This story was reported for San Diego News Network on April 28, 2009. Hoa Quach was given an exclusive interview with Alan Bersin.
As San Diegans across the county were rushing to get their taxes filed on April 15 — one San Diegan was being formally appointed as the nation’s “border czar.”
Known to many and controversial to some, Alan Bersin was offered the position as the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Special Representative for Border Affairs within the Department of Homeland Security — or what many refer to as, the “border czar.” Previously, chair of the San Diego Regional Airport Authority, Bersin has received acclaim from many business leaders — including that of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce president Ben Haddad, who said in a recent SDNN interview that Bersin was “by far the best choice.”
Bersin’s resume is long. In 2005, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him as the California Education Secretary. Prior to that position, he was the superintendent for the San Diego Unified School District from 1998 until 2005; and from 1995 to 1998, he served as the U.S. Attorney General Southwest Border Representative.
During his term as the border representative, Bersin enacted “Operation Gatekeeper,” an intensive measure that increased border enforcement by two-fold. The operation, which cost the U.S. $800 million, caused much frenzy and criticism — including that of Herman Baca. Baca, founder of the San Diego Committee on Chicano Rights, criticized Bersin in a recent interview, saying his operation “was a massive failure.”
But, Bersin believes otherwise.
In between swine flu meetings, Bersin took a timeout for an exclusive interview with SDNN.
Question: What made you decide to accept this new position?
Answer: [Because of] the confidence and the working relationship I have been able to develop with Secretary Napolitano. We were both U.S. attorneys during the Clinton Administration and my knowledge of her success and capabilities when she was the attorney general and governor of Arizona, made it very attractive for me to work with her when she asked me to consider assisting her in (Department of) Homeland Security.
The decision to become involved again in border affairs was a good and easy one for me because of the interest and commitment I have to border issues, both as someone who has been a prosecutor, but also as someone who lives on the border — as someone who loves the relationship we have with Mexico.
So it was an interest, in terms, of intellectual attractiveness but also a deep passion for the bi-national region that we are in Baja and California, particularly in times that present the challenges we see now.
Q: What’s on the top of your priority list? Obviously, the swine flu crisis now, but what else?
A: I’m assisting the secretary, who has been appointed by the President to be the spokesperson and to lead in the U.S. government in the evolving and developing situation (of the swine flu crisis). That is a priority in terms of various questions that have risen about airports and ports of entry.
The other priority remains the Southwest Border Initiative. The secretary has brought me in to coordinate, in terms, of pursuing security in this side of the border for our communities and for our country. At the same time, we will outreach to Mexico and assist the government of President Calderon in its struggle with the drug trafficking organizations that have plagued both of our countries.
Q: Looking back at your role during the Clinton Administration, what was the inspiration behind Operation Gatekeeper?
A: Restoring the rule of law to a border that would have been completely lawless, not only with illegal immigration but drug trafficking and violence towards migrants, as well as border patrol agents. The notion of Operation Gatekeeper was that the lawless border needed to be managed much more effectively from the standpoint of lawfulness but also equity. It represented something that now 15 years later has reached an entirely different stage, in terms of a resourceful border patrol that is professionally carrying out their duties.
Back in 1994 when Attorney General Reno announced we would increase border patrol presence on the U.S.-Mexico border, in the San Diego sector, it asserted control and insisted on the rule of law — that was the purpose of it back then. The progress that has been made is quite remarkable in terms of what the border patrol was then and where it is today. Having said that, the challenges of illegal immigration then and now, are more evident because of the drug traffic organizations — this makes for a continuing problem that requires and gets the concern of Secretary Napolitano.
Q: Are there any aspects of your role that you will do differently from your actions during the Clinton years?
A: There are two very dramatic differences from the situations that existed in 1995 and that exist today in 2009. First, as I indicated, the resources that are available for border patrol and protection activities is extraordinary, and at many times the level at which presented 15 years ago when the inclusion of resources first began.
