behind your articles. How do you integrate interagency folks? So interagency folks, and when we talk about integration, when the second article talks a little bit about the Black Swan theory, and it's one of the more common questions I get about the second article and what that is. What was that for us? And it was literally unrestrained integration. It is the ability that we have through the interagency process, when we want to, when we focus on individual targets to stop crime, to stop illicit border activity, that no doubt came from Rob Rosas' murder, 2009. But also the South Texas campaign. When the South Texas campaign was developed, it had to bring everyone in the same room and it had to go beyond co-location or cooperation had to be true integration. It had to have everyone in the same room, all the intelligence on the table. We had to pick specific targets, we had to vote on those targets and we had to not only tell each other what we're gonna do against that, but we had to focus in on individual targets responsible for that. And then of course we've had DOD on the border, Title 32 and Title 10 working with us for some time. So that lesson that came from the unrestrained integration in Rob Rosas' murder and how we brought those individuals to justice led that revolution on how we enter into the environment into the work. Thank you. This gentleman up here please. Renan Horowitz from Elbitism of America. First Chief, just on a recent visit that you hosted us on the border, I would say that we've seen clear evidence that the thought process down to the agents is changing and everybody's talking about risk-based and developing their own metrics and stuff. So I wanna compliment you. I think it's definitely deployed down to the troops on the border. My question specifically is when you look more strategically at risks in the future, what do you see is the primary risks for a secure border environment? From a strategic perspective and regarding the metrics, what kind of lead metrics are you looking at in order to help you predict and foresee what's gonna happen in the next two, three, five years ahead that you need to really get ready for? That's a great question. Thanks. So for the first part of the question, I think everybody was so focused on the unaccompanied children. I'll kinda go back to that example. And there was a lot of discussion about what are you gonna do with the kids and is Border Patrol feeding them? And there was just hordes of people, I mean, thousands of days, you can imagine, right? What we were looking at is who's maybe mixed in with that group, right? Because when you start looking at groups of 50 just coming across and by the way, a lot of them weren't running away from Border Patrol agents. I mean, it was a smuggler's paradise. Smugglers were collecting the fees and pointing them across the river and said when you get to the levee, sit down, a Border Patrol agent will be there within 30 minutes, right? So there's no risk to the smuggling organizations. They were making a lot of money, no risk, and all these people started coming across. Again, because there's no impediment there to stop people from crossing. And so when you look at the strategic, whether you couch it as a mass migration or not, when you have a lot of people infiltrating a specific area, you don't know who these people are, at least we don't, until and unless you do the biometrics and you sit down and you talk with them. And when you have that many people coming across a specific area, now you have to be able to move some of those agents that were typically on patrol or response to the detection to make the interdiction and now you have to transfer those agents into transportation, get them away from the border. So you're starting to thin your force in terms of a potential threat that's going to exploit, not because the kids are a threat necessarily when it comes to national security interests, but people exploiting the circumstances to come in either behind that or with them. So that's one. Leading indicators for us, and I won't bore you with all the metric, is what we call first time entrance. And it is exactly what you think. It's we wanna be able to track people that are coming into the United States or in our systems biometrically for the very first time. Because it's not about the individuals, right? And if you look in the third article a lot, or if you take a look at the 12, it's not about people, it's not about marijuana. It's about the business model of these transnational organized criminals. It is the counter network interdependencies. And so when you look at like a first time entrance, matter of fact, that was the only way we were able to point and tell the commissioner when he asked us, hey, in 2011, we're gonna invest our last dime in Arizona and we're gonna be successful in Arizona. And chief, I need you to tell us where the next Arizona's going to be, right? Squeeze the balloon, everybody's heard that over the years. And so no one has ever been able to predict this before. And so we had some smart folks that said, well, how about we look at the data differently? How about we take a look at where proportionally along the Southern border, people are showing up for the very first time. Again, it's not about the people, it's about the business shift. And the smugglers who decided we're gonna start moving elsewhere because it's too difficult to go in this particular area. And lo and behold, for a three year period, the vast majority of individuals crossing the Southern border for the very first time were showing up in South Texas. Two years