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HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISORY 

COUNCIL

FINAL REPORT

OF THE

CBP INTEGRITY ADVISORY PANEL

March 15, 2016
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This publication is presented on behalf of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, CBP 

Integrity Advisory Panel, co-chaired by Police Commissioner William 'Bill' Bratton, New York 

City and Administrator (Ret.) Karen Tandy, Drug Enforcement Administration as the final 

report and recommendations to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh C. 

Johnson. 

William Bratton 

Police Commissioner 

City of New York 

Karen Tandy 

Administrator (Ret.) 

Drug Enforcement Administration 
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CBP INTEGRITY ADVISORY PANEL MEMBERS 

William J. Bratton (Co-Chair) – Police Commissioner, City of New York 

Karen P. Tandy (Co-Chair) – Administrator (Ret.), Drug Enforcement Administration

Ron Barber – Former U.S. Representative from Arizona; Member of Homeland 

Security Advisory Council 

Robert C. Bonner – Senior Principal, Sentinel Strategy & Policy Consulting; Commissioner 

(Ret.), U.S. Customs and Border Protection 

Rick Fuentes – Colonel, 14th Superintendent of the New Jersey State Police 

John Magaw – Consultant, Domestic and International Security issues; Member of Homeland 

Security Advisory Council 

Walter McNeil – Past President, International Association of Chiefs of Police 

Paul Stockton – Managing Director, Sonecon LLC; Member of Homeland 

Security Advisory Council 

Roberto Villaseñor – Chief of Police (Ret.), Tucson Police Department

William H. Webster – (ex-officio) Retired Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP 

The CBP Integrity Advisory Panel would like to thank the following for their excellent support 

and service to the Panel:

Matthew Pontillo, Assistant Chief, Commanding Officer, Risk Management Bureau, New 

York Police Department

Patrick Thornton, Captain, Office of the Chief of Staff, New Jersey State Police

HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISORY COUNCIL STAFF

Sarah E. Morgenthau, Executive Director, Homeland Security Advisory Council 

Mike Miron, Director, Homeland Security Advisory Council 

Erin Walls, Director, Homeland Security Advisory Council 

Jay Visconti, Staff, Homeland Security Advisory Council 

Katrina Woodhams, Staff, Homeland Security Advisory Council
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................... 1

Recommendations: Assuring Integrity – Proactive Integrity Measures ............................................ 3

Recommendations: Streamlining CBP’s Discipline Process ............................................................... 4

Recommendations: Improving CBP’s Receipt, Tracking and Response to Complaints .................. 6

Recommendations: Optimizing Interior Checkpoints ......................................................................... 7

Recommendations: Effectively Using Task Forces to Investigate Border Corruption .................... 7

Recommendations: Enhancing Transparency / Stakeholder Outreach ............................................ 7

Additional Recommendations:............................................................................................................... 7

Use of Force ......................................................................................................................................... 7

Body Worn Cameras and Camera Technology Next Steps ............................................................ 8

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 9

STATUS OF RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE INTERIM REPORT ................................ 11

ASSURING INTEGRITY: PROACTIVE INTEGRITY MEASURES................................. 15

STREAMLINING CBP’S DISCIPLINE PROCESS .............................................................. 21

OPTIMIZING INTERIOR CHECKPOINTS ......................................................................... 27

EFFECTIVELY USING TASK FORCES TO INVESTIGATE BORDER CORRUPTION

....................................................................................................................................................... 29

ENHANCING TRANSPARANCY / STAKEHOLDER OUTREACH ................................. 31

APPENDIX A – PANEL MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES ............................................................ 35

APPENDIX B – TASK STATEMENT ..................................................................................... 39

APPENDIX C – SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS .................................................................. 41
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 Created in the aftermath of 9/11 as part of the homeland security reorganization, U.S. 

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is still a young agency, albeit one with roots that go back 

to the very founding of our nation. CBP is primarily a merger of most of the former U.S. 

Customs Service and the Border Patrol1, formerly part of the now defunct Immigration & 

Naturalization Service, and it has unquestionably improved overall effectiveness and efficiency 

to have one border agency for our nation. CBP, however, is a complex agency involving two 

large operational offices,2 with an extraordinarily important national security mission, to protect 

and secure our borders from the threat of international terrorism. Yet as we discuss at length in 

the Interim Report of the CBP Integrity Advisory Panel of June 29, 2015 (hereafter “Interim 

Report”), CBP, like all border agencies worldwide, has a significant potential vulnerability, - the 

threat of corruption.3 Moreover, because CBP has the largest number of armed, sworn law 

enforcement officers in the United States, over 44,000, there is a very real potential for the use of 

excessive and unnecessary force, especially by CBP’s Border Patrol given the difficult 

environment in which it operates. In its brief history, CBP has not been noted for its transparency 

when it comes to use of force incidents, although this is changing, and given its size, it has never 

developed a truly CBP-wide process for receiving, tracking and responding to public complaints. 

Its disciplinary process takes far too long to be an effective deterrent. 

Viewed in this context, the tasking of the Secretary of Homeland Security to this Panel is

critically important and timely. The Secretary’s tasking is broken down into six areas, set forth 

in his December 9, 2014 letter to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). (See 

Appendix B, the Secretary’s December 9, 2014 letter). Created as a subcommittee of the HSAC, 

the CBP Integrity Advisory Panel (hereafter the “Panel”), established in March 2015, was 

charged by the Secretary to make findings and recommendations based on law enforcement best 

practices regarding use of force, preventing corruption, investigative capabilities needed to 

address criminal and serious misconduct within CBP, engagement in interagency task forces 

such as the Border Corruption Task Forces, using intelligence driven approaches proactively to 

identify corruption and other misconduct, and addressing transparency issues pertaining to 

incident response, discipline and stakeholder outreach.

 

1 It also merged all frontline immigration inspectors and all agricultural inspectors who worked at our nation’s ports 

of entry within CBP. There is now, in fact, “one face”, one agency, at all of the ports of entry of the U.S., rather 

than personnel from three separate agencies reporting into three different departments of government, as was the 

case prior to the homeland security reorganization. 

2 Part of the complexity is that, despite the slogan, there is no “one face at the border”. There are, in fact, two faces. 

One, CBP Officers of CBP’s Office of Field Operations, wears blue uniforms and operates at all the nation’s official 

entry points or “ports of entry”. The other, CBP’s Border Patrol, wears green uniforms and operates in the vastly 

different environment protecting the land borders between these official entry points. Each of these law 

enforcement organizations brought their own unique culture with them to CBP. The challenge is not to merge these 

two operational components, but adapt CBP-wide policies regarding use of force and integrity that are truly part of a 

new CBP culture and to take full advantage of the fact that both operational offices are under the common control of 

the CBP Commissioner in order to effectuate a comprehensive border strategy. 3 CBP Integrity Advisory Panel Interim Report and Recommendations, June 29, 2015, 

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/DHS-HSAC-CBP-IAP-Interim-Report.pdf
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In our Interim Report, we made fourteen (14) recommendations, many of them requiring 

immediate attention, such as the need to increase investigative staffing of CBP’s Office of 

Internal Affairs (IA)4

. Given their time sensitivity, we did not believe these recommendations 

should await our Final Report. After the Panel presented its Interim Report, the HSAC voted to 

adopt its recommendations in their entirety, and many of these recommendations are now 

implemented or CBP has actively undertaken steps to do so. Unfortunately, as noted in more 

detail in this Final Report, implementation of the principal interim recommendations needed to 

harden CBP against threats of public corruption have not been completed, i.e., substantially 

increasing staffing of IA and realigning investigative authority from the Office of the Inspector 

General to CBP Internal Affairs as it relates to corruption, misuse of force and other serious 

misconduct of CBP employees below the GS-15 level. 

In the almost nine months since the Interim Report, the Panel has conducted numerous 

interviews of current and past CBP officials and employees, met with Non-Governmental 

Organizations (NGO) from across the southwest border, toured the border at Nogales, Arizona, 

observed port of entry and checkpoint operations, inspected Border Patrol virtual and scenario 

based training on use of force, met with union leadership for the unions representing CBP 

Officers and Border Patrol Agents, reviewed caseload data from the Office of the Inspector 

General (OIG) and reviewed considerable CBP materials reflecting its policies, guidelines, 

practices, and data. Taken together, the Panel is well prepared to address its remaining tasks 

from the Secretary. 

In this Final Report, we make thirty-nine (39) additional recommendations. Below, after 

reviewing the status of the recommendations of our Interim Report, we discuss the rationale for 

our additional recommendations. These recommendations deal with using proactive measures to 

assure integrity, streamlining CBP’s broken disciplinary process from intake to final resolution 

of discipline, establishing a CBP-wide method to receive, track and respond to public 

complaints, more effectively leveraging CBP’s own personnel at interior checkpoints and in task 

forces, particularly Border Corruption Task Forces, and, although great strides are being made, 

improving transparency regarding use of force incidents and outreach to stakeholders. 

These recommendations, like our interim recommendations, in some instances will 

require restructured or additional resources that must be obtained through the budgetary process. 

Moreover, a few of the recommendations may require legislation or regulatory change. Some 

will not be easy and will encounter bureaucratic or union resistance. 

Yet we firmly believe that if our recommendations are implemented:

1. The risks of endemic corruption taking root within CBP will be eliminated; 

2. The use of unlawful and unconstitutional use of force by CBP law enforcement 

personnel, most especially use of lethal force, will be a rarity; and

 

4 Shortly before the issuance of this report, CBP announced that it was changing the name of its Office of Internal 

Affairs to the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) but for clarity and consistency between the Panel reports, 

the Panel will continue using the name Internal Affairs (IA) in this report instead of its new name.
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3. Transparency regarding use of force incidents and openness to public complaints will 

make CBP a world-class border security agency, rivaled by none and the model for every 

such agency around the globe. 

Finally, as we do not repeat the recommendations of our Interim Report, or the discussion 

that supports them here, the Interim Report and this Final Report should be read and taken 

together. 

Recommendations: Assuring Integrity – Proactive Integrity Measures 

1. CBP IA, under the direction of the CBP Commissioner, should develop and implement a 

comprehensive, proactive strategy for preventing, deterring, identifying and promptly 

investigating potential corruption and acceptance of bribes by CBP personnel. 

