One can't know what's needed when one lacks a sound/cogent method for evaluating the current status (1 Viewer)

[Xelor]

Government officials have been very clear about what resources are necessary to maintain or boost US border security. In the capability gaps report CBP submitted to Congress. The report classified the gaps in terms of their nature and their temporal importance.

• Nature:
  • Domain Awareness
  • Mission Readiness
  • Deterrence, Impedance, and Resolution
  • Other Master capabilities
• Temporal Importance:
  • Urgent and Compelling
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low

The findings of the CBP's report:

• Less than one-half of 1% of the solutions Border Patrol agents and sector chiefs proposed foreclosing capability gaps along the southwest border in FY 2017 referenced a “wall.”The Border Patrol identified a total of 902 southwest border capability gaps through its FY 2017 CGAP process. The word “wall” was suggested as a possible solution for just three of those gaps.
• Border Patrol agents referenced “fence” or “fencing” as a possible solution to just 34, or less than 4%, of the 902 capability gaps identified.
• Fourteen southwest border capability gaps received an Urgent and Compelling Ranking at both the station and sector level; only one included a reference to a wall or fencing as one of a variety of possible solutions. More often, these Urgent and Compelling capability gaps were associated with:
  • Insufficient manpower,
    • Perhaps the manpower needs pertain to personnel other than border patrol agents, for given the outcomes shown in charts at the end of this post, it's hard to see how more manpower will help. After all, CBP made some 1.6M+ arrests in 2000 with but ~5K agents. With about four times as many agents, CBP made about 1/4[SUP]th[/SUP] the arrests. Seems to me that unless one can show that border patrol agents are largely incompetent and indolent, there are too many agents given the greatly diminished workload they have.[SUP]1[/SUP]
  • Poor training, or
  • Inadequate surveillance equipment.
• The Border Patrol classified just one in four vulnerabilities as ones that could be addressed using man-made infrastructure of any type.

Furthermore, as of Feb. 2017, it appears from a GAO study, the CBP lacks a methodology to "assess the contributions of pedestrian and vehicle fencing to border security along the southwest border" and had yet to "develop guidance for its process for identifying,funding, and deploying TI assets for border security operations." The Department of Homeland Security concurred with the GAO's findings and recommendations.

Given the above two government reports, it's no wonder Trump, along with members of Congress and the public, have proffered nothing more than a purely abductive case for Trump's wall. Trump and his CBP/DHS appointees have lacked the analytical percipience to instruct CPB personnel to develop a rigorous analytical methodology for evaluating the efficacy of additional physical barriers. Despite having nothing beyond abducted notions extant data gainsay, Trump would spend billions on an implementation no credible data portends will yield any material returns, not in diminishing illegal immigration and not in boosting GDP, which illegal immigrants net contribution is ~$400B.




Notes:

1. It appears that border patrol personnel are much like software developers on a large transformation project in that the need for greater and fewer quantities of them varies situationally. For example, during the early phases of the IT component of the project, only a few are needed, during the development and testing phases a slew of them are needed, in the roll-out and post-go-live phases only a few are needed.

• For those who'd respond talking about terrorists entering across the southern border, forget about it. It's simply not so and even the anti-immigration CIS, along with multiple other organizations -- the State Dept., CATO Institute, and DHS -- knows it and says so.
  • CIS -- Notes on the Trump Administration's Claim of 3,000-Plus Terrorist Apprehensions at U.S. Borders
    • "The claim of 3,000 to 4,000 apprehensions of terrorist suspects Is misleading and incorrect."
  • CATO -- 45,000 “Special Interest Aliens” Caught Since 2007, But No U.S. Terrorist Attacks from Illegal Border Crossers
  • DHS -- Potential Terrorist Threats: Border Security Challenges in Latin America and the Caribbean
  • State -- Country Reports onTerrorism 2017

 

[trblmkr]

Government officials have been very clear about what resources are necessary to maintain or boost US border security. In the capability gaps report CBP submitted to Congress. The report classified the gaps in terms of their nature and their temporal importance.

