Border and Transportation Security

t the agency best known for protecting aviation, Richard Bennis is protecting everything else. Bennis is director of Maritime and Land Security at the Transportation Security Administration, a position in which he is designing a security system to protect the nation's seaports and rail and transit systems. In his office, a picture of Bennis with former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani attests to another important homeland security post he held: As captain of the port of New York last fall, Bennis scraped together a flotilla of ferries, barges and tugboats to evacuate more than 500,000 people from lower Manhattan on Sept. 11. In the days that followed, he coordinated a round-the-clock defense of New York Harbor. In mid-March, Bennis retired from the Coast Guard as a rear admiral, and has been with TSA ever since.

Bennis hopes to build on some of the industry-led security programs created after Sept. 11 and has a close relationship with the modal administrators at the Transportation Department. He has kicked around the idea of creating transportation marshals for bus and rail, although he doesn't anticipate hiring many people. Bennis also plans to make passenger screening an industry standard for cruise lines. "Some of the cruise lines have exceptional passenger and baggage screening systems in place right now," he says.

Bennis previously served as captain of the port and commander of the Coast Guard marine safety offices in Charleston, S.C., and Hampton Roads, Va., during his 30 years in the service.

Gustavo De La Vina
Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Justice Department
(202) 514-3072

n April, the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service announced that senior managers in the Border Patrol's field offices would begin reporting directly to the head of the agency. Before the chain of command was shortened, the Border Patrol's 21 sector chiefs reported to one of three regional directors, which left the agency's chief with "no direct authority over his own organization," James Ziglar said at the time.

Those 21 sector chiefs now report to Gustavo De La Vina, a Border Patrol agent who rose through the ranks of the INS and became head of the Border Patrol in 1997.

Born and raised in Edinburg, Texas, De La Vina has served with the INS for 32 years, most of it spent out West in Texas and California on the U.S.-Mexico border. Before he became head of the agency, De La Vina served as the INS' western regional director and played an important role in implementing Operation Gatekeeper, a border enforcement strategy that emphasizes deterrence over interdiction.

During a four-year stint as head of the Border Patrol's San Diego office from 1990 to 1994, De La Vina showed similar initiative, revamping what was, at that time, the busiest Border Patrol operation in the country, by installing stadium-style lighting, better border fencing and electronic processing for arrested immigrants.

But De La Vina, who is the first Hispanic Border Patrol agent to lead the agency, faces some significant challenges as chief, including rising attrition rates among the agency's 9,800 agents, who are seeking better pay and benefits elsewhere. The attrition rate for Border Patrol agents was 10 percent last year, and is expected to hit 20 percent by the end of fiscal 2002. T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing the agents, estimated that one of four agents would leave the INS by the end of the year to become sky marshals with the Transportation Security Administration.

"No organization can be expected to effectively carry out its mission while losing so many experienced personnel," Bonner told members of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources in April.

The Border Patrol also is one of the major agencies being folded into the administration's proposed new Homeland Security Department. De La Vina, a 1999 recipient of the president's award for distinguished senior executives-the government's top honor for civil servants-will need to embrace inevitable change while stabilizing the Border Patrol's workforce.

Mary Ryan
Assistant Secretary of State for
Consular Affairs
State Department
(202) 647-9576

s the people who issue visas to foreigners at American embassies around the world, the 900 consular officers who work for Mary Ryan are the first line of defense against terrorists intent on getting into the country.

Under Ryan's decade-long tenure as head of the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, consular officers have been outfitted with better tools to catch would-be attackers. Most notable is a sophisticated name-checking system that can, for example, check variations in spelling of Arabic names against the U.S. government's terrorist watch lists. Domestically, the passport agencies that Ryan oversees have beefed up the anti-fraud features of American passports, which are replacing easily manipulated cut-and-paste photos with digitized ones.

The improvements have been funded partly from visa fees that the bureau has been allowed to reinvest-rather than return to the Treasury-since 1994.

Despite these improvements, Ryan's bureau is part of the overall system that failed to stop the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers from entering the country and completing their terrorist mission. Fiercely defensive of her employees, Ryan lashed out in the weeks following Sept. 11 against law enforcement and intelligence agencies that had been reluctant to share information with consular officers, who are not themselves law enforcement officers. In response to Ryan's vitriol, Congress ordered those agencies to better share information with Ryan's staff.

Besides its focus on getting better information from other U.S. agencies, the bureau is turning its attention to biometrics-such as facial recognition software-that could make it even harder for terrorists to get into the country. Ryan also is focusing on recruitment as the State Department beefs up its diplomatic ranks, including the consular corps.

Ryan was awarded the prestigious rank of career ambassador in 1998. She served in Italy, Mexico, the Ivory Coast, Sudan and other posts during her 36-year Foreign Service career and is one of the most respected officers at the State Department. Though Ryan was appointed to her post by President Clinton, Secretary of State Colin Powell has kept her on as a member of the department's top management team.

Michael Cronin
Assistant Commissioner for Inspections
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Justice Department
(202) 514-3019

hen Michael Cronin was acting executive associate commissioner for the Office of Programs at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, he spent his days crafting rules and regulations. But on March 15, just days after a Florida flight school reported it had received letters from the INS confirming the approval of student visas for terrorist hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, INS Commissioner James Ziglar made Cronin assistant commissioner for inspections at the agency. The visa snafu had drawn lots of criticism, and Ziglar put Cronin, a 29-year INS veteran, in the post to help the agency save face.

"The breakdown in communication highlighted by this week's events at INS is unacceptable and will not be allowed," Ziglar said when he announced the change.

Cronin, a native of New York, was chief of inspections once before, in 1991, after serving as an inspector, an adjudicator, a deportation officer, a regional inspector and an appellate adjudicator in the Administrative Appeals Office. In 1986, he was assigned to the newly formed Legalization Branch, where he developed regulations and policy relating to special agricultural workers. In 1987, Cronin was named deputy assistant commissioner of inspections before being promoted to deputy assistant commissioner. His long history with the INS helped him acquire a clear vision for the agency's post-Sept. 11 mission.

"There's a very, very serious obligation on us to do the appropriate background checks . . . to establish that, indeed, this is someone who is harmless and who should be allowed into the country," Cronin told CNN in May.

Cronin spent 15 months in Vietnam as an intelligence specialist after attending the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.