2. Continue pioneering and implementing proactive anticorruption measures and programs, 

such as the Analytical Management Systems Control Office (AMSCO), the Enforcement 

Linking Mobile Operation Red Flag (ELMOrf) system, the Integrity Officer Program, 

and the Combined Automated Operations System. 

a. Assign additional program analysts to AMSCO and otherwise assure that staffing 

levels are sufficient. Analysts are needed because of the volume of data that needs 

to be evaluated. 

b. Expand the use of data analytics to identify potential corruption issues across all 

of CBP’s operational offices. In this regard, CBP’s current program, AMSCO, 

provides a useful model for the proactive use of data analytics. 

c. Remove impediments and assure that AMSCO receives feedback from the 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) OIG, CBP IA’s Investigative 

Operations Division, and CBP’s Human Resource and Management’s Labor and 

Employment Relations (LER) Division regarding the results of all referrals of 

potential integrity issues to and through the Joint Intake Center (JIC). In order to 

better identify trends and patterns and to evaluate additional rules sets for 

ELMOrf. AMSCO should be provided all completed investigative reports 

involving corruption on the part of CBP personnel including those of the OIG. 

Further, AMSCO should be provided with any actions taken, disciplinary or 

otherwise, in response to such investigations. 

d. Expand ELMOrf beyond land border ports of entry (POE) to U.S. International 

airport and seaport POEs. It should also be expanded to interior checkpoints run 

by CBP’s Border Patrol. 

3. Expand the Integrity Officer Program beyond the Office of Field Operations (OFO) to 

CBP’s Border Patrol. At least one person within each Border Patrol Sector should be 

designated as the Sector Integrity Officer, who should have a dotted line relationship with 

the Office of Integrity Assurance within CBP Headquarters. 
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4. Expand Blue Force Tracking beyond the current pilot phase to all operational personnel, 

vehicles and vessels of CBP’s Border Patrol and all aircraft and vessels of CBP’s Air and 

Marine Operations (AMO). Not only will Blue Force Tracking enhance command & 

control, operational efficiency and contribute to officer safety, but it will also serve as a 

significant anticorruption measure that can assist CBP in achieving its integrity goals.

5. CBP’s Office of Intelligence, in coordination with CBP’s Internal Affairs, should more 

actively engage the U.S. interagency and Intel community, and particularly the Drug 

Enforcement Administration (DEA), to increase the flow of intelligence regarding 

potential corruption issues within CBP by providing the relevant agencies with CBP 

Internal Affairs intelligence needs and collection requirements, at least on an annual 

basis. For example, CBP should proactively request DEA to attempt to identify the 

location at the border (port of entry or otherwise) through which bulk amounts of illegal 

drugs seized in the interior of the U.S. were smuggled. This should be done routinely 

with respect to every significant seizure of drugs likely smuggled across the border (e.g., 

cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines) into the United States. 

6. Continue to study cases of corruption through CBP’s Threat Mitigation Division and on a 

systematic basis identify causes of corrupt behavior and develop countermeasures that 

CBP can and should proactively use to reduce future corruption of its personnel. 

7. Extend the current one year probation period for CBP law enforcement (CBP Officers, 

Border Patrol Agents, and AMO Officers) to two years, as the current one year period is 

not sufficient. 

8. Expand the CBP polygraph program to include post-employment polygraphs, random 

and targeted, for CBP law enforcement personnel and promptly seek the necessary 

resources and authorities to implement this recommendation.

9. Prioritize upgrading or replacing CBP’s current information technology (IT) platforms to 

ensure that its systems are fully integrated and capable of conducting searches and data 

analysis across all systems. 

Recommendations: Streamlining CBP’s Discipline Process 

10. Place CBP law enforcement personnel into Excepted Service in light of the critical 

national security mission of CBP’s Border Patrol Agents along our nation’s land borders 

and CBP Officers at our nation’s ports of entry. A law enforcement organization, such as 

CBP, is not benefitted, and the deterrent effect of discipline is substantially undermined, 

by lengthy post-discipline hearing processes of the Merit System Protection Board and 

collective bargaining agreement appeals to outside arbitrators.

11. Establish clear goals and timelines for each step of the discipline process to achieve 

agency wide deterrence as well as no action/closing of investigations as promptly as 

possible, to include competent, appropriately prioritized and timely investigations of all 
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misconduct allegations, speedy and thorough investigations, and prompt and appropriate 

discipline and/or closure. 

12. Designate one sufficiently high level official (GS-15 or preferably Senior Executive 

Service level) within the Office of the Commissioner responsible for overseeing all 

phases of the discipline process on behalf of the Commissioner, from intake to final 

resolution. Although this official would not decide or recommend levels of discipline, 

he/she should be responsible for monitoring, coordinating, tracking, setting and enforcing 

timelines, and pushing forward all allegations of misconduct levied against CBP 

personnel. This official would make certain that all participants in the process are moving 

forward expeditiously, to include IA, LER, Deciding Officials, and the Office of the 

Chief Counsel. Where another agency is handling the misconduct investigation of a CBP 

employee (e.g., OIG and/or Border Corruption Task Forces), this CBP official, on behalf 

of the Commissioner, and working with the Assistant Commissioner for IA, will insist on 

visibility by the Commissioner of such investigations and on the timely completion of 

such investigations. 

13. Give the Commissioner the authority, similar to that of the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation Director, to summarily suspend without pay and/or terminate law 

enforcement employees of CBP who have committed egregious, serious and flagrant 

misconduct, such as, accepting bribes in exchange for being influenced in their official 

duties. 

14. Centralize the role of the deciding official at CBP Headquarters in a small number of 

Deciding Officials appointed by the Commissioner. The number of Deciding Officials 

should be no more and no less than are needed to promptly resolve all misconduct 

matters potentially involving adverse action on their merits, once the investigation is 

completed, without delay. Discipline, when warranted, should be imposed without 

unnecessary delay.

15. Revise the Table of Offense and Penalties to provide clearer guidance on appropriate 

penalties and foster more consistent disciplinary practices across CBP. This guidance 

should include more specific parameters, including narrower ranges and mandatory 

consequences for the most serious offenses.5

16. Establish clear policies, procedures, timeline expectations and supervisory guidance for 

the handling of administrative and criminal matters and ensure all supervisors receive and 

have access to the guidance.

6

 

5 The report of Pivotal Practices Consulting LLC, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Complaints and Discipline 

Systems Review – Public Report of Findings and Recommendations, November 23, 2015, supports this and many of

our other recommendations [Recommendation: A.8.R.1 –page 11] (Hereafter referred to as "Pivotal Practices") 6 Ibid. A.4.R.2., at page 9. 
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Recommendations: Improving CBP’s Receipt, Tracking and Response to 

Complaints 

17. Implement the Complaint Management System or a similar data system throughout all 

CBP operational offices in the field as expeditiously as practicable.

18. Continue taking additional steps to assure that CBP adequately and prominently 

publicizes its Citizen Complaint Form and includes the information necessary for the 

public to file a complaint.

19. Record all conversations on the toll free CBP “hotline” that CBP IA established to accept 

complaints and notify all persons calling the toll free “hotline” of the tape recording, but 

making clear that they can report anonymously. CBP should take reasonable steps to 

preserve the caller anonymity.

20. Create a uniform CBP Reportable Incident Form to internally document all misconduct 

complaints.

21. Acknowledge all complaints received from the public by CBP. If the complaint amounts 

to allegations of misconduct potentially warranting discipline, CBP IA should 

acknowledge with a letter or other documented communication to the complainant, 

verifying receipt of the complaint and assuring a fair and objective investigation. 

22. Notify complainants by letter of the results of such complaints, including administrative 

or disciplinary action, if any, to the extent permitted by law and legitimate privacy 

concerns.

7

23. Require all CBP law enforcement personnel to immediately self-report misconduct 

whether or not it leads to arrest (including misuse of alcohol and arrests for DUI, incident 

of spousal abuse, use of force, bribery attempts) using the Reportable Incident Form. 

CBP needs to establish a short time frame for reporting (e.g., within 24 hours) that 

eliminates any ambiguity. Regarding allegations of serious or criminal misconduct, 

timelines for identifying and interviewing witnesses and preserving evidence should be 

established for IA investigators, when IA has the authority to initiate an investigation. 

24. Promptly implement a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between DHS OIG and 

CBP IA on case referral guidelines to establish clear accountability and responsibility for 

misconduct investigations of CBP personnel. At a minimum, the MoU should provide 

that all investigations of misconduct involving CBP employees default to IA, unless the 

subject employee is a GS-15 or higher.8

25. Establish the ability during the disciplinary adjudication process for CBP to impose upon 

its law enforcement personnel the loss of vehicle privileges, alcohol and drug monitoring, 

participation in anger management training, independent medical examination, and the 

 

7 Ibid. L.3.R.1., at page 15. 8 Ibid. A.3.R.1., at page 8.
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potential for a last chance agreement, in appropriate circumstances. Alcohol and drug 

monitoring, however, should be mandatory in all alcohol related incidents and/or 

prescription drug related misuse or abuse. 

26. Develop and deliver training and on-the-job resources for supervisors to appropriately 

address performance and conduct issues.9

Recommendations: Optimizing Interior Checkpoints 

27. Assign OFO Officers to perform the primary inspection function at CBP’s permanent 

checkpoints to optimize the deployment and skill sets of CBP law enforcement personnel. 

Because a key part of the effectiveness of checkpoints is lateral enforcement, CBP’s 

Border Patrol should retain overall operational and management control of the 

checkpoints. 

Recommendations: Effectively Using Task Forces to Investigate Border Corruption 

28. Assign investigators to participate in all Border Corruption Task Forces (BCTFs) given 

the benefits CBP receives from its participation in them. 

29. Because the BCTFs are an effective model of interagency law enforcement cooperation, 

the DHS OIG also should actively participate in them.

30. Assign Border Patrol intelligence agents to the BCTFs, resources permitting.

Recommendations: Enhancing Transparency / Stakeholder Outreach 

31. To embrace a culture of transparency, continue to make “use of force” policies that are 

not law enforcement sensitive available for public review and regularly post all relevant 

information about “use of force” on incidents on CBP’s website. 

32. When serious incidents occur, including those involving the potential use of out of policy 

and excessive force, continue CBP’s policy of communicating with citizens and the 

media swiftly, openly, and neutrally, while respecting areas where the law or on-going 

investigations require confidentiality.

33. Publish an annual report to government officials, media and the public, and post a copy 

of the report on CBP’s website to provide the public with the ability to review CBP’s 

internal affairs functions and overall condition of the agency. 

