A Note From Our President & Founder Jim Garrettson
Since the election of President Trump, the Department of Homeland Security has been a topic of much discussion, particularly the Customs and Border Protection agency. Trump’s campaign promises of building a border wall, 24-hour drone surveillance along the borders and increasing the size of the Border Patrol are beginning to come to fruition.
At the end of January, President Trump signed an executive order authorizing the âimmediateconstruction of a physical wall on the southern border,â to be patrolled and supported by âadequate personnelâ to curb illegal immigration, drug trafficking and human trafficking. The Trump administration has already decided where the first stretches of the border wall will be built: a 14-mile border wall in San Diego, 28 miles of levee barriers, 14 miles of replacement fencing in San Diego and a 6-mile border wall along the Rio Grande valley.
Bidding for the wall closed at the beginning of the month, with over 200 companies expressing interest in the project. Customs and Border Protection has chosen a plot of federally owned land in San Diego to be the staging ground for several wall prototypes. CBP outlined that each prototype wall must be 30 feet long and range in height from 18 to 30 feet. Finalists will be announced in June with the expectation that prototype construction will be completed 30 days later.
In order to man and maintain the border wall, CBP seeks to reach the congressional mandate of 21,370 agents by hiring 6,700 agents and 5,000 new officers. Border Patrol Chief Ronald Vitiello noted that the U.S. Border Patrol hasnât reached the minimum number of agents required by Congress for the past few years, something that he hopes to rectify quickly.
While executive orders, bidding closing and plans to hire over 11 thousand new agents and officers are most certainly big news, the most profound development in the Trump administrationâs plans for protecting U.S. borders was DHSâs request for small drones that are capable of running facial recognition tools. DHS released a solicitation at the end of March detailing requirements for the drones. The drones must have sensor capabilities that can surveil a range of 3 miles, the ability to track multiple targets persistently and, perhaps most importantly, be able to â[identify] humans via facial recognition or other biometric at range.â
The facial recognition capabilities of the drones must also allow for the cross-referencing of âany persons identified with relevant law enforcement databases.â In 2016, Georgetown Lawâs Center on Privacy and Technology released a report that stated âOne in two American adults is in a law enforcement face recognition network.â Furthermore, a 2017 GAO report concluded that the FBI has a database of over 411 million facial images, with some images obtained from driverâs license photos from 16 states.
However, as the CATO Institute has pointed out in an article published on Monday, the actions of the CBP are not limited strictly to Americaâs land borders. Currently, the CBP is legally able to stop and search vehicles within a 100-mile range of Americaâs external boundary. The ACLU has named this 100-mile range a âConstitution-freeâ zone. The CATO Institute went on to note that approximately two-thirds of the nationâs population live in this so-called âConstitution-freeâ zone.
Despite the moniker, the âConstitution-freeâ zone is not literally unbeholden to the Constitution. U.S. citizens living in these areas are still protected by the Constitution. The ACLU outlined its thought-process in naming the 100-mile border zone a âConstitution-freeâ zone explaining that although the Fourth Amendment protects U.S. citizens from random stops and searches, it does not fully apply to the nationâs borders. At ports of entry into the U.S., federal authorities âdo not need a warrant or even suspicion of wrongdoing to justify conducting what courts have called a âroutine search,â such as searching luggage or a vehicle.â
Ron Vitiello – Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (KEYNOTE SPEAKER)
Mark Borkowski – Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Acquisition and CBP’s Chief Acquisition Officer and Component Acquisition Executive of U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Shonnie Lyon – Director, Office of Biometric Identity Management of U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Arun Vemury – Program Manager, People Screening, Science and Technology Directorate of U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Elaine Duke Starts Role as DHS Deputy Secretary; John Kelly Comments
Elaine Duke, formerly undersecretary for management at the Department of Homeland Security, has assumed new duties as the seventh deputy secretary of DHS and she will act as the departmentâs chief operating officer in this capacity.
Kim Lynch, executive vice president of government defense and intelligence at Oracle, recently received her 2024 Wash100 Award from Jim Garrettson, CEO of Executive Mosaic and founder of the esteemed accolade. Wash100 is an annual celebration of the government contracting industry’s most notable leaders. Executives who win a Wash100 Award are highly accomplished individuals whose actions have
In a meeting last week at Enlightenment Capital’s Chevy Case, Maryland headquarters, Jason Rigoli, a partner at the firm, received his first Wash100 Award from Executive Mosaic CEO and award founder Jim Garrettson. The Wash100 Award is a yearly coronation of the finest executives shaping the government contracting sector. It commends leaders who have demonstrated outstanding vision, innovation and reliability,
The Honorable Frank Kendall, secretary of the Air Force, accepted his 2024 Wash100 Award from Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson during a recent visit to the Pentagon. Vote for Secretary Kendall to win the 2024 Wash100 popular vote competition at Wash100.com. There’s only ONE WEEK left to vote, so cast your votes today! Kendall won his fifth Wash100