Improving border and transportation security (BTS) are essential strategies for improving andmaintaining homeland security. Border security entails regulating the flow of traffic across thenation's borders so that dangerous and unwanted goods and people are detected and denied entry. This requires a sophisticated border management system that balances the need for securing thenation's borders with facilitating the essential free flow of legitimate commerce, citizens, andauthorized visitors. Transportation security involves securing the flow of people and goods alongthe nation's highways, railways, airways, and waterways. (1) While in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 efforts primarilyconcentrated on an expanded federal role in aviation security (in particular on the heightenedscreening of passengers and baggage), increasingly attention is being turned towards other modesof transportation. Recent congressional actions concerning terrorism and border security fall into severalcategories including broad efforts to understand the terrorist threat (including several commissions:Gilmore, Bremer, and Hart-Rudman); structural changes to provide a proper framework for action(enacting legislation, P.L. 107-296 , to create the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), andenacting the USA Patriot Act, P.L. 107-56 ); highly specific actions to prevent immediate threats(legislative activity concerning aviation security, visa policy, bioterrorism, and maritime security);and a return to broader and more comprehensive approaches (including the creation of the 9/11Commission, and the recently passed intelligence reform bill). The indications are that in both alegislative and oversight capacity, the 109th Congress will be dealing with issues that confront bordersecurity and homeland security issues in a comprehensive and more integrated fashion. This report is intended as an overview of selected concepts and issues that may be of interestto the 109th Congress, and should not be considered exhaustive. It provides a brief description ofselected agencies and their border and transportation security responsibilities. (2) The paper then discussesselected concepts that are prominently featured in recent BTS debates; and provides a summary ofBTS-related provisions of the 9/11 Commission Report, and the Intelligence Reform and TerrorismPrevention Act of 2004. Finally, this report presents some specific border and transportation securityissues that may be of interest to the 109th Congress. (3) DHS is the primary agency responsible for the security of the borders. The HomelandSecurity Act of 2002 ( P.L. 107-296 ) transferred the relevant funding and most of the personnel of22 agencies and offices to the newly created Department of Homeland Security. DHS was organizedinto four main directorates: Border and Transportation Security (BTS); Emergency Preparednessand Response (EPR); Science and Technology (S&T); and Information Analysis and InfrastructureProtection (IAIP). Border security functional responsibilities are at their most vivid at the point at which goodsor people are expected to cross borders. (4) The border and transportation security responsibilities of DHS areprimarily located within the BTS Directorate. The Coast Guard is a stand alone agency within DHS,but has significant border security responsibilities. Within the BTS Directorate, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has responsibility forsecurity at and between ports-of-entry along the border. These responsibilities include inspectingpeople and goods to determine if they are authorized to enter, and maintaining border crossingstations to process persons seeking entry to the U.S. The inspection and border-related functions ofthe Customs Service; the inspection functions of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service;the Border Patrol; and the inspection functions of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service(APHIS) program are consolidated under the CBP. Within CBP, the United States Border Patrol(USBP) is the agency responsible for the enforcement of federal immigration laws between ports ofentry. As currently comprised, the USBP's primary mission is to detect and prevent the entry ofterrorists, weapons of mass destruction, and unauthorized aliens into the country, and to interdictdrug smugglers and other criminals. Also within BTS, the bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focuses onenforcement of immigration and customs laws within the United States, as well as investigations intosuch activities as fraud, forced labor, trade agreement noncompliance, smuggling and illegaltransshipment of people and goods, and vehicle and cargo theft. In addition, this bureau overseesthe building security activities of the Federal Protective Service, formerly of the General ServicesAdministration; the operations of the Air and Marine Operations unit; and the Federal Air MarshalsService (FAMS) transferred to ICE from Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in Augustof 2003. The bureau combined the investigations and intelligence functions of the U.S. CustomsService and the former INS, the air and marine interdiction functions of those agencies, and theimmigration detention and removal programs, as well as the operations of the Federal ProtectiveService. ICE conducts investigations to develop