IB Cited by Border Patrol Chief in Announcing New Strategic Plan

When the U.S. Border Patrol announced its 2012-2016 strategic plan earlier this month, its chief singled out Imperial Beach as among the locales witnessing changes since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Writing in the 32-page plan, Chief Michael Fisher said the terror attacks “defined U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s national security mission: nothing less than preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States.”

“The world has changed during the last decade, and so have the threats that we face every day,” Fisher said. “We have seen these changes from Imperial Beach, California, to Brownsville, Texas; from Blaine, Washington, to Van Buren, Maine; and from Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Ramey, Puerto Rico.”

According to an Associated Press report of May 8, the Border Patrol announced a new strategy that “targets repeat crossers and tries to find out why they keeping coming.”

The strategic plan is attached as a PDF.

The AP said:

For nearly two decades, the Border Patrol has relied on a strategy that blanketed heavily trafficked corridors for illegal immigrants with agents, pushing migrants to more remote areas where they would presumably be easier to capture and discouraged from trying again.

“The jury, for me at least, is out on whether that's a solid strategy,” Chief Mike Fisher told The Associated Press.

The new approach is more nuanced. Outlined in a 32-page document that took more than two years to develop, agents will now draw on intelligence to identify repeat crossers and others perceived as security threats, said Fisher.