Additional Recommendations: 

Use of Force

34. Further develop the CBP Assault and Use of Force Reporting System to include an 

 

9 Ibid. A.9.R.1., at page 11.
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automated early warning component that eliminates the need to manually generate 

reports. 

35. Analyze use of force data and develop metrics to identify and evaluate officers and agents 

who may be at risk beyond CBP’s current mechanical trigger of more than three (3) use 

of force incidents in the previous six (6) months. 

36. Publish an annual report that aggregates use of force data by incident type, force used, 

assignment type, nature of injury and outcome. Also include information about assaults 

against officers/agents.

Body Worn Cameras and Camera Technology Next Steps 

37. Continue to monitor the development of camera technology to select the cameras most 

suitable for CBP’s unique environment. 

38. In developing risk based deployment options, consider the type of assignment, likelihood 

of adversarial action, location and individual officers/agents who have requested BWCs 

or who have indicators of potential at-risk behavior. 

39. Develop a protocol for supervisory review as well as an internal auditing program 

involving random sampling of body worn camera video to ensure compliance with policy 

and to assess officer/agent actions. Such a policy may include a provision that excludes 

minor administrative violations from adverse employment or disciplinary actions.
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INTRODUCTION 

 We will not repeat what we have said in the Executive Summary, above, or in our 

Interim Report. However, the following is an update of the status of the Recommendations made 

in the Interim Report, followed by a discussion, by category, which supports the foregoing 

Recommendations. 
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STATUS OF RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE INTERIM REPORT 

 A number of the CBP Integrity Advisory Panel’s (Panel) recommendations from our 

Interim Report have been implemented, improved, or are moving forward in Customs and 

Border Protection (CBP). Notably, CBP greatly improved the timing and content of its public 

releases following serious use of force incidents,

10 and high level agency oversight on 

transparency related matters now rests with the CBP Deputy Commissioner. CBP has published 

its policies on standards of conduct and use of force as well as other national standards that it 

follows regarding detainee and arrestee movements, instituted Border Community Liaison (BCL) 

training which also is responsive to an earlier Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, 

and at the request of the Panel following its recent meeting with Non-Government Organizations 

(NGO) in Tucson, Arizona, CBP quickly modified its online Information Center to improve its 

Spanish language service capacity by enabling Spanish speakers to directly link from the CBP 

website landing page to the online Spanish translated sites such as the complaint filing page, help 

desk and frequently asked questions. 

 As we pointed out in our Interim Report, an adequately staffed internal affairs component 

is an indispensable element for assuring integrity and ferreting out corruption within a law 

enforcement organization. As we also discussed in our Interim Report, CBP’s Office of Internal 

Affairs (IA)11 is woefully understaffed and requires a substantial increase in the number of IA 

investigators. We stated that CBP’s IA requires approximately 550 fulltime investigators to do 

the job, and recommended 350 additional 1811 investigators be added to IA, ideally over the 

next three years. Since our June 2015 Interim Report, CBP has initiated plans to add 57 agents to 

IA with 30 from Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) Office of Professional 

Responsibility (OPR) and the balance detailed from the CBP’s Border Patrol and Office of Field 

Operations (OFO). It also plans to leverage an unspecified number of Federal Bureau of 

Investigation (FBI) resources through CBP’s participation in the Border Corruption Task Forces 

(BCTF). CBP’s budget request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017, however, calls for an increase of a 

mere 30 additional investigators for IA. At this pace, even assuming the planned detailees and 

leveraged resources occur, it could take almost a decade to get IA to the staffing levels needed to 

ensure it can adequately and timely investigate corruption, use of force and other serious 

misconduct of CBP employees. This leaves CBP vulnerable to a corruption scandal that could 

potentially threaten the security of our nation. 

 The Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) adopted the recommendation of the 

Panel regarding the staffing levels needed. The Panel used the ratio of internal affairs 

investigators to total law enforcement personnel of the FBI, the New York Police Department, 

ICE’s OPR and CBP’s predecessor agency, the U.S. Customs Service. In each instance, 

 

10 This is consistent with a recommendation from the Final Report of The President’s Task Force on 21st Century 

Policing – May 2015, of “...When serious incidents occur, including those involving alleged police misconduct,

agencies should communicate with citizens and the media swiftly, openly, and neutrally, respecting areas where the 

law requires confidentiality.” 11 As noted earlier, at the time of this report, as part of a CBP reorganization, CBP announced that it is changing the 

name of its Office of Internal Affairs (IA) to the Office of Professional Responsibility. For purposes of clarity 

between the Panel’s Interim and Final Reports, we will maintain the original reference as ‘IA’ in this report.
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benchmarking the ratio of law enforcement personnel to internal affairs investigators of any of 

these agencies requires a staffing level at CBP of more than the 350 additional investigators we 

recommended. This, then, should be viewed as a minimal number. Such benchmarking to 

comparator agencies is a commonly resorted to method in law enforcement in the U.S. for 

validating numbers of personnel needed for specific functions. In any event, no one can 

rationally argue that CBP’s IA does not need a large increase in internal affairs investigators 

given the number of law enforcement personnel (44,000) within its ranks. 

 Our Interim Report also highlighted the dysfunctionality created by the current 

fragmentation of responsibility for investigating allegations of serious misconduct by CBP 

personnel, including corruption and unlawful use of force. As explained in our Interim Report, 

currently there is no one who the Secretary of Homeland Security can clearly hold accountable 

for seeing to it that corruption does not take root within CBP and that our national security 

interests at our nation’s border are not compromised by corrupt CBP personnel. As indicated in 

the Interim Report, we strongly believe that the CBP Commissioner should be the official within 

the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who is responsible and accountable for the 

integrity of CBP personnel and that the Commissioner should be given the investigative 

resources, visibility and authority commensurate with this responsibility. In this regard, we urged 

the Homeland Security Secretary to take prompt action to remedy this by requiring changes to

the Secretary’s Management Directive (MD) 810.1 issued in June 10, 2004. To date, the 

Secretary has convened meetings with CBP and Office of Inspector General (OIG) leadership to 

address this issue but none of the recommended modifications to MD 810.1 from the Interim 

Report have been instituted. We are informed that CBP is pursuing a separate Memorandum of 

Understanding (MoU)12 with the DHS Inspector General to establish agreed upon procedures for 

dealing with incidents of alleged misconduct and to eliminate the fragmentation of effort and 

responsibility that currently exist, consistent with our recommendations in the Interim Report.13 

Although at best an interim solution, the Panel is hopeful that the MoU alternative succeeds, but 

is concerned with the overall pace of resolving this critical gap. If a MoU is not successfully 

negotiated in the near term, we urge the Secretary to revisit our recommended amendments to his 

management directive before the current Administration nears its end. 

Although the Interim Report addressed CBP’s use of force and CBP’s then feasibility 

study of body worn cameras, we make additional recommendations and observations in both 

areas.

Since the publication of the Panel’s Interim Report, CBP has fully or partially implemented 

several recommendations contained in the report regarding the prevention of unauthorized use of 

force:

• CBP incorporated some language emphasizing its overarching responsibility to preserve 

human life in its 2014 Handbook update. Additionally, the Use of Force Center of 

Excellence is reviewing other parts of the Handbook to further emphasize this point. 

• The Office of Training and Development (OTD) is incorporating safe tactics and de-

 

12 We indicated the possibility of a MoU in lieu of amending MD 810.1 in our Interim Report, page 12. 13 Pivotal Practices at A.3.R.1, at page 36.
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escalation techniques within its basic and firearms/less-than-lethal training programs and 

is reviewing the language in the handbook addressing use of force against vehicles. 

• CBP developed regional Use of Force Incident Teams (UFIT) and, as of November 1, 

2015, 337 CBP employees have been trained and are certified to participate in UFIT 

deployments. 

• Local Use of Force Review Boards (LUFRB) have been established, which are 

comprised of a committee of individuals in leadership roles from the law enforcement 

components within CBP. There will be twenty-one LUFRBs, one in each Border Patrol 

sector and one additional LUFRB to cover the majority of California and Oregon, to 

review incidents regionally, apply consistent standards for evaluating the use of less-thanlethal force, and like its counterpart at the national level, make observations and 

recommendations regarding training, tactics, policy, and equipment issues. Specifically, 

these boards will determine if a use of force incident was consistent with policy, whether 

any misconduct was committed and consider tactics employed or neglected as well as 

lessons learned. In performing this role, the boards will provide CBP senior leadership 

with an objective assessment of less-lethal force incidents and their observations and 

recommendations will then be submitted for Internal Affairs review.

• The Use of Force Center of Excellence has deployed use of force virtual training 

simulators to the field. CBP is installing 27 virtual training simulators at locations across 

the country with the last five to be installed by the end of March 2016. 

The Panel also was advised that the Commissioner has taken the additional step of 

developing a Use of Force Review Board report that will be publicly released. In this new 

report, certain use of force statistics will be released so that the public can see sector by sector 

the number of incidents involving lethal force, use of a less than lethal device such as a baton 

or taser, for example, and the number of assaults against agents and officers. This new report 

also is expected to include trend line data for a period of years, which further demonstrates the 

Commissioner’s commendable forward leaning approach to transparency that should lead to 

greater public trust in the agency. 

At the time of our Interim Report, a CBP working group was conducting a feasibility 

study of body worn cameras (BWC) in several operational areas over a twelve month period. In 

November 2015, the CBP working group considered and rejected several different BWC 

deployment options, ultimately recommending risk-based deployment to those areas or 

assignments where internal assessments have indicated the need for enhanced technology. CBP 

is continuing to examine the use of BWCs in its operational environments, along with a variety 

of other camera types to include mobile, stationary and maritime cameras.14 The Panel agrees 

 

14As the Panel previously observed in its Interim Report, BWCs have been widely adopted and generally

successfully used by law enforcement across the country not only to ensure policy compliance and accountability 

but also because of the added benefits that flow from BWCs such as the reduction in the filing of frivolous

complaints and the enhancement to officer safety that followed when many volatile situations were de-escalated 

after violators became aware that their actions would be captured by an active camera. That said, a variety of data 

and privacy policy issues accompany the use of BWCs that must be resolved. See the Police Executive Research 
Page | 14 

that BWCs may not be needed at most port of entry (POE) areas due to the proliferation of fixed 

or other cameras, but they may have application in environments in which the CBP Border Patrol 

operates. As announced in November 2015, the Commissioner’s next steps in developing a more 

comprehensive, hybrid approach to CBP’s overall camera technology, that includes BWCs as a 

component, is the right approach to achieve the overarching goal of capturing incident images.15

Going forward, insofar as BWCs are concerned, the Panel’s Recommendations Nos. 37 and 38 

encourage CBP to continue monitoring BWC and other camera technology improvements, 

consider using BWCs in certain known high risk assignments, and develop appropriate 

compliance protocols for supervisory review and random internal audits of BWC use.