• Nature:
  • Domain Awareness
  • Mission Readiness
  • Deterrence, Impedance, and Resolution
  • Other Master capabilities
• Temporal Importance:
  • Urgent and Compelling
  • High
  • Medium
  • Low

The findings of the CBP's report:

• Less than one-half of 1% of the solutions Border Patrol agents and sector chiefs proposed foreclosing capability gaps along the southwest border in FY 2017 referenced a “wall.”The Border Patrol identified a total of 902 southwest border capability gaps through its FY 2017 CGAP process. The word “wall” was suggested as a possible solution for just three of those gaps.
• Border Patrol agents referenced “fence” or “fencing” as a possible solution to just 34, or less than 4%, of the 902 capability gaps identified.
• Fourteen southwest border capability gaps received an Urgent and Compelling Ranking at both the station and sector level; only one included a reference to a wall or fencing as one of a variety of possible solutions. More often, these Urgent and Compelling capability gaps were associated with:
  • Insufficient manpower,
    • Perhaps the manpower needs pertain to personnel other than border patrol agents, for given the outcomes shown in charts at the end of this post, it's hard to see how more manpower will help. After all, CBP made some 1.6M+ arrests in 2000 with but ~5K agents. With about four times as many agents, CBP made about 1/4[SUP]th[/SUP] the arrests. Seems to me that unless one can show that border patrol agents are largely incompetent and indolent, there are too many agents given the greatly diminished workload they have.[SUP]1[/SUP]
  • Poor training, or
  • Inadequate surveillance equipment.
• The Border Patrol classified just one in four vulnerabilities as ones that could be addressed using man-made infrastructure of any type.

Furthermore, as of Feb. 2017, it appears from a GAO study, the CBP lacks a methodology to "assess the contributions of pedestrian and vehicle fencing to border security along the southwest border" and had yet to "develop guidance for its process for identifying,funding, and deploying TI assets for border security operations." The Department of Homeland Security concurred with the GAO's findings and recommendations.

Given the above two government reports, it's no wonder Trump, along with members of Congress and the public, have proffered nothing more than a purely abductive case for Trump's wall. Trump and his CBP/DHS appointees have lacked the analytical percipience to instruct CPB personnel to develop a rigorous analytical methodology for evaluating the efficacy of additional physical barriers. Despite having nothing beyond abducted notions extant data gainsay, Trump would spend billions on an implementation no credible data portends will yield any material returns, not in diminishing illegal immigration and not in boosting GDP, which illegal immigrants net contribution is ~$400B.

I saw your thread earlier today and had to respond when I got home. I thought there would be other numerous responses to it by now, but apparently not. Yesterday I had been on the Border Patrol site downloading this and other data, with the plan of graphing what they had not and putting it up here. Graphs are more impressive than tables. Well, easier to visually take in than tables. Thanks for you thread.
I find myself at a loss to deal with those who listen to DJT tell us that this and that is what the border patrol say they need, when it easy to find out what the border patrol really say they need is not the wall or even a fence.
I find it absolutely confounding that some believe the nonsense about drugs and crime when there is government data that refutes everything he says.
Perhaps some should research into why we have been losing agents for the last 5 years. For every one we hire, we lose almost two. At this rate we will never achieve the numbers of agents they are talking about. (Democrat or Republican)
We live in interesting and dangerous times.

 

[Xelor]

I saw your thread earlier today and had to respond when I got home. I thought there would be other numerous responses to it by now, but apparently not. Yesterday I had been on the Border Patrol site downloading this and other data, with the plan of graphing what they had not and putting it up here. Graphs are more impressive than tables. Well, easier to visually take in than tables. Thanks for you thread.

I find myself at a loss to deal with those who listen to DJT tell us that this and that is what the border patrol say they need, when it [is] easy to find out what the border patrol really say they need is not the wall or even a fence.

I find it absolutely confounding that some believe the nonsense about drugs and crime when there is government data that refutes everything he says.
Perhaps some should research into why we have been losing agents for the last 5 years. For every one we hire, we lose almost two. At this rate we will never achieve the numbers of agents they are talking about. (Democrat or Republican)

We live in interesting and dangerous times.

FWIW, the first link in the OP is errant/broken. The correct link is: "Border Security: Analysis of Vulnerabilities Identified by Frontline Agents."


Blue:
Graphs have their place and they are good for "tweet grade" readers. Too, they nicely supplement (but do not supersede) text expositions. Only infrequently, however, are they good standalone communicators. For example, the Border Patrol table is there only to support my remarks in the bullet point about manpower.


Pink:
You're welcome.


Red:
It is easy to obtain that information; however, upon reading it, even a Trumpkin knows that Trump's claims re: his wall rely on fictions of his own conjuring.