before South Texas was a blip on anybody's radar, but that was one leading indicator. And we're looking at others to be able to make those judgments to talk about in the future what our resource requirements may be. And how about, hey, how about we start shifting border patrol agents and beefing up a particular area in advance of a potential surge instead of reacting to it? So we're starting to look at the data a lot different than we have in the past. Great question, thank you. The lady over in the corner, please. Good morning. My name's Laura Stump, I'm an Arizona native. And I had a question about the relationship of border patrol to border communities. As we know, there's people who live on the border have a wide spectrum of opinions on everything from wanting more policing, wanting more patrol. And then some people who have unfortunately had a lot of grievances against border patrol and the increased militarization of their communities. I was wondering, from your perspective, how do you see that the opinion and dialogue has been carried out? I mean, the opinions of the border communities have been taken into account and strategy, and how do you plan to include them in the future? Again, another excellent question. I think the communities in which we serve are paramount to helping us think through. I mean, it's one thing about looking at the border and from a strategic context and going out to a rotary club and say, hey, we're with the border patrol, we're the experts, deal with it, right? We don't do that, at least we shouldn't. What we wanna be able to do is understand, because the constituency out there aren't inconvenienced by the checkpoint. They're not, just because the border patrol agents are tracking a group through their yard and the dogs barking, right? We don't wanna be the nuisance. We want them to help us understand that border environment, add to that situational awareness. We rely on those communities and the leadership in the field meets with them frequently because they're a really good source of information. I'm not talking about as a confidential informant about, hey, I noticed the dog started barking the last couple of weeks and that hasn't happened in the last three months. We wanna be able to involve them, first and foremost, have them understand what we're doing in terms of our deployments. I'm not saying they all have to agree with the way we're doing it, but at least give them the opportunity to understand this is what we're doing and this is why we're doing it and then get their reaction to that. Understand what their concerns are so that we can adjust as needed and recognizing that we don't wanna be on their property any longer than we need to, right? But it is a critical component. When Robert's talking about integration, looking at our federal state tribal partners, that's going to be critical, but that's not to the exclusion of the communities in which we serve. They ultimately are going to dictate the extent to which we either encroach upon their rights or we encroach upon their property and we really wanna be good stewards in that regard as well. The question in the back. My name is Eric Ellsmore. I'm with Continental Consulting. I had a question regarding GAO, I believed that a study a few years back between man versus unmanned aerial intelligence capabilities and just wondering if you could describe maybe some of the benefits, cost advantages, et cetera, differences between those two capabilities that I believe you used man to aerial assets more recently and maybe how that progressed since you started that. Right, I'll be honest. I'm not really very familiar with the GAO study, but my broad reaction would be the CBP Air Marine Office within US Customs and Border Protection has a variety of platforms. They do specific missions. So if you say, hey, is an A star valuable? I would say yes if it's giving air to ground support and it's for deployed and it's only being flown once we have a tip and cue and we have a target to go after. If you say is an A star valuable and I say, well, what's the mission? And you say, well, we want it to go up and down the border and detect people from coming across. My answer is that it's probably not the best utilization of that asset and the same could be true of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter or a UH-1H UE or unmanned aerial system. So it's not one size fits all. And so again, not familiar with their study and whether it's cost effective, we just wanna make sure that we're utilizing the capability in its best intended use and not just using it just because we have another platform out there. So let's just get up in the air and start looking for people. Which by the way, 10 years ago, we needed them because we didn't have a lot of detection capability. And by the way, and Robert can probably appreciate this also, as a Border Patrol agent working by myself in the middle of nowhere and not being able to get communication out. When I started hearing helicopter blades coming from the North, and all of a sudden I would hear this pilot get on and say, hey, 631, this is Fox, you got any traffic? I'm here to support you. I mean, that person was my best friend. So yeah, so Border Patrol agents always want air because a lot of times that's the only either comms relay out or they know somebody, if something happens, a pilot's gonna land and help them. I can actually just ask a little bit about the changes that have happened in the Border Patrol in the last 10 years. The growing use of unmanned systems, whether they're piloted or unmanned systems, drones per se, or