Introduction
Border and coastal security are enhanced in the United States by the DHS S&T program. DHS stands for Department of Homeland Security, while S & T stands for Science and Technology Directorate. DHS S & T is a maritime and border security program that manages border security in the United States. The marine and border security program enhances land, air, and naval security while optimizing the flow of legitimate travel and trade (Dar, 2021). The border and coastal security programs focus on attaining their mission by transitioning technical and scientific solutions and knowledge to optimal operation. The strategy utilized by the border and maritime security agencies consist of three different activities such as understanding all technical dimensions related to challenges facing homeland security, application of the rigorous methodology and process to solve the border security challenges, and collaboratively working with all the homeland security enterprises (Khurana, 2019). The primary objective of border and maritime security is to offer technical solutions for the DHS components to help in preventing dangerous people or products from illegally entering the U.S. It also helps to protect the U.S economy, the public, the U.S environment, and the security interests (Koslowski & Schulzke, 2018).
Border and maritime security are extensive, consisting of all land, air, and coastal binderies, including the inland waterways, entry to U.S ports, and even stretches to address concerns in remote terrains (Dollah et al., 2016). DHS S & T program works collaboratively with its operational partners to realize the best technologies to achieve their mission and provide technical solutions that fill the existing capability gaps (Dar, 2021). The primary focus areas for border and maritime security include the port of entry security, naval border security, land border security, exit re-engineering or apex air entry security, and apex BSA security. To enhance the effectiveness of the U.S maritime and border security services, Science and Technology Directorate program has adopted various technological systems to unfold more outstanding capabilities to achieve the intended objectives (Hokke et al., 2018).
Research Question
United States border and coastal security have been faced with many issues which have called upon the border and maritime security agencies to take stringent measures to keep the states away from smuggled goods, protection against terrorist attacks as well as an illegal drug and human trafficking, and immigration challenges (Anuar & Harun, 2019). For example, the border security agencies in the U.S have played a crucial role in blocking the Ukrainian corps from entering the country following the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Similarly, the border and coastal security agencies played an important in identifying and smuggling unlawful migrants. The migrants were moved from Central America, which saw the country generate between $200 million to about $2.3 billion from the human smugglers (Argueta, 2016). Due to the many challenges, the border and maritime security agencies have adopted various technologies to help in addressing those issues. Some technologies include artificial intelligence, identity, biometric management systems, remote marine technologies, waterway and port resiliency systems, and coastal and port surveillance systems. Therefore, the research question would be the effectiveness of modern technologies in addressing the maritime and border security challenges.
Research Hypothesis
- Modern technologies have no significant positive effect on border and port security challenges.
- Air-based technologies have no significant positive effect on border security effectiveness in the U.S.
- Laser technology has no significant positive effect on enhancing maritime border security in the U.S.
- There is no significant positive effect of the biometric technology systems on enhancing border security in the U.S.
- There is no significant positive effect of the X-Ray Imaging technology on enhancing border security in the U.S.
Literature Review
The Southern and Northern borders of the United States are faced with multiple challenges, including illegally and undocumented individuals residing and working, facilitation of transactional terrorists making efforts to smuggle in drugs and weapons, human trafficking, and the extremists making endless efforts to disrupt daily lives of American citizens. The border and coastal security are not only crucial for U.S national security but also the catalyst for continued economic growth (Germond, 2015).
Border and Coastal Security and Immigration Issues
The U.S Constitution grants the border and coastal security agencies the sole responsibility to thoroughly inspect and admit any person entering the country to strengthen national security and enhance public safety (Argueta, 2016). The immigration officers at the borders must scrutinize goods and people entering the country to determine their admissibility. The recent security concern of the illegal immigration reported at the U.S Southern border caused intense strain on the government resources. Similarly, the immigration enforcement and border security agencies got overwhelmed by the surge (Anuar & Harun, 2019).
Furthermore, the transactional terrorist organizations used the Southern border to transact the sophisticated human and drug trafficking networks, which resulted in increased violent crimes and more deaths of American youths through abuse of dangerous drugs (Argueta, 2016). The border and coastal security agencies should strengthen their efforts and counter strategies to offer protection against illegal immigration, which could otherwise facilitate terrorism and other criminal conduct, including drug and human trafficking. To achieve this goal, the agencies need modern surveillance technologies to assist in enforcing the U.S immigration laws (Dollah et al., 2016). Additionally, the Federal government issued an executive order for the border security agencies to construct an immediate physical wall monitored and supported by American intelligence to prevent further illegal immigration, terrorism, and human and drug trafficking. Multiple detention facilities for unlawful entries have also been constructed along the American borders, which are used for detaining those who violate the immigration laws (Khurana, 2019).