 

Forum report, Implementing a Body Worn Camera Program – Recommendations and Lessons Learned located at 

https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/472014912134715246869.pdf 15 See the CBP’s Camera Technology release at http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/cameratechnology-20151112.pdf. Also, see the CBP’s Body Worn Camera Feasibility Study Report at 

http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/body-worn-camera-20151112.pdf
Page | 15 

ASSURING INTEGRITY: PROACTIVE INTEGRITY MEASURES 

Several factors contribute to and promote integrity within an organization. A workforce 

that is well qualified and trained, one that is highly motivated by its mission, one that believes 

that personnel and other decisions are made on the merits is far less likely to have integrity 

lapses and corruption issues. Also important is deterrence and a strong ethos internalized within 

the organization that emphasizes corruption will not be tolerated and is, in fact, dealt with in a 

prompt and decisive way, i.e., by prompt investigations and disciplinary actions. As noted in our 

Interim Report, there are three essential elements to assure integrity within CBP: (1) Clear 

alignment of accountability with internal affairs investigative resources, (2) an adequately staffed 

internal affairs capability, and (3) a disciplinary system that metes out appropriate discipline in a 

timely fashion and without unnecessary delay. 

In the Interim Report, we discuss at length why CBP, as a law enforcement agency at the 

border, is particularly vulnerable to corruption. See pages 5-10 of the Interim Report regarding 

the magnitude of potential corruption in a border agency such as CBP. CBP must be in a 

position to deal with and investigate large volumes of allegations and investigations if it is to be 

in a position to aggressively deal with corruption issues and nip them in the bud. And it must be 

more than reactive if it is going to be able to do this going forward. 

 Beyond the recommendations of the Interim Report, there are other steps that CBP can 

take to assure integrity and dramatically reduce the risk of corruption within its ranks. Our 

additional recommendations regarding assuring integrity are grounded in the best practice that, to 

be optimally effective, a law enforcement organization must be proactive in preventing, deterring 

and ferreting out corruption. To facilitate this, we are recommending the development of a 

comprehensive proactive CBP strategy to prevent corruption and promote integrity; one that 

energizes the CBP offices in thinking about this issue and which captures the basket of initiatives 

and programs, many outlined below, that are worthy of the agency’s support.16

CBP is the lead border agency in the world and is often cited as the model for border law 

enforcement by other governments. As part of CBP’s leadership position and foreign outreach 

through the World Customs Organization and other international fora, CBP, working with the 

State Department, espouses the importance of anti-corruption best practices to customs and 

border agencies throughout the world. See Interim Report, page 6, fn. 3. Accordingly, CBP itself 

should have and use best practices to prevent, deter and reduce corruption. CBP must be 

proactive in its approach if it is to prevent corruption from taking root. 

Nearly all past investigations of corruption within CBP have been reactive, dependent on 

reporting by co-workers, members of the public or other law enforcement agencies. Yet, 

because corruption is like a cancer on an organization, it is desirable and a best practice to take a 

 

16 See Recommendation No. 1, above. We are mindful of CBP’s Integrity and Personal Accountability Strategy

implemented by the CBP Commissioner on September 18, 2014 located here 

http://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/CBP%20Integrity%20and%20Personal%20Accountability%20Str

ategy%20091814.pdf. This is an important strategy. A specific focus on the proactive aspects an anti-corruption 

strategy, however, will only make it stronger. 
Page | 16 

proactive approach to prevent corruption and where it is occurring, to identify pockets of 

corruption early on so there can be earlier investigations and excisions. 

Fundamental to CBP’s transformation from a reactive mode to proactively combatting 

corruption is prioritizing its investment in upgrading or replacing its information technology (IT) 

systems with platforms that are fully integrated, capable of talking to each other and proactively 

cross-mining the rich data that CBP currently possesses in data silos. Without these IT 

improvements, CBP cannot fully achieve the much needed proactive integrity assurance it seeks. 

Currently, for example, its case intake system (Joint Integrity Case Management System – 

JICMS) has no search feature to support trend analysis and requires days of manual data searches 

to answer simple queries. The Panel is encouraged that CBP has an internal working group to 

review these IT issues but urges their swift action to address needed system improvements 

expeditiously. 

CBP has developed and implemented several world-class proactive integrity measures 

and programs and is to be commended. Among these is the Combined Automated Operations 

System (CAOS), a program that randomly and unpredictably re-assigns CBP Officers working 

primary inspection lanes to other lanes. CBP wisely has prohibited the use of cell phones by CBP 

Officers working primary. Moreover, CBP has implemented the Integrity Officer Program 

within OFO. Integrity Officers (IO) are experienced CBP officers who are trained regarding 

integrity issues and assigned to the staff of the Directors of each OFO’s District Offices. 

Utilizing specialized software, the IOs provide the subject matter expertise to CBP’s IA and 

other investigative entities, such as the FBI-led BCTFs. As such, this program provides an 

important link between IA and CBP field operations at the District Field Office level. 

Importantly, the CBP IOs also help develop and oversee the delivery of integrity-related training 

to the field. CBP’s other large operational office, CBP’s Border Patrol, does not have an 

equivalent to the Integrity Officer Program, but we believe it would benefit from having an 

experienced and trained Border Patrol Agent assigned as the Sector Integrity Officer in each of 

the 20 Border Patrol sectors. 

CBP is one of the few agencies in the world that carefully studies all instances of 

corruption. Headed by a Ph.D. in Psychology, CBP IA’s Division of Threat Mitigation, using a 

behavior based approach, dissects and analyzes proven corruption for the purpose of 

understanding root causes. Based on a more detailed understanding of factors that have led to 

integrity lapses, CBP management is better able to develop proactive counter-measures. This is a 

continuous process, but an extremely important one to achieving CBP’s integrity goals. 

Starting in 2009, CBP developed the Analytical Management Systems Control Office 

(AMSCO). AMSCO, assisted by analysts within CBP IA, evaluates entry and other transactional 

data to identify potential corruption issues well before any human reporting. Building on 

AMSCO, and utilizing principles of targeting pioneered by CBP’s National Targeting Center, 

CBP has deployed a program called the Enforcement Link Mobile Operations red flags 

(ELMOrf) which uses well designed rules sets to identify in real time problematic actions taken 

by CBP Officers conducting primary and secondary inspections at POEs. AMSCO and ELMOrf 

“hits” are referred to the Investigative Operations Division of IA if there are indications of 

potential corruption. 
Page | 17 

AMSCO and ELMOrf are surely one of the best practices of any border control agency in 

the world. One of the challenges for CBP, however, is continuing to expand AMSCO and 

ELMOrf concepts beyond CBP’s OFO to its other operational offices, including the CBP’s 

Border Patrol. CBP also needs to see to it that these programs are adequately resourced with 

analysts and that they are provided with feedback based on their referrals, both with respect to 

investigative follow up and disciplinary action taken. This is not happening on a regular basis 

now, and it is essential to the optimization of these tools and evolving ever more sophisticated 

rules sets.

We also note that CBP has been piloting Blue Force Tracking to permit visibility to 

managers in the field and at headquarters of where CBP’s Border Patrol and Air and Marine

Operations (AMO) resources are positioned. Blue Force Tracking is unquestionably a law 

enforcement best practice. Once expanded beyond the pilot phase, CBP’s Border Patrol will be 

more operationally effective, and it will promote officer safety in the field. Tragic friendly fire 

incidents can be vastly reduced, if not eliminated entirely. But in addition to its other benefits, 

Blue Force Tracking is a proactive measure that will help prevent corruption and promote 

integrity. The challenge for CBP is to secure any necessary funding and implement Blue Force 

Tracking throughout the entire CBP Border Patrol as well as AMO as expeditiously as possible. 

One of the most effective anti-corruption measures is to weed out relatively new law 

enforcement officers before they become problems. Currently, CBP has only 12 months to 

evaluate and decide whether to keep a new CBP Officer or Border Patrol Agent. Given that basic 

training for CBPOs and BPAs takes nearly 6 months, there is only a mere six to seven months in 

which these rookies can be evaluated in the field before the full panoply of civil service 

protections attach. This is plainly insufficient. The Office of Personnel Management has the 

authority to extend the period of evaluation to 24 months for sensitive law enforcement and 

national security positions, such as Border Patrol Agents, CBP Officers and Air & Marine 

Officers, and it should do so. This would give CBP much needed additional time to determine 

whether a CBP law enforcement officer is inclined toward behavior that makes him or her an 

integrity risk or a risk for use of excessive force.

In addition to a longer probationary period for CBP’s law enforcement personnel (Border 

Patrol Agents and CBP Officers), it is noteworthy that these personnel perform an important 

national security function, i.e., preventing international terrorists and the implements of terror 

from entering the U.S. across the borders of our nation. Indeed, since the terrorist attacks of 

9/11, this has been the priority mission of CBP. If the U.S. is to be successful in preventing 

asymmetrical attacks against the homeland, it will be due largely to the diligence and integrity of 

CBP’s frontline law enforcement personnel in preventing foreign terrorists from getting into the 

U.S. Integrity lapses by frontline CBP personnel, be they Border Patrol agents or CBP Officers at 

the nation’s ports of entry, threaten the national security of the U.S. more directly and frontally 

than integrity issues, say, of FBI agents, who are deemed national security employees and 

therefore in the Excepted Service, i.e., service exempted from civil service requirements and 

restrictions.