intelligence to reduce illegal entry into the UnitedStates, and is responsible for locating and removing illegal aliens by inspecting places ofemployment for undocumented workers. ICE is responsible for identifying and finding persons whohave overstayed their visas, and the Bureau also develops intelligence to combat terrorist financingand money laundering, and to enforce export laws against smuggling and fraud. The TSA, created by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA; P.L. 107-71 ), wasestablished to increase the protection of people and commerce as they traveled into and throughoutthe United States. TSA's primary focus in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks has been aviationsecurity, which includes protecting the air transportation system against terrorist threats, sabotageand other acts of violence through the deployment of passenger and baggage screeners; detectionsystems for explosives, weapons, and other contraband; and other security technologies. TSA alsohas responsibilities for marine and land modes of transportation including assessing the risk ofterrorist attacks to all non-aviation transportation modes, issuing regulations to improve the securityof the modes, and enforcing these regulations to ensure the protection of the transportation system. TSA is further charged with serving as the primary liaison for transportation security to the lawenforcement and intelligence communities, and with conducting research and development activitiesto improve security technologies. The Coast Guard is the lead federal agency for the maritime component of homeland security. As such, it is responsible for border and transportation security as it applies to U.S. ports, coastal andinland waterways, and territorial waters. The Coast Guard also performs other missions, includingsome (such as fisheries enforcement and marine rescue operations) that are not related to homelandsecurity. The law that established DHS ( P.L. 107-296 ) directed that the Coast Guard be maintainedas a distinct entity within DHS and that the Commandant of the Coast Guard report directly to theSecretary of DHS. Accordingly, the Coast Guard exists as its own agency within DHS and is notpart of DHS's border and transportation security directorate. The Coast Guard does, however, workclosely with the BTS directorate. The Department of State (DOS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) also have a role to playin border security. Foreign nationals not already legally residing in the United States who wish tocome to the United States generally must obtain a visa to be admitted. (5) Under current law, threedepartments -- DOS, DHS, DOJ -- play key roles in administering the law and policies on theadmission of aliens. (6) DOS's Bureau of Consular Affairs is responsible for issuing visas. DHS's Citizenship andImmigration Services Bureau (USCIS) is charged with approving immigrant petitions. In addition,DOJ's Executive Office for immigration Review (EOIR) plays a significant policy role through itsadjudicatory decisions on specific immigration cases. With this as background, the report now turns to a discussion of selected concepts thatfrequently appear in BTS debates. This section of the paper discusses several BTS-related concepts that will likely be featuredduring the relevant legislative debates of the 109th Congress. In broad terms, good border management seeks to balance the competing, but not necessarilyconflicting, goals of (1) facilitating (and even expediting) access for people and goods that we bothneed and desire; with (2) interdicting and stopping "bad" people and "bad" things from entering thecountry. The key to success in this endeavor is the ability to accurately and efficiently identifyhigh-risk passengers and cargo, target them for inspection, and prevent the entry of dangerous goodsand people without impeding the flow of legitimate cross-border traffic. The task for the policymaker is to identify and promote those policies that will enhance the efficacy of the filters employedfor these tasks. More specifically, the border enforcement agent or inspector is ultimately engaged in anidentification and verification process. It is an effort to determine the identity of the people or cargoseeking entry, and to verify the legitimacy of the request for entry. There are many debates abouthow best to do this. The current entry processing procedures for both people and cargo are complex,and involve numerous steps each of which presents both an opportunity for interference or forinterception. Several of the issues that will likely confront policymakers in the 109th Congress essentiallyrevolve around a number of themes relating to breadth, depth, coverage, and jurisdiction. As notedabove, both the border and transportation security realms involve numerous actors (both public andprivate), and a tremendous volume of movements across the nation's borders or along the country'stransportation infrastructure. The environment created by numerous actors and high volumes oftraffic may lead to a potential goal conflict between security and efficiency, in the case whereincreased security measures impede the flow of people and goods across the border and throughoutthe country. Of course, this need not necessarily occur, and in fact policy choices can be made thatboth provide more security and speed the flow of legitimate traffic.