aerostats, for example, mobile aerial surveillance, things that you can use a truck to go ahead and shift spaces. The fact that the Border Patrol has grown so much since 2004. Robert mentioned over 21,000 agents. I mean, that's something that I think a lot of people would be surprised. You've got back to 2004, I think that's almost double or more than double what you all had in 2004. So if you talk a little bit about what's happened in the last 10 years and where you see that trajectory going in terms of the capability of the Border Patrol, unmanned systems, some have questioned, do we need as many agents if we have this technology? How do you address those kinds of questions? That's a great point. And my quick answer is it's an art, not a science. There's not a set of instructions that comes with an aerostat when we get a handover from DoD and say, hey, this is how you should deploy it and you can reduce your level of staffing by 30% because that's what happened to us when we deployed it. And I wanna thank General Swan since he's here and the great work that he and his team did along with Northcom and JTF North because over the past 10 years, traditionally what was happening as a military was being deployed in theater, oftentimes they would take emerging technology and come on out to the border. One is because the environment in some of our border locations were very comparable to what they were going to be facing and they wanted to test and evaluate some of the equipment. On the other hand, we had between 90, 180 days at times to gain some additional detection and monitoring capability, so it helped us out. And the military in those instances really taught us on how to absorb different technology because if you give a border patrol agent any piece of equipment, he or she's gonna use it to the equivalent of what they're used to, right? A quick example, one of the first unmanned aerial systems that we got, border patrol agents were like, great, this is like another helicopter. So get it up there and when a border patrol agent calls, then they're gonna slew the UAS, right? And gonna tell the border patrol agent if he's close to the group or not. Only because that's all we knew. And so early on, as we were getting more and more equipment and learning this process, we had to teach the organization how, and we're still learning ourselves on what is the best fusion of all these different types of capability. 10 years ago, if I was in Arizona, there was no command center. I wouldn't have the responsibility as some of those agents do now, is trying to, there's gonna be a shift tonight. It starts at four o'clock, we're gonna run that shift for 10 hours. And there's one watch commander who has to determine where are the 15 mobile surveillance systems going to be located? Which one of the unattended ground sensors are not working and how are we gonna cover that particular gap? I've got five fixed wing, or two fixed wing that run an EOIR, I've got three helicopters, two of which are gonna be forward deployed on standby. I got two UASs. One is running FLIR and the other one's running Vader. Now as a border patrol agent, I have to figure out in that shift how I'm gonna deploy that because there's about 500 border patrol agents that are depending on me. That did not happen, thank God, when I was in that position. You know, I would have found some other occupation, believe me. But we have border patrol agents now that aren't intimidated by that, but they need to learn. And there's folks that can help us continue because 10 years ago, as Robert had mentioned, we're learning at a very fast pace. Some of it's trial and error, which is okay. But a lot of it, we have to be able to close those gaps and the military's been a great partner and continues to be a great partner in helping us flatten that learning curve out. This gentleman near you, Madison. Hello, my name is Dan. I'm from Tucson. I work with an organization called No More Desk. I hope, I'm glad you've heard of us. We are concerned about specifically the migrant desks that happened in our sector last year. We had 128 desks. So I'm curious in your plan, it doesn't seem to mention anything about goals to reduce migrant deaths. And also one of the things our organization is very concerned about is abuse of migrants within custody. We have a lot of firsthand experience with physical, mental, sometimes sexual abuse of migrants that have been within border patrol custody. I'm just curious as to where in the plan it includes those aspects of it to remedy the problems that we've been bringing to your organization for the past 10 years. Thank you for that question. Don't discount the fact that you may, don't find it in the pages that somehow we are not as concerned as you are with deaths along the border. Another indicators that we do track over time. I'm happy to report that those are down for the second year in a row. Rescues are up. And I think the overarching deployment, remember when you're looking at something specific like border patrol you need to reduce deaths in the border, that really comes out when you look at the operational plans that support the strategy. So the strategic document, and matter of fact the article that Robert wrote, really talks about what those shifts were. It doesn't talk about the tactics, techniques, and procedures. It doesn't even mention by the way, if you look through those pages, what the strategic objectives are within any of the four corridors. The intent of the article wasn't to do that. I mean, if you're interested and wanna take a look at what the campaign plan for