In our view, CBP’s sworn law enforcement personnel, approximately 44,000 officers and 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

agents, should be deemed national security employees and placed in the Excepted Service, just as 

all FBI agents and as a number of other Homeland Security agencies currently are, including 

Federal Air Marshals, ICE Homeland Security Investigators, TSA screeners, and uniformed 

Secret Service personnel. Indeed, employees of 14 national security-related federal agencies are 

part of the Excepted Service17. We believe that this status will greatly enhance CBP’s ability to 

take appropriate disciplinary action of the type that is essential to assure integrity as is the case in 

the other agencies responsible for national security, both inside and outside of DHS. Not only 

will it be possible to impose discipline much more quickly, where warranted by the facts, but it 

also will eliminate the watering down, lowest-common-denominator approach that has resulted 

from an appeal process to outside arbitrators under the current collective bargaining agreement; 

arbitrators who may not see the need for severe discipline in matters involving corrupt acts, outof-policy use of force and basic dishonesty. Of note, both of the unions that represent many of 

the rank and file CBP agents and officers, the National Treasury Employees Union and the 

National Border Patrol Council, expressed to this Panel their overarching concern with the long 

delays in the disciplinary process and the resulting negative impact on employees.18 Excepted 

Service employees by definition are removed from civil service and as such are not entitled to 

representation by a collective bargaining unit. We also recognize that Excepted Service 

employees are not entitled to appeal disciplinary decisions to outside arbitrators, nor to appeal 

adverse disciplinary action to the civil service Merit System Protection Board (MSPB). 

Nonetheless, CBP’s current internal discipline process, even without the additional layers of 

MSPB and union arbitrators, is fair and provides for considerable due process with several layers 

of review and an opportunity to be heard before adverse action is taken. 

The Panel recommended Excepted Service for the CBP frontline officers and agents only 

after considerable research, benchmarking and discussion. It should be noted, however, that the 

Panel’s recommendation was not unanimous, with Panel member Ron Barber respectfully 

dissenting from the recommendation.19 

17 There are at least 14 security-related Agencies with employees in the Excepted Service to include: 

x Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) 

x Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 

x Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) 

x Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) 

x Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 

x National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) 

x National Maritime Intelligence Center 

x National Security Agency (NSA) 

x Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) 

x Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) 

x US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - Transportation Security Administration (TSA) 

x United States Department of Justice (DOJ) 

x Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) 

x United States Secret Service - Uniformed Division (USSS) 

18 While our recommendation to reclassify CBP’s agents and officers as national security employees has the collateral 

benefit of also addressing these union concerns, we recognize that their endorsement of this recommendation is 

highly unlikely because, among other things, it would eliminate their dues paying membership. 19 In sum, Mr. Barber’s dissenting view holds that the current appeal process should be maintained so that those 

employees who have the most challenging jobs will have the protections that are afforded to others in the nation who 

have public safety responsibilities. His other concerns revolved around the potential negative impact to morale that 

Page | 18
	
Page | 19 

Since the Anti-Border Corruption Act in 2010, as part of the background investigation of 

new hires, CBP was mandated to screen new CBP law enforcement personnel using a polygraph. 

After hiring a sufficient number of polygraph examiners, this important integrity measure was 

implemented for all new hires in 2012. We believe that integrity could be enhanced further by 

periodic random and targeted polygraph examinations on a post-hire basis of CBP law 

enforcement personnel. The FBI and the agencies in the U.S. intelligence community (e.g., CIA, 

DIA, NSA) currently conduct post-hire polygraphs during their 5-year periodic security 

investigation and some random polygraphs for on-board employees. 

 

some consider unacceptably low, and the possibility that if civil service protections are removed, decisions could be 

arbitrary and capricious or inappropriately politically motivated.
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STREAMLINING CBP’S DISCIPLINE PROCESS 

The CBP discipline system is broken. The length of time from receiving an allegation of 

misconduct to imposing final discipline is far too long. The average case involving allegations 

of serious misconduct takes more than a year and a half from intake to final disposition of 

discipline. This undermines the deterrence goals of discipline. And, it is a disservice to those 

CBP employees who are left in limbo under the cloud of misconduct allegations that are later 

disproven or do not warrant disciplinary action. In its report of November 23, 2015, Pivotal 

Practices Consulting LLC (Pivotal) “U.S. Customs and Border Protection Complaints and 

Discipline Systems Review – Public Report of Findings and Recommendations” concluded that 

delay was one of the central problems with CBP’s discipline process and a key reason that 

discipline is not nearly as effective as it could and should be. 

The CBP discipline process is a complicated one for many reasons, but in no small 

measure because it involves several different offices of CBP with different and overlapping 

responsibilities during different phases of the process. No one official and no single office of 

CBP is actually responsible for assuring timeliness for all phases of the discipline process, from 

intake and investigation to the discipline review board, to the imposition of discipline by the 

deciding official, through the appeal phase.20 Moreover, as noted above, the responsibility for 

investigating an allegation of misconduct is fragmented, as some of the most serious 

investigations are retained by DHS OIG, over which the CBP Commissioner has no control and 

no way of assuring timeliness, much less establishing prioritization.

Besides integrity and use of force issues, arrests for misuse of alcohol and for spousal 

abuse are serious concerns that impact CBP, both in terms of employee availability and integrity 

and fitness to perform law enforcement duties. Yet CBP currently has no provisions as part of 

the discipline process to require alcohol and drug monitoring21, to mandate anger management 

training, suspend use of official government vehicles, implement a last chance agreement and the 

like. All of these are best practices within police departments and law enforcement 

organizations. 

 

20 The Commissioner’s Management Staff currently is responsible for oversight of the disciplinary process but as a 

group lacks the single point of authority recommended by the Panel. 21 Currently, alcohol or drug monitoring is included only if offered by the employee as part of remediation.
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IMPROVING CBP’S RECEIPT, TRACKING AND RESPONSE TO 

COMPLAINTS 

CBP interacts with more people on a daily basis than any other law enforcement 

organization in the U.S. CBP Officers assigned to CBP’s Office of Field Operations interact 

with and clear into the U.S. over 100 million people annually, or over 300,000 people entering 

the U.S. through our international airports every day22. Nearly half of those, are foreign 

nationals, some of who are visiting our country for the first time. The number of people 

interacting with CBP Officers at the land border POEs is even greater, approximately 270 

million people move annually through Customs and Border Protection into the U.S. from Mexico 

and Canada, or approximately 740,000 daily.23 In sum, CBP interacts with and clears into the 

United States over 1 million people, on average, every single day. Last year, CBP Officers at our 

ports of entry determined that 236,953 foreign nationals were inadmissible, and they were not 

allowed to enter. 11,611 of these CBP identified and determined to be inadmissible high risk 

foreigners who were then prevented from boarding flights to the U.S. A smaller, though not 

inconsiderable number (8,246), were arrested by CBP Officers at the ports of entry for serious 

crimes, ranging from murder, rape, assault and robbery24.

 Between the POEs, during FY2015, 

CBP Border Patrol apprehended 337,117 migrants, (nearly 1,000 arrests each day), attempting to 

illegally enter the U.S., mainly along and near our border with Mexico. Moreover, CBP’s 

Border Patrol Agents interact with at least 27 million people annually, most of whom are U.S. 

Citizens (74,000 daily) at the 34 checkpoints it operates interior of the southwest border.25

These numbers are staggering. More than any other law enforcement agencies, CBP 

would benefit from a system where it receives complaints and comments from the vast public it 

interacts with. CBP must be willing to invite criticism from and listen to the public and to take 

action as warranted. This will help assure the highest standards of professionalism and courtesy 

are maintained, while doing their difficult job of identifying people not entitled to enter the U.S., 

who are attempting to smuggle illegal drugs or other contraband or who pose a potential terrorist 

threat to our homeland. 

Yet CBP’s ability to intake, track, process and benefit from such a complaint system has 

been lacking. Outsiders, including NGOs and other stakeholders, complain that there was often 

no acknowledgement of receipt of complaints, much less any follow up with members of the 

public regarding action taken to address their complaints. Last year, on the initiative of the CBP 

Commissioner, CBP undertook to review how CBP’s vast and far flung network of operational 

and field offices handles and addresses comments and complaints from the public. The review, 

and a similar one conducted by Pivotal Practices, revealed multiple and inconsistent processes 

for submitting complaints and “incongruent procedures for tracking and resolving complaints” 

across different CBP offices and geographic locations in the field26. 

 

22 The actual numbers for last year, FY 2015, were 112 million (or 308,000 daily) arriving air passengers. 23 CBP Officers pre‐clears another 17.5 million travelers annually, mainly from Canadian airports. 24 See DHS Press Release dated December 22, 2015, page 2, re: End of FY 2015 statistics. 25 Data related to the checkpoints is based on available CBP Border Patrol License Plate Reader data for 28 of the 34 

checkpoints.

26 Pivotal Practices at page 2.
Page | 24 

To address this problem, the Commissioner of CBP decided to consolidate and 

standardize the intake, tracking and handling of public complaints CBP-wide by expanding the 

Complaint Management System (CMS).27 CMS is a single automated process for receiving and 

tracking public complaints and comments developed by CBP in 2009 that has been piloted in 

certain offices of CBP. In October 2015, the CBP Commissioner directed that the CMS pilot 

project that had already been initiated at ports of entry of CBP’s OFO and to the Tucson Sector 

of CBP’s Border Patrol, be expanded to other CBP components to include CBP’s Border Patrol.

The Commissioner has clearly stated: “The goal is to expand the CMS system to all CBP 

components.”28 We believe that this is an important step in the right direction and urge the 

Commissioner to implement the full roll-out of CMS, or a CMS-type system, to all offices of 

CBP as soon as feasible.

Once implemented CBP-wide, CMS has the potential of assuring that CBP’s policy of 

responding to all public complaints takes place, to track progress in resolving these complaints, 

improve CBP’s interactions with the public by taking prompt corrective actions when 

appropriate, and letting complainants know that they have been heard by advising them of 

actions taken.

NGOs have observed that public complaints of misconduct or inappropriate conduct by 

CBP personnel are not responded to and fall into some “black hole”. Given the lack of a 

standardized system, and many different ways of handling public complaints within CBP, this no 

doubt has happened. CMS holds the promise of making sure a complaint is acknowledged and a 

tracking number assigned. It also holds the promise for appropriate feedback to a complainant 

after the complaint has been resolved, subject to any legal or privacy restrictions. Further, CMS 

will assist CBP supervisors and managers in assuring that the professionalism, courtesy and 

respect goals of CBP are being met on a consistent, CBP-wide basis. The sooner CMS can be 

implemented CBP-wide, the better.

Based upon the pilot of CMS, a relatively small percentage (8%) of the 250,000 annual 

calls and emails related to professionalism issues of CBP personnel. (An even smaller 

percentage will warrant IA investigation and potential disciplinary action). Even though some of 

these complaints will not be valid or justified, some will, and CBP, as an organization committed 

to professionalism, courtesy, and respect for human dignity, can reap enormous benefit from 

taking them to heart and taking action. 