The second is the relationship we have with Mexico, in terms of the acknowledgement by both governments that the problems of drugs and migration are shared problems that represent a national concern to each country. By being able to talk about our mutual problems candidly we can then devise bilateral approaches to them that would have been simply not possible 15 years ago, even five years ago.
For example, the acknowledgement that drug trafficking is a national security threat to the United States and to Mexico requires a collaborative action by both results for the U.S.; For the first time, to conduct south-bound checks with respect to guns being illegally exported to Mexico and cash also being illegally exported to Mexico that has been generated by the drug transactions in American cities.
Those dimensions, the resources available for border protection and the possibility of establishing significant cooperative relationships with Mexico, are the two main factors that are different.
Q: What’s the most feasible way to stem the violence?
A: The cross-border violence is a combination of varieties of violence that have to be defined and differentiated. For example, there’s significant violence in Mexico — as we see most recently in Tijuana, where there was an assassination of five police officers — is the kind of violence that represents cartel-on-cartel violence and violence in the struggle between Mexican authorities and the drug cartels. That violence, which is taking place prominently in Tijuana, Juarez across to El Paso has not spilled over, so to speak, to American communities. That threat has been assessed and we are prepared to deal with it in the event that it occurs. But, we have seen no evidence of that and expect that situation to be under control.
The violence that takes place as a result of organized crime activities — drug trafficking, gun trafficking — is violence that has long risen on the border and needs to always be a concern. But, it’s different from the so-called spill-over violence that I think people are concerned about as a result of the ferocity of the gun battles that are taking place in Chiuhahua and Baja, California. There has always been organized crime-connected violence and we have lived with it for a long time.
The ordinary and serious, but routine violence that takes place as a result of border transactions is another element we’ve long had in our communities. It is a concern that needs to be taken into account, but again it’s not something that’s new. I think the key for us on the domestic side is to assess the threats and put into play the resources that have been allocated and the strategies that are called for based on the circumstances.
The other side of the equation, though, is assisting the government of Mexico to deal with the much more substantial violence that exists in their country as a result of the drug cartels. That kind of law enforcement cooperation is under way.
Q: What is your hope for the future of relations between the U.S. and Mexico at the conclusion of your position?
A: I hope that we have considerably deepened the relationship, in terms of cooperation and that we have forever put behind us a period when Mexico and the U.S. could pretend that their futures at the border and elsewhere were independent of one another. The great breakthrough by President Obama, President Calderon and Secretary Napolitano, is we now have a firm grasp clearly, articulately and publicly stated that this is a core responsibility for the problems that face us.
We therefore must engage in bilaterally coordinated actions to deal with them. I’m hoping that attitude will translate itself into concrete beneficial actions and will then become institutionalized so that we can never go back to the period in which each country would tend to deny the responsibility of itself for the problems that exist at the border. Those days are gone and we increasingly will develop the new relationship strategically and tacitly and seek to build an institution that will sustain them.
Q: Do you feel that your role in the education sector has changed your outlook on the border?
A: There’s no question that one of the reasons that I was attracted to education was my understanding that strategically strengthening K-through-12 education was a critical way of fortifying the social and economic foundations of our community. It also stems from the fact that I understood that immigrant population, in our days, principally from Mexico and Southeast Asia, would require the same educational opportunities my grandparents and parents had when they were immigrants.
I approach the notion of the border control with the firm understanding that our country is our country of immigrants and that understanding colors all of my attitudes and perspectives.
Having watched and struggled to improve public education has definitely affected the way I look at border affairs in the same way that my previous experience with border affairs affected my approach to public education.
Q: Does that mean you’re going to keep your seat on the state board of education? Or is that gig over?
A: No, in fact, I resigned. I wrote to Gov. Schwarzenegger, chief of staff Susan Kennedy and Secretary John Cruz to advise them that my current responsibilities would prevent me from continuing, so I have resigned from the board of education.
Q: Finally, are you still going to live in San Diego?
A: Well, my family is living in San Diego. But, I expect to be spending a lot of time in Washington but even more time on the border. But, not exclusively in San Diego.
Hoa Quach is the political editor for the San Diego News Network.