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The University of Washington (UW), University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP), and Wayne State University (WSU) are engaged in a multi-year research effort aimed at enhancing the principles and processes of border-security systems, with the goal of helping border stakeholders increase their situational awareness and decision-making capabilities, as well as achieve improved coordination. The project is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the National Center for Border Security and Immigration (NCBSI).
The initial project involves a multi-site comparative operational analysis, looking at similarities and differences at point-of-entry areas in three sectors: Blaine, El Paso, and Detroit. This analysis will compare a number of features, including stakeholder organizations, processes, environments, data, and systems. Understanding these similarities and differences will help support DHS and others as they make border-related policy decisions, especially those related to developing a unified vision and addressing the challenges of effectively sharing information across organizational lines. This analysis will lead to the development of methods for modeling and assessing border-security systems, the co-development with border stakeholders of system enhancements, and the delivery of workshops that will share and discuss the implications of these findings with border staff.
A key feature of the project will be the presentation of findings in a Geographic Information System (GIS) map framework that will support understanding and analysis of issues and practices across the three unique sites. As a dynamic repository of information about these three (and potentially other) sites, the GIS will be an invaluable resource for future work that will support border staff and their sponsoring organizations.
Benefits
This research is focused on working closely with border stakeholders to develop a deep understanding of site issues so that NCBSI can better use its resources to support their needs. This project will be “action research,” a methodology guided by researchers but driven and “owned” by a “community of practice,” aimed at enabling that community of practice to do their jobs more effectively. Our approach will emphasize developing a view from the ground. We will develop a local or insider’s perspective on each of our three designated sites and then analyze those findings to discover commonalities among them as well as key differences that respond to local conditions and constraints.
We will consider features of the local systems associated with a broad range of stakeholders. Our goal is to avoid prioritizing one constituency’s needs and practices over another, instead developing a comprehensive view of border systems as a whole. We are particularly interested in interdependencies and the “space between” functional agency missions. Such a view, we anticipate, will lead to improved understanding and cooperation among all constituencies.
At the end of the project we expect that each site will have a shared vision of system interdependencies and best practices, including a strategic understanding of the necessary balance between a unified common vision and the variations among sites that are necessary to accommodate local differences in traffic, economic conditions, populations served, border partners, etc.. The project should also enable NCBSI and the research team to develop the capabilities for further collaboration with DHS.
Collaborators
- Pacific Rim Visualization and Analytics Center (PARVAC)
- University of Washington
- University of Texas-El Paso
- Wayne State University
- Wiley College
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