There is even more that may interest you: "White House Overrules Department of Homeland Security Budget Request onBorder Security Personnel."

 

[Bullseye]

FWIW, the first link in the OP is errant/broken. The correct link is: "Border Security: Analysis of Vulnerabilities Identified by Frontline Agents."


Blue:
Graphs have their place and they are good for "tweet grade" readers. Too, they nicely supplement (but do not supersede) text expositions. Only infrequently, however, are they good standalone communicators. For example, the Border Patrol table is there only to support my remarks in the bullet point about manpower.


Pink:
You're welcome.


Red:
It is easy to obtain that information; however, upon reading it, even a Trumpkin knows that Trump's claims re: his wall rely on fictions of his own conjuring.

There is even more that may interest you: "White House Overrules Department of Homeland Security Budget Request onBorder Security Personnel."

Just a quick point of order. I notice in the executive summary that the report was prepared by Democratic committee staff. Any chance of partisanship getting its nose under the tent?

It's a little too late tonight to wade through the OP and the report. More to come.

 

[jnug]

I thought this was the Senate Report derived from Border Agent Interviews and other means. I would bet real money that whatever DHS is working on will present a radically different picture once the WH Comm Shop (re. Trump Propaganda shop) is done manipulating it.

 

[Xelor]

I thought this was the Senate Report derived from Border Agent Interviews and other means. I would bet real money that whatever DHS is working on will present a radically different picture once the WH Comm Shop (re. Trump Propaganda shop) is done manipulating it.

Red:
I'm not sure what point you were getting at with your "red" sentence, but the report found here (it's ostensibly linked in the OP, but I there pasted-in a bad/broken link) identifies, on page one, from where the capability gap information discussed in "Analysis of Vulnerabilities Identified by Frontline Agents" comes.

 

[jnug]

Red:
I'm not sure what point you were getting at with your "red" sentence, but the report found here (it's ostensibly linked in the OP, but I there pasted-in a bad/broken link) identifies, on page one, from where the capability gap information discussed in "Analysis of Vulnerabilities Identified by Frontline Agents" comes.

My point is that its a Senate report, not a DHS report. I am not questioning the report's voracity. I am questioning whether its contents will ever see the light of day under the seal of the current DHS.

 

[LowDown]

Government officials have been very clear about what resources are necessary to maintain or boost US border security. In the capability gaps report CBP submitted to Congress. The report classified the gaps in terms of their nature and their temporal importance.

[Snipped for space]

Trump ran on the issue of improving security at the border and cracking down on illegal immigration, and he won. Polls show there is still overwhelming support for this. The time for debating whether this will be done or not has long passed. Now there is only unreasoning obstructionism on the part of Democrats.

Democratic leaders in Congress apparently want to die on the hill of maintaining a de facto semi-open border and obstructing efforts to improve border security. I predict that in a few years they will look back and blame Trump for going crazy themselves.

 

[Luckyone]

Government officials have been very clear about what resources are necessary to maintain or boost US border security. In the capability gaps report CBP submitted to Congress. The report classified the gaps in terms of their nature and their temporal importance.

Xelor, let me first thank you for all the effort and detail that you put into all your posts. Facts are and will always be important.

The stark reality is that Trump does everything by "gut" and since he never reads, does not listen to experts, listens only to people that have the same bias and the same lack of information as he does, and has his own agenda based on ego, his decisions are generally reckless and uninformed.

This is no way to run a country, especially a country like the United States that affects everyone in the world. In addition, Trump's lack of morals, ethics, principles and humanity mean that most of his decisions will not have the best interests of the population.

As long as Trump is President, we head downhill and are at risk of a catastrophe occurring to us that we will not be able to overcome.

 

[Xelor]

Xelor, let me first thank you for all the effort and detail that you put into all your posts. Facts are and will always be important.

The stark reality is that Trump does everything by "gut" and since he never reads, does not listen to experts, listens only to people that have the same bias and the same lack of information as he does, and has his own agenda based on ego, his decisions are generally reckless and uninformed.

This is no way to run a country, especially a country like the United States that affects everyone in the world. In addition, Trump's lack of morals, ethics, principles and humanity mean that most of his decisions will not have the best interests of the population.

As long as Trump is President, we head downhill and are at risk of a catastrophe occurring to us that we will not be able to overcome.

Off-Topic (sort of):

Red:
You're welcome.

