CBP describes present and future objectives in new document

U.S. Customs publication provides comprehensive summary of how the agency is meeting new missions.    U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Thursday released what it is calling the first comprehensive strategic plan in almost a decade. Officials touted the document, Vision and Strategy 2020, as laying out the agency’s direction for the next five years, but it mostly represents a catalog of missions, initiatives and goals already established in the past few years.
   The plan’s primary value is in spelling out Customs’ recent transformation efforts in one unified document.
   CBP’s Vision and Strategy outlines four goals: combating terrorism and transnational organized crime; border security and management; enhancing U.S. economic competitiveness through enabling lawful trade and travel; and promoting organizational integration, innovation, collaboration and agility.
   “We intend to lead and aggressively champion strategic partnerships that facilitate that integrated, risk-informed intelligence-driven law enforcement operation,” Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske said in a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington to unveil the brochure.
   “This requires a whole of government approach as well as an international unity of effort,” he said. “We’re committed to transforming our trade and travel processes through technology, through public-private partnerships, and simplifying and integrating processing capabilities. And to do that we have to harmonize processes across ports of entry, including operational approaches to risk management. And we must continue to expand our risk-based strategy and constantly refine our information and data collection capabilities.
   “Effective border management requires layers of security that most consider points of origin, modes of transit, the actual arrival at our borders, and even routes of egress or departure from the physical border to a final destination,” Kerlikowske added.
   CBP has spent the past four years redefining how to achieve its mission and improving its processes and technology to become more of a facilitator of trade and travel.
   Since taking over CBP’s leadership a year ago, Kerlikowske has been praised by industry representatives for continuing to reach out to the private sector for input and fostering a climate of collaboration in developing programs and strategies that didn’t exist before 2010.
   “Quite frankly, we weren’t as open to developing relationships and communication with the trade community. We’re the regulator and you’re the trade community and we’re on opposite sides” was the previous mentality, he said during the question-and-answer period. Now, CBP relies on shippers, customs brokers and carriers to participate in developing enforcement schemes and then buying into them by acting as the eyes and ears for CBP in the cargo environment, Kerlikowske said.