How Unaccountable Private Contractors Pocket Your Tax Dollars Militarizing the Texas Border

Outsourcing Model Building in Texas

Steven McCraw, in his dual position as Homeland Security chief and director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, is the state’s point person for what he calls the “Texas paradigm” for border security.  Governor Rick Perry tells President Obama and DHS Secretary Napolitano that the federal government should be emulating the “Texas border security model.”

Whether thought of as a model or paradigm, most of its features, like fusion and intelligence centers or collaborative law enforcement surges and unified commands, are not original constructs, but borrowed directly from DHS or the military.

The credibility of the “Texas” brand of this border security model also suffers from the wholesale outsourcing involved in the formulating and operating of most of its components. Starting in 2004, the governor’s office and later DPS began contracting private firms and corporations to supervise the new border security campaign. While technically directed by state officials, virtually all components of the Texas border-security and crime-fighting models were outsourced to such firms as Northrop Grumman, APPRISS, and Abrams Learning and Information Systems (ALIS).

The master model builder of Border Star is Abrams Learning & Information Systems (ALIS), a Washington Beltway homeland security consulting firm created by retired U.S. Army General John Abrams to take advantage of the boom in homeland security contracting following the 2003 creation of DHS. For the past several years, ALIS has been contracted by DPS to “refine plans and strategies for seamless integration of border security operations.”  ALIS has been charged with directing, coordinating, operating, and staffing the state’s border security infrastructure – the Border Security Operation Center, TX Crime Mapping project, and the six Joint Operations Intelligence Centers.

As part of its contract to “sustain continuous border security operations” for the state, ALIS receives multimillion contracts to formulate the state’s Texas Border Security Campaign Plan, 2010-2015 Homeland Security Strategy Plan, as well as the TEXDPS Agency Strategy Plan 2010.

Steeped in military practice and thinking, the ALIS senior leadership have brought this military tradition to the challenges of homeland security and border control in Texas. This can be readily seen in its work for the governor’s office and DPS through its favoring the military terminology and structures -- “unified commands,” “operations ,”  “”ranger recons,” intelligence centers,” “forward deployment,” and “surges”  Like the military, the military-styled Operation Border Star has little transparency or accountability, and the battles are always being declared victories despite the absence of measurable indicators.

Despite the hundreds of millions dollars spent for state-initiated border-security operations, neither the governor nor Steve McCraw has provided documentation of the impact of Border Star. The Department of Public Safety has denied public-records requests (from the author) for the department’s border security plan and for the monthly progress reports from its border security operations among other documents referenced in the state’s contract with ALIS.

Citing the lack of accomplishments, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson called Border Star “a boondoggle” because of its failure to make significant arrests, while the Texas ACLU has charged that Border Star had “wasted millions” and created a vast regional network of unaccountable fusion and intelligence centers while misdirecting public safety resources for largely political projects.