Arizona is, there's publications that are available that we'd happy to walk you through. But I will tell you I'm reducing all deaths in any way, whether they're drownings or whether they're the exposures and the elements. That's certainly something that we wanna continue to the extent that we can control that. Now a lot of the, oftentimes we cannot, right? Because of these organizations, oftentimes we'll exploit people. They will tell them for instance, hey, we're going to cross the West Desert. You say if you're from Tucson, so you're probably very familiar with the Tohono O'odham Reservation, right? And they will tell them, hey, we're gonna be walking for an hour, so don't worry about carrying any water. We know that's not true. Well, these people coming from Central and South America don't know that. And so help us, if you could, as we continue our messaging campaign and let people know how dangerous it is. It is not worth the risk of your life or your loved one's life. And don't pay a smuggler, if you're already here in the United States to have them smuggle somebody into the United States, it's too dangerous. And the people that are profiting from this have no regard for that which you and I hold dear, which is the safety and security of everybody in and around the border environment. But thank you for the question. Yeah, well, as it relates to any in custody, whether they're allegations of misconduct or deaths, not just the Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and certainly the Department of Homeland Security takes all those very seriously. The commissioner just recently received the authorization for 1811 positions, which are criminal investigators within CBP. So we will be doing those investigations as soon as we, as those allegations come forward. There's a whole host of folks that do those investigations now currently. You have the Office of the Inspector General, you have ICE does some of those investigations, so any allegations of misconduct are thoroughly investigated, and we will continue to do so. With all due respect, sir, you've asked two questions now, so if you wouldn't mind us, we will turn to someone else. Thank you very much, though. With all due respect, sorry, thank you very much. Can we get a microphone up to him, please? Thanks, Cal. Oh, well, first of all, thanks for a very informative discussion. I'm Andre Silvergeau, and I'm the director for Vietnam Southeast Asia and Washington DC for the Interstate Traveler Company in Detroit. So we're just business people, not really concerned professionally with border security, but my question is this, the allegation has been made by at least one congressional representative, and maybe more, but one I read about in the Washington Post today, that Islamic extremists are training some of their people to, quote, imitate Hispanics, unquote, to cross the southern border. My question is, is there any credible intelligence that that's happening to your knowledge? No. Yes, this is really true. If we can turn to this gentleman over here. Thanks, Sam. Hey, Don Fenhagen, IBM. Thanks again for putting together the paper. I think it's really tremendous. I'm glad you guys are doing it. I was wondering if other components within DHS have come to talk to you about doing something similar or putting together maybe a collaborative paper on how you guys all work together at the borders, I think to that extent. Yes and no. This could be a very short Q and A session. Robert, please elaborate. Yes, they have. I believe the importance is with the articles, like a first step, right? Even just speaking of the border patrol in general or DHS employees in general, we are very, very good at telling stories. I mean, you could sit with a border patrol agent who's been in 20 years and hear stories, some of the best law enforcement stories in the world and throughout DHS, those stories exist but we haven't been so well at writing these things down so I will carry the suggestion back and I will encourage them with all due haste to do that. Thank you. If we can come up to one of our CSI senior affiliates here, Josh Christman. Good morning, Chiefs and thanks for being here. Quick question, I think a lot of folks, myself included, have been sort of disappointed about the level and quality of the public and political dialogue in the last decade or so around border security. I think there's some notable exceptions, CSIS and Council on Foreign Relations, for example, have done some very thoughtful work but generally the level of dialogue has been less than I think the seriousness of the issues would warrant and so first of all, just as a remark, I wanna congratulate you guys because I think that the work that Chief Schroeder you've done and has the potential to really elevate the dialogue going forward and so my question is, as you said, you see this as opening the door to further conversation. How do you envision that dialogue moving forward and if someone is on the outside, either a think tank or in the public or in the private sector or wherever and wants to contribute, how would you recommend that they contribute to the discussion, the dialogue moving forward? Yeah, thanks, Josh. Now, Robert, talk a little bit about it. I'm as disappointed as you are. Let it be clear. We're gonna continue, whether it's forums like this, I think getting the publication out, getting it on the website, should at least generate at least more interest about, hey, I don't understand what you're talking about on page 18, could you talk about it? It always seems that when we wanna be able to do this and there's some momentum