Border Patrol: goals and measures not yet in place to inform border security status and resource needs testimony before the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives

''Within DHS, U.S. Customs and BorderProtection’s (CBP) Border Patrol hasprimary responsibility for securing theborder between ports of entry, andreported that with its 18,500 agents itapprehended over 327,000 illegalentrants at the southwest border infiscal year 2011. Across BorderPatrol’s nine southwest border sectors,most apprehensions occurred in theTucson sector in Arizona. GAO wasasked to review how Border Patrolmanages resources at the southwestborder. This report examines(1) apprehension and other dataBorder Patrol collects to informchanges in border security for thesouthwest border and the Tucsonsector, in particular; (2) how theTucson sector compares with othersectors in scheduling agentdeployment and to what extent datashow that deployments have beeneffective; and (3) the extent to whichBorder Patrol has identifiedmechanisms to assess resource needsunder its new strategic plan. GAOanalyzed DHS documents and datafrom fiscal years 2006 to 2011, andinterviewed officials in headquartersand five southwest border sectorsselected based on cross-border illegalactivity, among other things. Resultscannot be generalized across thesouthwest border, but provided insightsinto Border Patrol operations.''