Thanks for noticing and saying so. It's not that much effort, believe it or not. Except for links to economics instructional materials (that's just stuff I link-to for the benefit of readers who haven't formal econ training and that I reference so I don't have to write it), I generally just share here policy content I read so I can be well informed without having to rely on distillate content from news organizations, most especially from editorialists. (Editorialists' input is of no use to me until after I've gathered facts and data on my own.)


Blue:
Trump's predilection for abductively driven decision making is, after his reprobate character, the primary reason I will not support him and the ideas he presents. For all the hype about his being a businessman, he doesn't at all make decisions or manage operations with the intellectual, operational, or financial rigor, to say nothing of collaborativeness and probity, Fortune 500 executives do. He manages things the way people who have no experience managing people and processes do. As you've noted, that is not the way to run the USA.​

 

[Xelor]

My point is that its a Senate report, not a DHS report. I am not questioning the report's voracity. I am questioning whether its contents will ever see the light of day under the seal of the current DHS.

Off-Topic:

• The report to which I linked is a Senate report.
• The results of the CBP's Capability GapAnalysis Process -- the capabilities gap report if you will -- is almost certainly not going to anytime in the germane future going to "see the light of day," nor should it, and the dissembling, corrupt and ignorant nature of Donald Trump's "tone at the top" has nothing to do with why.
  • What is the point of a department having the purpose of ensuring the "homeland's security" releasing an internal report that details its strengths and weaknesses with regard to some 902 dimensions of its raison d'etre?
    
    Such a report would do little other than put a bunch of adversary nations' spies (operatives and agents), hackers and administrative factotums "out of jobs" because the DHS, by publicly disclosing the report, will have revealed explicitly information those individuals are paid to obtain, and that US human, process and technology resources aim to keep them from getting.
    • Perhaps you're desirous of the report so we can stop spending money on the DIA, CIA, NSA, FBI counterintelligence, Consular Operations, myriad other USIC organizations' information security procedures and protocols? If so, releasing that report would obviate the need for billions in spending.

 

[jnug]

Off-Topic:

• The report to which I linked is a Senate report.
• The results of the CBP's Capability GapAnalysis Process -- the capabilities gap report if you will -- is almost certainly not going to anytime in the germane future going to "see the light of day," nor should it, and the dissembling, corrupt and ignorant nature of Donald Trump's "tone at the top" has nothing to do with why.
  • What is the point of a department having the purpose of ensuring the "homeland's security" releasing an internal report that details its strengths and weaknesses with regard to some 902 dimensions of its raison d'etre?
    
    Such a report would do little other than put a bunch of adversary nations' spies (operatives and agents), hackers and administrative factotums "out of jobs" because the DHS, by publicly disclosing the report, will have revealed explicitly information those individuals are paid to obtain, and that US human, process and technology resources aim to keep them from getting.
    • Perhaps you're desirous of the report so we can stop spending money on the DIA, CIA, NSA, FBI counterintelligence, Consular Operations, myriad other USIC organizations' information security procedures and protocols? If so, releasing that report would obviate the need for billions in spending.

If there is a never a report with a DHS seal on the cover effectively part of an actual request for funding from Congress, then there will never be an Appropriation. WE might not see such a report the instant it is produced. But if elected officials don't see one, then it will be difficult to impossible for new Appropriations to flow to CBP. In fact, the lack of that sort of detail would make it difficult for any Gov Agency to propose new Appropriations to the Congress. What are Appropriations Bill Floor Managers supporting Gov agencies from within an Admin they support supposed to do to manage Appropriations through the process, depend on their good looks? However, if I were a betting man, I would bet that there is so much Wall pressure being exerted from the top of the Administration and the top of DHS that very little of what is in that Senate Doc would find its way into a doc with a DHS seal on the cover.

The July 2018 House Bill that was not a CR but an actual Appropriation Bill that had $5.7B in physical barrier funding of some sort never even got to the floor of the GOP Majority House for a vote because Ryan new he did not even have the votes for it even in the House and because there was no time to actually run a proper Appropriations Process with Gap analysis from DHS. They simply had no hope of running an actual Appropriation process before the clock ran out on that congressional session. As I and others have often said in these pages, if Trump wanted his Wall he should have begun the process of trying to get it way back in 2017, not more than half way through 2018.