building within the organization that the timing just isn't, I mean, I was really surprised. I mean, I touche to Stephanie. I said, so you scheduled this for the 6th of January, the first day Congress is back and everyone's talking about a potential border security bill, right? So all of a sudden, the antennas are up again about what's going to happen. That's just the nature of it. It has been over the years and you know that. We can take two positions, right? And this is just my personal opinion. One, we can say, you know what, we've asked a thousand times. I'm tired of asking and let's just go back and do our job and forget about it. I think that that's the easy way out. One, the organization internally, we owe it to them to talk about how proud we are of the work that they're doing and we owe it to the citizens and people that aren't in uniform are just trying to figure this out because we're all touched about it. So I am not dissuaded. I'm not chagrined to the end. I'm going to continue to try, whether it's venues like this, whether it's opportunities in the media. I say yes to every opportunity, although rare and infrequent as they are, I want to talk about the mission and the men and women of the organization and we'll continue to do so. And anything that you think that we should be doing that we're not, let us know, right? So a lot of times people just say, well, when are you gonna come out here and talk and do this? Give us the opportunities because everyone that comes in with a request, I advocate within the department about this is a really good opportunity. Here's an opportunity to talk about the campaign at the secretary's level, how that mesh is with what we're doing in between the ports of entry. We want to be able to make those discussions and dialogue a lot more robust in the future and we're gonna continue to do that, so help us out. Actually, if I could turn to Robert just to follow up on that question, which is, he's in a, Robert, you're in a unique position, having been on the Hill for a little while now, and I'm not gonna put you in an awkward position of trying to intuit what politicians are going to do in the upcoming Congress, but in terms of what you would like Congress to focus on from a border security issue, from a risk-based strategy issue, what would you like to see happen? What kind of key topics would you like to see addressed early on in this Congress? This question kind of ties in with what the gentleman asked, and also the individual from Arizona here, the young lady. When they asked me, what should you focus on? I was asking at dinner recently by an AP report, he said, what do we get wrong about the border all the time? And after thinking of it a couple of thoughts, it's that there's only two states of the border, controlled or uncontrolled, and that has been the dialogue completely. I'm hoping the articles continue to change that dialogue. I hope it's one of many, many articles that border patrol agents will take initiatives and put out, as well as DHS. One of the most important things in the article is it all comes out of what we need to focus on is that border security isn't going to be completed by resources alone. It takes an interagency operation and intelligence investigative efforts and it takes a focused efforts on those individuals responsible for a majority of the crime. So resources alone won't solve the problem and you continually hear that debate. Every day, all hours a day, it's resources, resources, resources, and it's extremely important. But that, if it's not coupled with the interagency knowledge skills and abilities that we have with the intelligence community, the investigative community, and they're not focusing on single individuals, then we're going to continue to struggle. So I would say that's the most important. General. Yeah, Guy Swan from the Association of the US Army. I've worked a lot with you guys over the years and I have to say that under Chief Fisher's leadership this agency has really, really blossomed and started to look at the right things and Robert's product is a perfect example of the kind of thinking that's going on inside this organization. Both of you know that borders have two sides to them. Could you talk about your international engagement? You talked about interagency extensively, but what about the international component to border security and how does that factor into what you've written? Thank you, General, for the question and for your kind remarks. It's very critical. A matter of fact, when you look at, and I'll go back to the Southern border and approaches, it's the approaches, right? So we're not just talking about the juridical line, so to speak, and things only start when they come into the United States. Matter of fact, beyond just intelligence and working with our partners, is to identify the threat well in advance. So we kind of take, as CBP has done in the air passenger environment, how do you minimize risk in the air passenger environment? You identify the threats and don't let them get on the plane. So we don't have to do turnarounds like we used to back in 2003 in Bangor, Maine, right? So we have to continue to push it out. So we take that same approach. We look at how do we first identify those threats early. Second, within the approach, within those, which a lot of times, and you know this, General, you've been down there, a lot of that, we have, even within the corridors to our south, within the hemisphere, you know, terrain's gonna dictate routes of travel in most cases, right? So how do we then leverage that with government of Mexico, for