CBP Officers are truly the face of our nation. They are the first U.S. government official 

that foreign nationals contact after arrival in the U.S. CBP Officers must do their jobs, but they 

must do so at all times professionally and with courtesy. After conducting primary questioning, 

the simple remark by a CBP Officer of “welcome to America” to a foreign national, or “welcome 

home” to a returning U.S. citizen, speaks volumes. On the other hand, there is no place for curt 

or rude remarks by CBP Officers, and CBP management and supervisors should be aware of 

 

27 See CBP memorandum from Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske, dated October 26, 2015, “Expansion of the 

Consolidated Complaint Management System Pilot Program.”

28 Ibid
Page | 25 

such conduct and promptly take corrective action, where warranted, even if it does not warrant 

formal discipline. CMS will facilitate this and will help make CBP the world-class border agency 

that it aspires to be. 

For CMS to be optimally effective, it is important that members of the public who 

interact with CBP have access to complaint/comment forms, websites, or phone numbers in a 

way that is prominently displayed in federal inspection areas at the ports of entry and other 

processing locations. This form should also be available and easily assessable on CBP’s 

website. We note that CBP has already made its standard public complaint form available in 

Spanish and is in the process of expanding its bilingual signage to notify the public how to file 

a complaint or comment with CBP.29

In addition to the above, CBP’s IA has a tip “hotline” established for receiving 

complaints alleging misconduct by CBP personnel. Although anonymous reporting, a best 

practice, is permitted, it would be desirable and a best practice if CBP recorded such calls and 

notified the caller that his/her call is being recorded. The caller’s anonymity can still be 

maintained, such as added technology that alters the voice of the caller to mask distinguishing 

voice characteristics. Recording tip line calls not only provides IA investigators with a firsthand 

account of the allegation, but this practice also adds transparency and an audit trail for agency 

accountability.

CBP has a requirement and procedure for reporting all complaints of misconduct to 

CBP Internal Affairs and logging them into the Joint Intake Center (JIC), including selfreporting, but lacks a uniform, standardized Reportable Incident Form. It would be desirable 

and a law enforcement best practice to have one. Moreover, we note that the time frame for 

reporting is not a model of clarity, and a set time frame for reporting to IA would be desirable. 

There should also be clear guidance to IA investigators regarding allegations of criminal or 

serious misconduct for initiating investigations without delay and for promptly identifying and 

interviewing witnesses and preserving evidence. 

Recommendation No. 23 above involves a self-reporting best practice. Based on our 

review, CBP’s self-reporting procedures and timeline for doing so are not clearly established. In 

our view, all CBP personnel should be required to self-report using the Reportable Incident Form 

referred to above. A definitive and short time frame for reporting needs to be established, 

perhaps no more than four (4) hours. In any event, there should be no ambiguity what needs to 

be self-reported and when. In the case of serious or criminal allegations, a set time for reporting 

is particularly useful in that it provides IA investigators with the ability to promptly initiate an 

investigation and take timely steps to preserve evidence.

 

29 The Panel also has been advised that OFO is now distributing printed flyers at the ports of entry that bear a QR 

(quick response) Code, which, when scanned by a phone app, links directly to the CBP Information Center website 

to submit complaints or comments. We are advised that the Border Patrol also plans to provide the same flyers to 

travelers at checkpoints in the future.
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OPTIMIZING INTERIOR CHECKPOINTS 

In addition to the benefits of interagency task forces such as the FBI-led BCTFs, CBP 

should attempt to optimize the law enforcement strengths and skill sets within its two large 

operational offices, the Border Patrol and Field Operations. 

CBP operates 34 permanent checkpoints, all of which are located on highways within 60 

miles or less of the southwest border. All of these checkpoints are staffed by CBP’s Border 

Patrol. Border Patrol Agents perform the primary inspection, typically involving the stop of 

north bound vehicles and a few questions of the driver and occupants. In a small percentage of 

instances, the driver and vehicle are referred for a secondary inspection including questioning 

and search of the vehicle at a site just off the highway. An important part of the checkpoint 

operation is lateral enforcement in areas adjacent to the checkpoints against those who seek to 

evade the checkpoints. The checkpoints, as such, are a critical component of CBP’s defense-indepth strategy and are needed in order to secure our nation’s border. Without them, a 

substantially larger number of illegal migrants and smuggled drugs would make it into the 

interior of the U.S. The legal authority for these checkpoints is also clear and well established.30

As noted above, historically CBP’s Border Patrol operates these checkpoints. This 

involves: primary inspection, secondary inspection and lateral enforcement. As with the ports of 

entry, these checkpoints are one of the few situations where the vast majority of people that 

BPAs interact with are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally entitled to be in the U.S. In other 

words, the primary inspection at checkpoints (and secondary also) is far more akin to operations 

at the ports of entry that CBP’s Office of Field Operations conducts on a daily basis, than it is to 

what BPAs generally encounter, where nearly everyone is or has just entered the U.S. illegally. 

Indeed, unlike BPAs, CBP Officers receive specialized training in the primary and secondary 

inspection process. Accordingly, since the checkpoints more closely mirror the OFO function, 

we recommend that CBP consider restructuring checkpoint operations to more effectively align 

the talents and expertise of CBP resources by assigning CBP Officers to perform the inspection 

function at all permanent checkpoints. However, because Border Patrol’s lateral enforcement 

expertise remains a strategic component in the overall effectiveness of checkpoints, CBP’s 

Border Patrol should retain responsibility for overall operational control of the checkpoints. 

This recommendation will not require an increase in CBP’s FTE, but it will require a 

relatively small transfer of FTE from the Border Patrol to OFO. This is a small price to pay in 

order to achieve one of the largely unrealized benefits of merging all frontline border law 

enforcement into one agency, Customs and Border Protection. 

 

30 See United States v. Marintez-Fuerte, 428, U.S. 543 (1976)
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EFFECTIVELY USING TASK FORCES TO INVESTIGATE BORDER 

CORRUPTION 

As discussed in our Interim Report, CBP, like all border control agencies worldwide, is 

vulnerable to corruption within its ranks. This is particularly so given the resource-rich drug 

cartels and criminal enterprises that operate south of our border in Mexico, who employ a variety 

of methods in an attempt to target, recruit and corrupt law enforcement personnel who then can 

facilitate the smuggling of drugs and people and other criminal activity. This includes CBP 

Officers and Border Patrol Agents as well as local police officers. Such corrupt officials can 

assist the cartels by providing intelligence and facilitating the movement of large amounts of 

contraband across our borders and into our country. Indeed, corrupt CBP law enforcement 

personnel pose a national security threat. 

A key point in our Interim Report is that CBP must have the ability to promptly and 

effectively investigate allegations of corruption. Although the BCTFs investigate only a fraction 

of the corruption allegations involving CBP personnel, they investigate many of the most serious 

corruption cases and are a deterrent to corruption. The BCTFs should have full participation of 

CBP and should be supported by the Department of Homeland Security.

By way of background, to help address the threat of border corruption writ large, the FBI 

has established the National Border Corruption Task Force (NBCTF) in Washington, D.C. and 

22 Border Corruption Task Forces / Border Corruption Work Groups in high risk areas near the 

U.S. northern and southern borders. The BCTFs investigate serious official corruption 

allegations involving state, local and federal officials that have law enforcement authorities at 

and near the U.S. borders, including not just CBP law enforcement personnel, but state and local 

law enforcement. The FBI and the federal law enforcement community recognize the BCTF 

concept as an effective investigative tool for uncovering official corruption at and near the 

borders of our nation. The FBI values CBP’s strong commitment to the BCTFs.

CBP actively participates in the NBCTF, a national level coordination mechanism that 

meets in Washington, D.C., and has assigned CBP IA investigators to 18 of the 22 BCTFs.31 In

addition to the assignment of CBP IA investigators, CBP’s OOFO assigns CBP Officers to the 

various BCTFs. Based on our review, there is significant evidence that the BCTF concept is an 

important and effective enforcement tool, and it especially benefits CBP’s goal of identifying, 

investigating and rooting out corruption within its ranks. Moreover, CBP is able to leverage its 

investigative capabilities with those of its BCTF partner agencies, thereby expanding CBP’s 

internal oversight. BCTF operations also are mutually beneficial for the partnering agencies, 

such as the FBI, because it allows the FBI to leverage its increasingly scarce FBI Special Agents 

for border corruption investigations.

 

31 IA currently does not have active participation in the San Juan or Guam BCTFs or the Minneapolis or Imperial 

County, California Border Corruption Working Groups. CBP agrees that it should assign investigators to all BCTFs, 

but currently lacks the staffing resources to do so. We addressed IA’s overall staffing insufficiency in our Interim 

Report.
Page | 30 

The Southern Arizona BCTF is a model task force operation, and is recognized as such 

by the FBI. Indeed, in our view, engagement by CBP in BCTF operations across the borders 

should model the Southern Arizona BCTF. The Southern Arizona BCTF is the only BCTF that 

includes investigators from all three DHS internal investigative components, DHS OIG, ICE OPR

and CBP IA. This depth of involvement streamlines communication and enhances inter-agency

cooperation. 

Currently, CBP has 27 employees assigned to the BCTFs, 18 of which are CBP IA 

special agents. Some of the BCTFs currently include a small number of CBP Officers and Border 

Patrol Agents. As noted, CBP should participate in all 22 BCTFs and consider expanding the 

presence of BPAs assigned to the BCTFs. In particular, the inclusion of Border Patrol

intelligence agents in the BCTFs would further expand the BCTF’s ability to identify and 

investigate corruption cases. Inherent in the task force concept is the fact that task force

operations are mutually beneficial for the partnering agencies. This is surely the case for CBP’s 

involvement with the BCTFs. CBP is able to leverage its investigative capabilities, have 

expanded database access, resource sharing, electronic surveillance capabilities, and analytical

capabilities of all BCTF partner agencies, thereby enhancing CBP’s own internal affairs 

oversight of corruption issues within CBP.

