Border Protector Michael J. Fisher - KMI Media Group

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HOMELAND SECURITY BORDER SECURITY BORDER SECURITY AGENTS CAN’T BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE. OR CAN THEY? Safeguarding borders demands monitoring that’s grounded in intelligence. Raytheon delivers fl exible, scalable border surveillance solutions with fi xed or transportable physical capability to detect, identify and classify emerging threats before they can disrupt our way of life. It’s proven technology, backed by consulting expertise, to strengthen our borders today and tomorrow. INNOVATION IN ALL DOMAINS www.raytheon.com | Keyword: HLS-Border Follow us on: © 2012 Raytheon Company. All rights reserved. “Customer Success Is Our Mission” is a registered trademark of Raytheon Company.
Border Protector Q&A Maintaining Vigilance on Our Nation’s Borders Michael J. Fisher Chief U.S. Border Patrol U.S. Customs and Border Protection Michael J. Fisher is the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol and a member of the Senior Executive Service. He is responsible for planning, organizing, coordinating, and directing enforcement efforts designed to secure our nation’s borders. Fisher entered on duty with the U.S. Border Patrol in June 1987 as a member of Class 208. His first duty assignment as a Border Patrol agent was at the Douglas Station in the Tucson Sector. He successfully completed the selection process for the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) in 1990 and was later selected as a field operations supervisor for BORTAC in El Paso, Texas. Over a four-year period, he planned and executed operations throughout the United States and nine foreign countries. Fisher later served as the deputy chief patrol agent of the Detroit Sector and as an assistant chief patrol agent in the Tucson Sector. During the transition to the Department of Homeland Security in March 2003, Fisher was appointed deputy director for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Anti- Terrorism in Washington, D.C., where he staffed and directed the office during periods of increased threats and served as the CBP liaison to the inter-agency intelligence community for anti-terrorist planning and operational coordination. Fisher later served at Border Patrol Headquarters as an associate chief and in 2004 was promoted to senior associate chief. He returned to the field in February 2006 as the deputy chief patrol agent of San Diego Sector. He was promoted to chief patrol agent of San Diego Sector in June 2007. He was named acting chief of the Border Patrol on January 3, 2010, and assumed his current position on May 9, 2010. Fisher earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in business administration. He is a graduate of the Senior Executive Fellows Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He also completed the Capstone program at the National Defense University in 2009. Q: What are the primary challenges and threats of patrolling over 6,000 miles of Mexican and Canadian land borders and 2,000 miles of coastal waters surrounding the Florida Peninsula and Puerto Rico? A: Generally speaking, the primary challenge is the lack of information about those who intend to and have the capability to come across the border illegally [whether by land or by sea] and not really knowing what potential threats they pose. That’s one of the things that the Department of Homeland Security, certainly in a post-9/11 environment, strives to do each and every day. The end state remains fluid. It’s just a process whereby we measure the extent to which we are successful; how we define whether we’re winning or not is really, as General Petraeus once said, a process. It’s a huge challenge given the geography: 2,000 miles of border with Mexico and about 4,000 miles with Canada—it’s a lot of open territory. We are constantly evolving and striving to adapt to the ever-changing environment in which we operate and to the evolving and dynamic threats that we face within this country as it relates to our national security mission. Q: Can you elaborate on the Secure Border Initiative? A: The United States Border Patrol is one of three operational components within U.S. Customs and Border Protection [CBP], the Office of Field Operations and the Office of Air and Marine [OAM] being the other two. The Secure Border Initiative focused on three questions: How do we combine all of the available resources; how do we apply them to the border; and how do we evolve, as we’re doing now in our new strategic plan, for the next five years in terms of our border security mission? We have increased our staffing significantly in the last 10 years, from just over 10,000 in 2002 to over 21,000 today. Infrastructure along the border has increased as well. At this point, there are almost 700 miles of primary vehicle and pedestrian fencing along the border with Mexico and there are more roads and better access to the border than ever before. The third piece is technology, both in terms of quantity and quality of technology available to us; we have more cameras, sensors and monitoring capabilities than ever before. As we move from a strategy that was resource based to one now www.BCD-kmi.com BCD 1.1 | 17
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