Regional Joint Border Commands: A Pathway to Improving Collaboration and Effectiveness for Border Control

摘要

Control of the U.S. border is a primary concern for the Department of Homeland Security. Three of the department's components have major roles in providing border security and control. With increasing costs and constantly changing threats, it is vital that all border organizations work together collaboratively. This thesis looks at two new ideas, border regionalization and joint regional border commands, and compares them with current efforts to increase collaboration. By establishing border regions, DHS can use threat based planning in each region to allow all border control components to focus on threats specific to their region while also increasing the level effectiveness of resources. Joint regional border commands offer even greater advantages in collaboration between components and resource usage. The DoD model for regional combatant commands is used as an example of how DHS can take advantage of the lessons learned with this recommendation.