Bersin gets top U.S. border job

Bersin gets top U.S. border job

Bersin

   President Barack Obama intends to nominate Alan Bersin as Customs and Border Protection commissioner, the White House announced Tuesday.
   AmericanShipper.com reported Aug. 7 that Bersin was Obama’s pick for the key homeland security post. Sources have indicated since March that Bersin was the leading candidate to lead the agency, but the selection process was delayed for reasons that are not entirely clear.
   In April, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appointed Bersin assistant secretary for international affairs and special representative for border affairs. His primary duty is coordinating law enforcement responses to the drug war in Mexico and leading the president’s Southwest Border Initiative for dealing with security, immigration, narcotics and trade.

Napolitano

   Bersin previously was chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. From July 2005 to December 2006 he served as California's secretary of education under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He spent the prior eight years as school superintendent in San Diego, the nation’s eighth-largest school district.
   During the Bill Clinton administration he was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, and the Justice Department’s Southwest border czar. ' Eric Kulisch