In sum, the interests of CBP and the Department of Homeland Security in better securing 

the border by eliminating corruption at the vicinity of the border would be well served by 

increased participation in the BCTFs by CBP and the other investigative agencies of the 

Department, including in particular the DHS OIG. Currently, DHS OIG participates in about onehalf of the BCTFs, but even as to these rarely assigns investigators fulltime. 
Page | 31 

ENHANCING TRANSPARANCY / STAKEHOLDER OUTREACH 

CBP has improved its overall transparency and community outreach at a headquarters 

level under the practices and policies of the present Commissioner and in certain of its Border 

Patrol sectors. However, until recently, CBP lacked the structure, oversight and accountability 

required to uniformly implement the Commissioner’s agency standards of performance towards 

civilians that prioritize courtesy, respect and professionalism on a CBP-wide basis throughout its 

vast operations in the field. Moreover, communication between the BCL at the headquarters and 

Border Patrol sector levels had suffered from self-imposed silos and a lack of inclusiveness, 

oftentimes depriving the sector level of valuable information regarding discussions and policy 

concerns that NGOs had separately directed to headquarters but which implicated the entire

agency. 

CBP headquarters is now in the process of redoubling its efforts to improve leadership, 

transparency and stakeholder outreach. As part of that effort, headquarters has elevated 

stakeholder outreach to the Commissioner’s office by adding an NGO advisor and delegating 

newly created overall oversight and the accountability for stakeholder outreach to the 

Commissioner’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, who has instituted weekly internal 

headquarters meetings to address NGO issues and directly reports to the Commissioner. These 

improvements also incorporate needed procedural changes that routinize quarterly NGO 

meetings and bridge communication silos by including in the headquarters level NGO meetings

the local CBP Border Patrol liaisons and OFO professional service managers responsible for 

community engagement. CBP has instituted other meeting changes to add the visibility and 

structure necessary to ensure policy follow up. As these new steps mature, best practices also 

need to be highlighted and shared in regular and more structured internal conference calls among

the sector liaison representatives and headquarters program leadership.

These program and leadership changes are timely and critical to driving uniform 

transparency and stakeholder outreach from the top down in CBP. In multiple meetings of the 

Panel with NGOs over the past year, at both the headquarters and sector levels, these civilian 

groups favorably noted improved engagement at the CBP headquarters level, especially 

complimenting Commissioner Kerlikowske. However, the NGOs did not see consistency in CBP 

outreach and partnership at the field or sector level of CBP’s Border Patrol. The NGOs cite a 

number of specific policy concerns but their overarching complaint is their perception that there 

is a CBP Border Patrol culture that operates with an arrogance and impunity in their dealings 

with civilians. In some respects, the NGO cultural concerns derive from alleged acts of 

misconduct, many dating back years. 

It is very difficult to change both organizational culture and overcome long standing 

reputational damage from historical acts inconsistent with the desired change in culture. This is 

especially true when by the very nature of law enforcement, many civilian encounters arise from 

their violations of the law and the agency has tens of thousands of agents and officers operating 

in diverse and difficult settings. Agency-wide, the Commissioner has consistently set the tone 

and personally demonstrated his high expectations for stakeholder/community engagement and 

transparency, but adding the needed structure and oversight should lead to measureable change 
Page | 32 

throughout the agency if appropriately driven by performance standards, reviews and rewards. 

From the Panel’s sector level meetings, it is clear that CBP understands the importance of 

some segments of the civilian population to its mission, highly values those civilian partnerships 

as force multipliers, and attempts to cultivate those relationships.32 For example, sector 

leadership of CBP’s Border Patrol has established citizen academies to educate civilian leaders 

about the Border Patrol and its training and challenges, has actively reached out to the ranchers 

to share intelligence, and has used social media effectively to educate the public and school age 

children about various CBP Border Patrol programs. There also are a number of examples at the 

local level where the Border Patrol has supported some of their greatest civilian detractors. In 

one instance, Border Patrol sector management enabled public protests against the agency by 

driving protesters to their protest site after their vehicle broke down on the side of the road. And, 

many staff level employees have quietly demonstrated their compassion by voluntarily 

contributing their personal funds and shopping to ensure that detainees have essential supplies. 

CBP’s Border Patrol also devotes considerable effort to rescuing migrants who have illegally 

crossed the U.S. border and are stranded in harsh environments without food or water. 

Unfortunately, these humanitarian efforts are little known and underappreciated. 

Secretary Johnson’s December 9, 2014 letter to the Homeland Security Advisory Council 

requested that the Panel identify law enforcement best practices involving stakeholder outreach. 

Since then, President Obama established the Task Force on 21st Century Policing. This 

appointed group of various law enforcement leaders, which included a member of this Panel, 

considered and set forth proposed best practices on law enforcement transparency and 

stakeholder outreach in their May 2015 report to President Obama.33 The Panel is advised that 

CBP already has reviewed the recommendations made by the Task Force on 21st Century 

Policing and has incorporated or is considering adopting those recommendations that are 

applicable to CBP and otherwise practicable.

Regarding stakeholder outreach, best practice models currently exist within some of 

CBP’s Border Patrol sectors. The Tucson Sector is a good example, where four such groups are 

operational. One of the longest running community advisory councils in the country is in place at 

the Nogales Station in Southern Arizona. Its time tested and productive approach could be 

replicated in other Border Patrol sectors and stations. These community advisory groups can 

provide an ongoing venue for positive communication between the CBP Border Patrol and 

community residents and serve to increase mutual understanding and trust. 

We believe that CBP should establish similar stakeholder groups in each of the other 19 

Border Patrol sectors and, where warranted, at the station level.

Lastly, CBP releases some form of annual review of the agency’s discipline process. It

appears that it is only available to government officials, however, the Panel has been advised that

 

32 We concur with the law enforcement best practice from the Final Report of The President’s Task Force on 21st

Century Policing – May 2015 of “...establish a culture of transparency and accountability in order to build public 

trust and legitimacy. This will help ensure decision-making is understood and in accord with stated policy.” 33 The Final Report of The President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing – May 2015 can be found at 

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/TaskForce_FinalReport.pdf.
Page | 33 

the Commissioner intends to publicly issue a detailed disciplinary report at the end of this 

calendar year, which the Panel encourages. In that same vein, to further transparency, in 

Recommendation No. 36, we recommend that CBP IA issue an annual report that is disseminated 

to the public and media, and that it be posted on CBP’s website. We have suggested some 

content that should be included in such a report. For example, this could include a description of 

the current CBP Internal Affairs Table of Organization and related office functions, an 

explanation of the classification process for all reportable incidents, the system by which 

incidents are addressed and disposed of, and finally, an analysis of the data compiled during the 

given year. We are confident that a publicly available annual report will contribute to the 

transparency goals of CBP advocated for by the Commissioner. 

In the final analysis, a law enforcement organization in a democratic society can tie its 

effectiveness directly to its level of public trust. A significant factor in gaining and maintaining 

that trust is ensuring that there is a strict allegiance to a highly professional and transparent 

internal affairs function. The execution of the internal affairs function within a professional law 

enforcement entity presents challenges that require constant and consistent vigilance. 
Page | 34 

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Page | 35 

APPENDIX A – PANEL MEMBER BIOGRAPHIES 

William J. Bratton (Co-Chair)

William (Bill) J. Bratton is the Police Commissioner, City of New York. Commissioner Bratton

began his policing career in 1970, and is the only person ever to serve as chief executive of the 

LAPD and the NYPD. Commissioner Bratton established an international reputation for reengineering police departments and fighting crime in the 1990s. As Chief of the New York City 

Transit Police, Boston Police Commissioner, New York City Police Commissioner, and Chief of 

the LAPD, Bratton revitalized morale and cut crime in all four posts. In New York City, he 

achieved the largest crime declines in the city’s history, and in Los Angeles he successfully 

reengineered the department to comply with the nation’s largest federal consent decree. 

Afterward, Commissioner Bratton was named Chairman of Kroll, one of Altegrity, Inc.'s four 

core businesses. In his role with Kroll, Bratton worked with the business' senior leadership to 

achieve Kroll's strategic growth objectives as well as assist with client outreach and service 

initiatives. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio reinstated him as Commissioner of the NYPD 

in January 2014. 

Karen P. Tandy (Co-Chair)

Karen P. Tandy has more than 38 years of leadership experience in the government and 

corporate sectors. For seven years, she was the Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for 

Motorola Solutions where she oversaw country management, compliance, governance, and 

government affairs in the more than 70 countries where Motorola operated. 

Prior to joining Motorola in 2007, Tandy headed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration 

(DEA), where she managed a $2.4 billion budget and approximately 11,000 employees in 86 

global offices. She also held the position of U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General, responsible 

for developing national drug enforcement and money laundering policy and strategies, including 

terrorist financing after the terrorist attacks on 9/11. In addition, she led the nationwide 

Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Forces, comprised of thousands of federal and 

state prosecutors and law enforcement agents, including among them, Customs and Border 

Protection. During her public service, Tandy served for more than a decade as Senior Litigation 

Counsel and Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia and in the Western 

District of Washington.

Ron Barber

Ron Barber is a former U.S. Representative from the Arizona 2nd District who served in the 112th

and 113th Congresses. Born in Wakefield, England shortly after World War II, Mr. Barber moved to 

Tucson, Arizona as a teenager, graduating from Rincon High School in 1963 and the University of 

Arizona in 1967. He served the people of Arizona for over 35 years as Head Start Director and then 

as Regional Administrator and, subsequently, as State Director of the Arizona Division of 

Development Disabilities. Mr. Barber began working with former Congresswoman Gabrielle 

Giffords in 2006, and was appointed district director by her the following year. He and 
Page | 36 

Congresswoman Giffords were shot and seriously wounded at a congressional event on January 8, 

2011. Following Congresswoman Gifford’s resignation in 2012 he was elected to represent 

Southern Arizona’s 8th Congressional District in 2012 in the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, by 

special election and was reelected, following redistricting, to represent the 2nd Congressional 

District in the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress. After leaving Congress, he joined several local 

and national boards of directors to continue serving his community and the country. 

Robert C. Bonner 

Robert Bonner is the Senior Principal of Sentinel Policy & Consulting, a consulting firm that 

provides strategic advice regarding homeland and border security issues, and a retired partner of 

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. In September 2001 Mr. Bonner was appointed Commissioner of the 

U.S. Customs Service, and served until 2006 as the first Commissioner of U.S. Customs and 

Border Protection. Mr. Bonner is also a former Administrator of the Drug Enforcement 

Administration (DEA), a U.S. District Judge and the United States Attorney for the Central 

District of California. He was the chair of the California Commission on Judicial Performance 

and currently serves on the board of trustees of the California Institute of Technology. He chairs 

the Advisory Committee for the annual U.S.-Canada Border Conference. Recently he was a 

member of the Citizens Commission on Jail Violence which investigated use of excessive force 

by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Mr. Bonner received a B.A. from the 

University of Maryland, College Park in 1963 and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law 

Center 1966.