instance? And the work that you have done in your team and helping us bridge the mill to mill that you have established and working with Sedena and then taking that a step further and doing that work with the federal police is continuing to do joint threat assessments, for instance. So that we have at least the same situational awareness. It doesn't mean we're asking for beyond what they're doing now in terms of commitments. We start with the easy stuff. And if we can agree to either understand what that threat environment looks like, or even if we disagree at the end of what we should do about it, that's okay too. And I think over time, our ability is working with Mexico and they do recognize that, you know, some may look at it as, well, this is just migration through the country and nobody should do anything. But those in those leadership positions from the military and certainly the security side of it recognize that the threat, even though it may be heading to the U.S., is going to come through their area and we're making incremental steps and trying to, one, do that joint planning, do the joint patrols as we continue to do. We're looking for continued support in that regard both in terms of frequency of deployments and number of deployments. And we're really looking for a sustainment of that commitment over time, which I think is really the critical piece as you saw when we were down there. Sir, if I could follow up on that just briefly in terms of, you've talked about the southern border and the southern approaches, can you talk briefly a little bit about the northern border? Obviously, not as many, one would argue scenarios which are of concern along the northern border, but I have to confess I was the candidate asked for a while in the Pentagon and so I'm curious as to what the border patrol might be doing along our northern border. Well, right now what they're doing is they're trying to identify what their risk indicators are going to be on the north, because if you look at any of the 12 risk indicators, the metrics are specific on a threat which I would generally characterize as flow. People and things coming across the southern border. So obviously, if we're trying to measure the extent to which we're reducing that flow, those metrics make sense. It does not make sense to adopt those metrics in a place like Haver, Montana and hold the chief in Haver, Montana accountable to reduce the average apprehension per recidivist when they're catching maybe one person in the spring, right? It's a different environment. I'm not suggesting there's no threat there. I don't know what the threat is right now. I know what the intelligence is. So what the border patrol leadership is doing is understanding this framework and managing risk. They're still held to account to manage risk. What they have to do is identify what the intent and capability that defines a threat is in their area of operation. Understand their vulnerabilities and what the consequences and to identify what that risk is. And when the process in this iteration along the northern border to really carve that out. My name is Paula. I have a, I'm glad to hear about the increase in dialogue with communities and the public around the border patrol's mission and strategies. And I think this handout will actually be very useful in helping with that dialogue. And I hope along with that, my question goes to sharing the information as you gather these measurements and impacts. And I specifically would ask about getting numbers about checkpoints, what happens at checkpoints, apprehensions and seizures. A lot of communities that I'm familiar with in Arizona have asked for this information about their local checkpoints. So they know what is happening at those checkpoints and have not been given that information. As well as the transparency around when it does happen such as Jose Antonio Rodriguez's death, the transparency around the facts and the information relating to that when a border patrol agent is involved so that the public does know and the border patrol can be held up either accountable or this that the facts are out there. So they are judged by everyone equally. Yeah, I would agree. So I'm gonna point in that far corner. You'll see Assistant Chief Ryan Landrum. If you're so inclined at the end of this, walk over, introduce yourself, and he will give you a business card and a point of contact if there's a specific inquiry, whether it's, tell me about the I-19 checkpoint over the past year. I wanna know how many apprehensions were made at that checkpoint, whatever the inquiry is and to the extent that we can do that without whatever the question is, if we're able to release that data, we'll get it to you. Fair enough? Thank you. Do we have anyone else? Oh, I'm sorry. Ma'am, my name's Jeanette Horton and I'm from the Australian Embassy here in Washington, DC. I just had a question, a more technical question about your risk-based metrics and how you use them in calculating the sort of border flows. Particularly, how do you measure what you don't know? So for those where you haven't apprehended someone, they're not a turnaround that you're aware of, how do you factor those into your risk metrics? That's a great point. That's the question, even when I first came up in 2010, and I've heard it throughout my career and I just kept getting it repeatedly. If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around, does it make a sound? And so how do you know what you don't know? You're giving us, and I still remember this, one of the first hearings that I did with GAO and all that's