The first thing the House Appropriations Committee would have asked had there been a process would have been "were is your justification, DHS? Where is your Gap analysis." What would DHS have said to that? "Well there is this Senate report but it does not say what we want it to say....soooooo....won't you just give us the money?" That July Bill never would have gotten through an Appropriations Committee markup. Ryan knew it was a doomed, half hearted, half baked effort to avoid trying to bootstrap this nonsense to a CR and he sidestepped a House vote on the July Bill.

Now they are stuck. The only thing the GOP could hope to do was bootstrap that mess onto a CR and hope the need to fund the Gov et al would get it through. In fact, its was worse than that. Pelosi was right. She was not wrong. The GOP House could not even pass the CR with the $5.7B in wall funding bootstrapped to it. They had to go back and bootstrap additional Disaster Relief funding to the Wall bootstrap and that is how that CR got out of the House. Even that CR had no chance of getting through the Senate where it died. That session of Congress ended and here we are!

 

[Xelor]

If there is a never a report with a DHS seal on the cover effectively part of an actual request for funding from Congress, then there will never be an Appropriation. WE might not see such a report the instant it is produced. But if elected officials don't see one, then it will be difficult to impossible for new Appropriations to flow to CBP. In fact, the lack of that sort of detail would make it difficult for any Gov Agency to propose new Appropriations to the Congress. What are Appropriations Bill Floor Managers supporting Gov agencies from within an Admin they support supposed to do to manage Appropriations through the process, depend on their good looks? However, if I were a betting man, I would bet that there is so much Wall pressure being exerted from the top of the Administration and the top of DHS that very little of what is in that Senate Doc would find its way into a doc with a DHS seal on the cover.

The July 2018 House Bill that was not a CR but an actual Appropriation Bill that had $5.7B in physical barrier funding of some sort never even got to the floor of the GOP Majority House for a vote because Ryan new he did not even have the votes for it even in the House and because there was no time to actually run a proper Appropriations Process with Gap analysis from DHS. They simply had no hope of running an actual Appropriation process before the clock ran out on that congressional session. As I and others have often said in these pages, if Trump wanted his Wall he should have begun the process of trying to get it way back in 2017, not more than half way through 2018.

The first thing the House Appropriations Committee would have asked had there been a process would have been "were is your justification, DHS? Where is your Gap analysis." What would DHS have said to that? "Well there is this Senate report but it does not say what we want it to say....soooooo....won't you just give us the money?" That July Bill never would have gotten through an Appropriations Committee markup. Ryan knew it was a doomed, half hearted, half baked effort to avoid trying to bootstrap this nonsense to a CR and he sidestepped a House vote on the July Bill.

Now they are stuck. The only thing the GOP could hope to do was bootstrap that mess onto a CR and hope the need to fund the Gov et al would get it through. In fact, its was worse than that. Pelosi was right. She was not wrong. The GOP House could not even pass the CR with the $5.7B in wall funding bootstrapped to it. They had to go back and bootstrap additional Disaster Relief funding to the Wall bootstrap and that is how that CR got out of the House. Even that CR had no chance of getting through the Senate where it died. That session of Congress ended and here we are!

Red:
You keep saying things that make no sense to me.

• See the linked content in post 16. Do you honestly think there is no budget document from the DHS? Just because you don't see it in "this or that" narrative doesn't mean it doesn't exist and that folks haven't read it.
• I have no idea of what DHS' budget request has to do with the public seeing or not seeing a classified DHS capabilities gap report. Of course the Senate committee saw the capabilities gap report (CGR). How else do you think report to which I linked was produced? Do you think Senators (their staff) fabricated that the CGR contained 902 capabilities or that CBP personnel asserted that some 1% or fewer of those capabilities could be achieved by a physical barrier, or from thin air conjured the other summary metrics noted in the Senate's report?

Blue:
What are you talking about? (Again, click on and read the linked-to content in post 16.) I have no idea what "July" bill you have in mind. I know of the bill that passed the House and that had $5.7B of wall funding in it (see Section 141 under the heading "DIVISION A—FURTHER ADDITIONAL CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019.") That bill never made it out of conference committed for the full chambers to vote on the reconciled bill. The "Section 141" amended version is the one McConnell wouldn't allow to reach the Senate floor for a full vote.


Pink:
(Again, see post 16.) I'm not going to comment on the rigor and legitimacy of the justification DHS/CBP provided, but there is at least one provided.