Border and Coastal Security Key Focus Areas
Port of Entry Security
The border and coastal security program develop the necessary technologies to enhance the border security along the ports while expediting the continuous flow of legitimate travel and trade. In this case, it helps reduce the risk of exposure of terrorists and other transactional terrorism organizations that use the port of entry to exploit the conveyances and cargo for illegal smuggling of contraband and people (Argueta, 2016). The technology adoption helps improve the program’s effectiveness to ensure expediency and security of all the travelers who enter or exit the United States through the ports of entry (Morris & Paoli, 2018).
Land and Maritime Border Securities
The border and coastal security program use surveillance technologies to develop and transition its technical capabilities, thus helping the American land and maritime border securities to safeguard lawful travels and trade and dismantle and disrupt ant transactional terrorist or criminal organizations. It also ensures that smugglers do not use the marine environment illegally to transport illicit people or goods such as drugs (Rabasa & Chalk, 2012).
Exit-Re-Engineering or Apex Air Entry (AEER)
AEER program denotes a multi-year effort by the DHS informing the transformation of all the international arrival procedures and implementation of biometric system capabilities that effectively verify the nationals leaving or entering the country through the airports of entry (Morris & Paoli, 2018). The use of the Apex AEER program helps both DHS S & T and the American border and customs protection (CBP) to effectively transform the operations of CBP by leveraging all the commercial technologies available, re-engineering the existing border security processes, and operationalizing new capabilities enabled by the adoption of biometric and other surveillance technologies (Mudrić, 2016).
The Situational Awareness at Apex Border (BSA)
BSA is a project developed by DHS S & T program that assists Homeland Security Enterprise in achieving increased situational awareness across the entry borders, thus improving border deterrence, incursion detection, and interdictions (Rabasa & Chalk, 2012). Specifically, the BSA project aims to improve the measurement of illegal activities across borders to help understand the current state and the impacts of additional border security measures (Mudrić, 2016). It also helps to improve the risk assessments across the borders by identifying the current security threats and relating them with any emerging trends or patterns. Last, the BSA project helps improve resource alignment with potential risks associated with current and future border operations (Germond, 2015).
Border and Coastal Security Modern Surveillance Technologies
The increasing insecurity concerns across the United States borders, especially in the Southern and Northern regions, have alarmed the border patrol agents to adopt multiple wearables, sensors, and handheld computer technologies to help strengthen the U.S border and maritime security (Alden, 2012). Outlined below are some of the technologies useful by the border patrol agents to heighten American border security.
Laser Technology
The U.S border security agencies, especially the maritime agencies, have successfully used laser technology to enhance naval border security. The technology involves a long-range acoustic device with well-focused acoustic capabilities to facilitate long-distance communication between the border security agencies (Haddal, 2010). The laser technology is convenient as it can be remotely controlled or operated from a smaller boat. The acoustic device also serves as the directional speaker, capable of projecting the warning tone through longer distances, alerting the border security agencies of any potential risks of illegal entry or exit. The laser technology also involves using electro-optical devices such as infrared sensors and visible-light cameras to intensify the detection of illicit border crossings (Koslowski & Schulzke, 2018).
Air-Based Technologies
The air-based technologies are widely used by the DHS S & T program to help identify, test, and evaluate the surveillance sensors mounted on rotary and fixed-wing unmanned and operated aircraft systems or drones. The sensors help improve the detection capabilities, tracking and classifying all potential illicit activities at the border points (Alden, 2012). The air-based technologies provide DHS components with unbiased evaluation techniques that are realistic and operational in relevant scenarios. The Airborne sensors help to improve situational awareness for the border security agencies tasked to respond to the emergency events such as forest fires and floods. Moreover, the airborne sensors technology enhances drone access to National Airspace System and improves the effectiveness of U.S Border and Customs Protection (Jones & Johnson, 2016).
Biometric Technology Systems
Biometric systems help the border security agencies to biometrically capture and enroll the traveler’s biodata to enhance the verification processes at the entry or exit points. The technology involves latent fingerprint capture and processing for forensic analysis, face, palmprint, and iris recognition capabilities to document the personal data into a database for future high matching accuracy (Koslowski & Schulzke, 2018). Using biometric technology at the border points helps to associate the travelers with relevant travel documents such as passports and visas. It offers document scanning capabilities and facial capture, which helps evaluate the travelers’ true identity (Amoore, 2006). In addition, the system helps in identity records management, including all the registration, deletions, and updated procedure data. During the inspection at the border point, the biometric comparison is made to determine the limited ability of the traveler to be admitted into the United States (Bourne et al., 2015).