Rick Fuentes

Colonel Joseph R. "Rick" Fuentes was nominated by Governor James McGreevey to become the 

14th superintendent of the New Jersey State Police and was confirmed on June 2, 2003. Fuentes 

enlisted in the state police in January 1978, serving several postings as a general road duty 

trooper. He served as instructor in the training academy and then as a detective and supervisor in 

a variety of assignments that included the FBI/NJSP Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Intelligence 

Bureau, and Street Gang Unit. Prior to his nomination as superintendent, he was assigned as 

chief of the Intelligence Bureau, overseeing nine units within the Intelligence Section. In 1993, 

as a result of several narcotics investigations, he was a co-recipient of the Trooper of the Year 

award. Fuentes holds a doctorate's degree in criminal justice from the City University of New 

York. He is a member of the U.S. Attorney General's Global Advisory Committee, a member of 

the Homeland Security and Law Enforcement Partner's Group of the Office of the Director of 

National Intelligence, and an appointed member of Harvard University's Executive Session on 

Policing and Public Safety. Colonel Fuentes also serves on the Homeland Security Advisory 

Council's, Customs and Border Protection Integrity Advisory Panel and the National 

Counterterrorism Center's, Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team Advisory Panel. 

John Magaw 

John Magaw is a domestic and international security consultant who most recently served as the 

Under Secretary for Security at the Department of Transportation in 2002. In that role, Mr. 

Magaw was responsible for implementation of the “Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 
Page | 37 

2001.” Mr. Magaw also previously served as the Acting Director of FEMA from January of 

2001 to February of 2001 where he led the Office of National Preparedness within FEMA. 

Magaw has also served as the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms from 

1993 to 1999 and as the Director of the Secret Service from 1992 -1993. Mr. Magaw is a life 

member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. 

Walter McNeil

Walter McNeil has over 30 years of law enforcement leadership at the local and state levels in 

the state of Florida. He served as a police officer and commander in that department for eighteen 

years and was appointed Tallahassee Police Chief in 1997. In 2007 he was appointed by then 

Florida Governor Charlie Crist, as the Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. 

After completing the task of restructuring the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice delivery 

system, Governor Crist appointed him as Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections. At 

the conclusion Governor Crist term as Governor, He was selected as police chief for the city of 

Quincy, Florida. While serving in the city of Quincy he was elected President of the 

International Association of Chiefs of Police in 2011. He currently serves as a consultant for the 

consulting firm Intergovernmental Research in Tallahassee, Florida. 

Paul Stockton 

Paul Stockton is the Managing Director of Sonecon LLC. From June 2009 until January 2013, 

Dr. Stockton was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Americas' Security 

Affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense, where he served as the Department’s Domestic Crisis 

Manager, helping lead the response to Superstorm Sandy, Deepwater Horizon, and other 

disasters. Dr. Stockton was also responsible for Departmental programs strengthening security 

cooperation with partner nations in the Western Hemisphere, leading talks on Defense 

Cooperation Agreements with Peru, Brazil, and other key countries, as well as defense policy 

coordination with Mexico and Canada. In September 2014, Secretary Hagel named Stockton the 

co-chair of the Independent Review of the Washington Navy Yard Shootings, which 

recommended major changes to the Department of Defense’s security clearance system. He was 

twice awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the 

Pentagon's highest civilian honor, and a Distinguished Public Service Medal from the 

Department of Homeland Security.

Roberto Villaseñor 

Roberto Villaseñor is the former Chief of Police for the Tucson Police Department and has held 

that position since 2009 until his retirement in 2015. He was awarded a Bachelor’s degree from 

Park University and a Master’s Degree from Northern Arizona University. He graduated from 

the FBI National Academy in Quantico, VA, the Senior Management Institute for Police and the 

FBI National Executives Institute. He was a member of the Major Cities Chiefs Association 

(MCCA), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the FBI Law Enforcement 

Executive Development Association (LEEDA) and in 2015 was the President of the Arizona 

Association of Chiefs of Police (AACOP). In January 2013 Chief Villaseñor became Treasurer 

of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and held that position until his retirement in 
Page | 38 

December 2015. In January 2015 he was appointed to President Obama’s Task Force on 21st 

Century Policing, and later in the year Chief Villaseñor was also appointed by Arizona Governor 

Doug Ducey to the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.

William H. Webster

William H. Webster served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1987 

to 1991. Prior to his service as CIA Director, Judge Webster served as Director of the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth 

Circuit, and an attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. In 1991, Judge Webster was 

presented the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. Judge Webster was also awarded the 

Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Security Medal. Following his departure from 

the CIA, Judge Webster joined the law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, LLP in 

Washington, DC, and is now a retired partner. In addition, Judge Webster serves as the 

Homeland Security Advisory Council Chair.
Page | 39 

APPENDIX B – TASK STATEMENT 
Page | 40

4. Obtain recommendations to ensure CBP develops an effective capability for 

investigating criminal misconduct within its ranks given CBP's high-risk 

environment and its expanding workforce; 

S. Obtain recommendations for CBP to facilitate enhanced participation among law 

enforcement and intelligence agencies within an interagency task force 

environment, combining federal, state, local, and tribal resources to more 

effectively address the significant threat of public corruption by leveraging 

resources, capabilities, and reducing duplication of effort: 

a. Evaluate progress toward the development of intra-departmental and 

interagency agreements/strategies emphasizing an intelligence driven, threatbased approach to address and mitigate the threat of public corruption; 

b. Evaluate CBP's continued commitment to, and support of, the Department of 

Justice's Border Corruption Task Force (BCTF) and, if determined to be an 

effective concept, develop recommendations to increase OHS-wide 

engagement in the task force; and 

6. Evaluate CBP's efforts to become an intelligence-driven organil.ation in the 

context of current labor/management constraints. 

Should you have questions, please contact Ben Haiman, Deputy Executive Director of the 

Homeland Security Advisory Council at (202) 380-8615. 
Page | 41 

APPENDIX C – SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS 

Nathan Aller, Supervisory Marine Interdiction Agent, Air and Marine Operations, CBP

Chris Bishop, Special Agent in Charge, Office of Internal Affairs, CBP 

Adam Connerton, Supervisory Marine Interdiction Agent, Air and Marine Operations, CBP

Gaetano Cordone, Director, Analytical Management Systems Control Office, Office of Field 

Operations, CBP

Erick Funn, Director, Office of Internal Affairs, CBP

Rene Hanna, Deputy Chief of Staff – Policy, Office of the Commissioner, CBP

Linda Jacksta, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Human Resources Management, CBP

Brandon Judd, President, National Border Patrol Council 

Lauren Kaufer, Director, Office of Human Resources Management, CBP

Dr. Susan Keverline, Acting Director, Threat Mitigation Division, Office of Internal Affairs, 

CBP

Matthew Klein, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Internal Affairs, CBP

Kevin McAleenan, Deputy Commissioner, U.S. Customs & Border Protection 

Clint Lamm, Labor and Employee Relations Advisor, Office of Human Resources 

Management, CBP

Jonathan Levine, Assistant Counsel for Negotiations, National Treasury Employees Union 

Scott Luck, Acting Deputy Chief, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

John Morris, Acting Director, Credibility Assessment Division, Office of Internal Affairs, CBP

Chris Pignone, Deputy Director, Office of Internal Affairs, CBP

Tony Reardon, President, National Treasury Employees Union 

Lewis Roach, Deputy Executive Director, Office of Policy and Planning, CBP

Patrick Stewart, Assistant Chief, Enforcement Systems Division, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP
Page | 42 

Antonio Trindade, Associate Chief, Enforcement Systems Division, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Timothy Quinn, Chief of Staff, U.S. Customs & Border Protection 

Ronald Vitiello, Deputy Chief, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Edward Young, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Air and Marine Operations, CBP

Southwest Border Tour 

Joe Agosttini, Assistant Port Director, Port of Nogales, Office of Field Operations, CBP 

Mario Agundez, Operations Officer, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Marcia Armendariz, Supervisory Customs & Border Protection Officer – Public Affairs, 

Office of Field Operations, CBP 

Paul Beeson, Chief Patrol Agent, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP; Commander of 

DHS Joint Task Force – West, Arizona (JTF-W AZ)

Victor Brabble, Supervisory Public Affairs Specialist, Office of Public Affairs, CBP 

Felix Chavez, Deputy Chief Patrol Agent, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

George Campos, Watch Commander, Port of Nogales, Office of Field Operations, CBP 

Ralph Castillo, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent, Tribal Liaison, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border 

Patrol, CBP 

Debra Cline, Border Patrol Agent, Ranch Liaison, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Araceli Cutright, Director, Policy and Compliance, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Jason Daniels, Border Patrol Agent, Less Lethal Instructor, Nogales Station, Tucson Sector, 

U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Fernando Grijalva, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Kevin Hecht, Deputy Patrol Agent in Charge, Nogales Station, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border 

Patrol, CBP 

Mark McComack, Operations Officer, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Charles McLoughlin, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Steve Passement, Supervisory Border Patrol Agent, Branch Chief – Border Community 

Liaison, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 
Page | 43 

Mark Qualia, Operations Officer, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Guadalupe Ramirez, Port Director of Nogales, Office of Field Operations, CBP

Mark Rios, Assistant Chief Patrol Agent, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Gus Soto, Special Operations Supervisor, Foreign Operations Branch, Tucson Sector, U.S. 

Border Patrol, CBP 

Greg Stearns, Special Operations Supervisor, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Teresa Small, Chief Customs & Border Protection Officer, Tucson Field Office, Office of 

Field Operations, CB 

Timothy Thomas, Border Patrol Agent, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Charles Trost, Operations Officer, Public Lands Liaison, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, 

CBP 

Mark Wactor, Operations Officer, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Gary Widner, Patrol Agent in Charge, Nogales Station, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, 

CBP

Markus Winnecke, Border Patrol Agent, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP

Tim York, Division Chief, Tucson Sector, U.S. Border Patrol, CBP 

Claudia Zamora, Chief Customs & Border Protection Officer, Port of Nogales, Office of 

Field Operations, CBP 

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

The Southern Borders Communities Coalition along with some of its affiliated 

organizations