great, Chief, Border Patrol. This was back in 2010, one of my first hearings. And Border Patrol, that's great. You're giving us all your apprehensions. You're just giving us your numerator. I don't know what a numerator was. I just sat there on the panel and I was like, math was horrible for me. I was like, and then he said, well, it's just like, Chief, you just give me your batting average, but you're just telling me, it's not your batting average, you're just telling me how many hits you got. You're not telling me how many at bats. That I understood. I said, okay, maybe you can do something with that. Thanks for the tip. And that really started some of the dialogue and the discussion. Again, this is not an exact science, right? There is one of those 12 indicators which is called the interdiction effectiveness rate. My staff, by the way, gets paid more each syllable that they come up with a risk name. So this one, obviously someone got a big payoff. The interdiction effectiveness rate. So just think of it. It really goes to the heart of a question I got. It was probably, I don't know, six years ago or so. And this was a community that really wasn't on or near the border. And we're talking about what we do and our deployments. And then finally, this gracious woman raises her hand and says, chief, I don't understand anything that you're saying. Could you just tell me, last night, how many people came across the border and how many people did you apprehend? She said, is that too difficult? And there's two sides of me and my left side was saying, oh my gosh, that is really difficult. I have no idea, but it is so simplistic. Why can't we at least do that? And that's what set us off to be able to identify to the extent that we're able to this interdiction effectiveness ratio. So that we do have, in fact, a denominator. And I tell people, and I'm very open about this, this is not science, right? What you're trying to do is you're trying to organize, train, equip an organization along 2,000 miles of border with Mexico to be able to count how many people are coming across that border. Now just think about that. 2,000 miles with some very rough and disparate terrain that you will find in most places. How do you do that? And so for a number of years, I still remember it, nobody wanted to even try. Because as a proud organization, right, if you couldn't do it with perfection, you just didn't do it. Which is the reason why we held up apprehension numbers. And we would defend it to the death because we could go into an E3 system and be able to tell you exactly what the fingerprint identification number was, who the person's name, biographic, we had that. We didn't have the ability to be able to count how many people came across the border. And so what we decided to do was take a risk and say, okay, let's not make perfect the enemy of good here. Let's add to this as a situational awareness piece and see if we can't get better. And lo and behold, the organization is getting better. And we're utilizing different technology to be able to do that. We're using existing technology for this purpose that we weren't using it before. And border patrol agents, you know, God bless them. I'm very proud of the work that they do. They, unlike the leadership, are not risk adverse. You tell them, hey, I'd like to be able for you to count on your shift this afternoon, how many people came across. They're like, okay, without any thought, right? They want to be able to do this. And they're gonna come back to me and say, I could have done a lot better, Chief, if you give me A, B, and C. And so through each successive year, as we talk about that and look at the manner in which we're collecting the data, how we're standardizing the methodology across, how we're capturing it, and how we're assessing what that means is each year gets more and more exciting for me to do that. But I will always stop short of saying, this is the number and it's right. It is a number and we believe we have some processes in place that inform us better than last year. But if somebody says, I need you to guarantee that denominator, I can't do that. Unless there's some piece of technology, some dust that's out there, that's gonna be able to tag and track people and be able to geospatially plot them somewhere that the department can then make an accounting of that. Short of that, we're gonna continue to do our best to be able to identify that. Not as the metric, right? We're not trying to hijack, do away with apprehensions and the effectiveness rate now becomes the new gold nugget. This is one of 12 that helps inform us about how we're doing and what we're doing along that border. It's a great point though. We have time for one final question and then this is the gentleman who's going to ask it. It's just to follow up on the last one. What is the range in a percentage, one of those 12 metrics, the specific numbers that you think you apprehend? What percent of the people that come across the border do you think you apprehend? On average, it's about 78, 79% at this point. And that's 95% confidence with a margin of error of about 2%. Could you use all of those math terms? Well, I wanna thank everyone for coming out today. It has stopped snowing, it looks like, so that doesn't mean the danger is gone, but it does mean that it's gonna be a little bit less flurry-like. I do wanna thank our guests here on the dais with me, both Chief Fisher and Assistant Chief Schroeder. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your insights and your welcome back anytime. But please, everyone, join me in thanking our guests.