X-Ray Imaging Technology
The U.S Department of Homeland Security uses sophisticated scanning technology to detect all illicit products, including drugs and explosives, in mail shipments, cargo, airports, and rail freight. For example, non-intrusive scanning technology has widely been used at the U.S Southern border, especially during all secondary inspections on cargo (Haddal, 2010). Similarly, the border security agencies use MobileTrace Narcotic devices such as Rapiscan systems that automatically detect narcotic substance presence at the border points. It has primarily helped in preventing the trafficking of illicit drugs across the United States border points (Bourne et al., 2015). Lastly, U.S border security has installed modern laboratories with powerful chemical analysis technologies that help analyze the chemical content of all the products entering the United States (Prokkola, 2013).
Research Methodology
The research employed different qualitative research methodologies such as research design, sampling technique and size, target areas, and data collection instruments. Outlined below is the analysis of the research methodologies used;
Research design
The study adopted a case study design whereby the independent variable was keenly looked into to determine its interactive effects on the dependent variable. Using a case study design enabled the researcher to coherently and comprehensively draw valid conclusions about the research hypothesis (Gupta & Gupta, 2022).
Target Areas
The study targeted the American border security agencies’ data, DHS S &T program activities, and the U.S immigration data about the immigration laws and procedures. The selection of the target areas was based on the possibility of intelligence data about border security measures and other activities. The study sampled the U.S Northern and Southern border security measures and explored some border insecurity scenarios. The sampling technique used to explore Northern and Southern borders was purposive as these borders are mostly faced with many borders’ security concerns (Snyder, 2019).
Data Collection Instruments
The research data sources can either be primary or secondary. The research used secondary data sources whereby a thorough online search of the security agencies’ websites, peer-reviewed journals, and original documented research articles was read through, and the secondary data was compiled together to help in drawing objective conclusions about the research question and hypothesis (Gupta & Gupta, 2022). The validity and reliability of the secondary data collected were enhanced by using only creditable online data sources such as websites and peer-reviewed journals and articles.
Ethical Consideration
To ensure ethics in research work have been upheld, the researcher provided that all citations made were directly attributed to the author by clearly indicating their surname and the year the work was published. A detailed reference page was also prepared to enhance the research’s credibility. Similarly, the study was purely conducted for academic purposes, and the secondary data collected could not be used to question the competency of the U.S border security agencies (Hokke et al., 2018).
Analysis of Research Findings
The research aimed to determine whether adopting modern technologies has an adverse positive influence on enhancing the U.S border and maritime security. After the detailed analysis, the research findings indicated that advanced technologies significantly improve the effectiveness of the border security measures deployed by the U.S border and coastal security agencies (Amoore, 2006). First, the study found that laser technology involves a long-range acoustic device with well-focused acoustic capabilities to facilitate long-distance communication between border security agencies. As a result, the technology heightens the abilities and effectiveness of the U.S borders from terrorist attacks and illegal trafficking of drugs and humans (Haddal, 2010).
Secondly, the study indicated that the air-based technology helps the DHS S & T program to identify effectively, test, and evaluate the surveillance sensors mounted on rotary and fixed-wing of both the uncrewed and human-crewed aircraft systems or drones (Prokkola, 2013). The sensors help improve the detection capabilities, tracking and classifying all potential illicit activities at the border points. The technology also helps to enhance situational awareness for the border security agencies tasked to respond to the emergency events such as forest fires and floods (Bourne et al., 2015).
Thirdly, the biometric technology helps the border security agencies to biometrically capture and enroll the traveler’s biodata to enhance the verification processes at the entry or exit points. It offers document scanning capabilities and facial capture, which helps evaluate the travelers’ true identity during the inspection procedures to determine if they are legit to be admitted into the United States (Jones & Johnson, 2016).
Lastly, X-Ray Imaging technology involves the use of sophisticated scanning technology to detect all illicit products, including drugs and explosives in mail shipments, cargo, airports, and rail freight hence enhancing the effectiveness of the procedures deployed by the border security agencies to prevent illicit drugs and other illegal products from entering into U.S economy (Koslowski & Schulzke, 2018).
Conclusion
Border and coastal security are enhanced in the United States by the DHS S&T program. Border and maritime security are extensive, consisting of all land, air, and coastal binderies, including the inland waterways, entry to U.S ports, and even stretches to address concerns in remote terrains. United States border and coastal security have faced many issues which have called upon the border and maritime security agencies to take stringent measures to keep the states away from smuggled goods, protection against terrorist attacks, illegal drug, and human trafficking, and immigration challenges. As a result, the U.S security agencies have adopted various technologies to help in addressing those issues, including air-based technology, biometric systems, X-Ray Imaging technology, and laser technology. The study concluded that using advanced technologies significantly enhances the effectiveness of the border security measures deployed by the U.S border and coastal security agencies.
However, the study focused on the role of advanced technologies in enhancing U.S border security and the key focus areas. Therefore, the researcher recommends a further investigation to be conducted to investigate the extent to which the U.S border security agencies have adopted the use of modern security surveillance technologies.
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