Border Security: A Journey Without a Destination

Abstract

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, an increase in the public's awareness concerning border security has resulted in an outcry to secure this nation's borders. Congress, the Department of Homeland Security, border states, and local governments have all defined what constitutes a secure border differently, which makes the measurement of success or failure virtually impossible. By utilizing a case study methodology, this thesis seeks to answer the question: can the project management process be applied to the border security effort to generate an accepted definition of a secure border? Findings indicate that the absence of empirical data that can demonstrate a secure border has generated a tremendous amount of debate in regards to the exact level of border security but the project management process could be utilized to bring stakeholders together and create a definition of secure border that can be more widely accepted. However, various issues with the definition remain that will not be resolved, which stems from the social-psychological aspect of separating a secure border from a sealed border and some citizens in the United States will never accept anything other than a completely sealed border. This area can and should be studied in detail in the future.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2013
Accession Number
ADA621632

Entities

People

  • Christopher L. Levy

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Engineered Resilient Systems
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Border Security
  • Case Studies
  • Commerce
  • Congress
  • Department Of Homeland Security
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • Homeland Security
  • National Governments
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Political Science
  • Project Management
  • Public Administration
  • Undocumented Noncitizens
  • United States
  • United States Government

Readers

  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).
  • Strategic Security Studies
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