Commentary
The current debate regarding comprehensive immigration reform offers an opportunity to redesign the worksite immigration enforcement system to achieve more efficient enforcement with better intelligence on where undocumented workers are employed, say Andrew Morral and Peter Brownell.
Blog
The 2013 SOTU address will be remembered for its impassioned call for greater gun control just two months after Sandy Hook. But President Obama's second-term agenda can be characterized by its sheer breadth, reflecting the broad range of policy challenges facing the U.S. today.
Commentary
The White House and a bipartisan group of senators recently unveiled proposals for comprehensive immigration reform. The proposal raises a number of questions, says Peter Brownell: How would success in securing the border actually be determined? Would it mean absolutely zero unauthorized immigration across U.S. borders?
Blog
A group of U.S. Senators this week unveiled a proposal to reform the nation's immigration laws, outlining a path to citizenship for most of the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants and endorsing an increase of certain types of foreign-born workers.
Commentary
It is good that the congressmen have asked the Obama administration to revisit supply chain security. However, precipitous changes to how the global supply chain operates do not seem warranted, may not in fact improve security, and could have costly unintended consequences, writes Henry Willis.
Multimedia
On June 17, 2009, Jack Riley discussed how Mexican security issues affect the United States, implications for traditional border concerns such as illegal immigration and drug trafficking, and various policy options available to aid the Mexican government in improving security.
Report
Pattern and trend analysis and systematic randomness can be used to position U.S. border security personnel and equipment effectively for interdiction, and in some circumstances the combined approach is competitive with perfect surveillance.
Report
Violent drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico produce, transship, and deliver into the U.S. tens of billions of dollars worth of narcotics annually. A Delphi exercise offers an assessment of the security situation in Mexico through the lens of existing research on urban unrest, historical insurgencies, and defense-sector reform.
Report
Fundamental to the question of border control effectiveness is the proportion of illegal crossings that are prevented through deterrence or apprehension, but estimating these proportions requires knowing the total flow. Four new approaches warrant further attention for purposes of supporting reliable, valid, and timely measures of illicit cross-border flow.
Journal Article
The authors quantify a game-theoretic model of terrorist decision making to understand the role of nuclear detection technologies in deterring nuclear terrorism.
Report
Focusing on three missions—illegal drug control, counterterrorism, and illegal migration—this report recommends ways to measure performance of U.S. border-security efforts in terms of interdiction, deterrence, and exploiting networked intelligence.
Past Event
K. Jack Riley, associate director of the RAND National Security Research Division, will discuss the dire security situation in Mexico, and implications and options for the U.S.
News Release
The long-term efficiency and effectiveness of the U.S. freight transportation system is threatened by bottlenecks, inefficient use of some parts of the infrastructure components, vulnerability to disruptions, and crucial environmental and energy concerns.
Report
Describes approaches to modernizing the U.S. freight-transportation system that require whole-system modeling, engagement of all stakeholders, and an understanding of the interdependence between local and national costs and benefits.
Commentary
Drug-related violence in Mexico has more than doubled over the past 18 months, with a sharp increase in crimes that can only be understood as atrocities. The executions, assassinations, and decapitations may all seem wanton and senseless. But this violence actually has a purpose, write Benjamin Bahney and Agnes Gereben Schaefer.
News Release
The United States should forge a strategic partnership with Mexico that emphasizes reform and long-term institution building as a way to battle the ongoing drug war and other security challenges that face Mexico.
Report
The security situation in Mexico has deteriorated in recent years. To help inform debate on the future of U.S.-Mexico relations, this study examined a set of U.S. policy options and potential policy priorities that hold promise for Mexico's security.
Report
This paper outlines questions regarding current entry and exit policies and procedures for individuals crossing U.S. borders, including those surrounding the best use of the budgetary and managerial resources of the Department of Homeland Security.
Commentary
The lawlessness along the mexican
border has gone way beyond a
local crime wave: there has been
a dramatic increase in armed robberies, not by lone gunmen but by heavily armed gangs. Kidnappings and homicides are way up—and not just murders but beheadings.... It is starting to look like a terrorist campaign, writes Brian Michael Jenkins.
Journal Article
Discusses the possibilities and options for America if neighboring country Mexico should become a failed state.
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