Latest Alan Bersin Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• We should be wary, particularly with our closest friends and allies, of breaking down the trust and confidence that lie at the foundation of relationships.

  Alan Bersin

  Lying, Breaking Down

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• In today's digital online world, those who don't share information will be isolated and left behind.

  Alan Bersin

  World, Online, Share

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• There have been enormous advances since 9/11 to build a very robust set of targeting procedures and watch lists to screen travelers coming to the United States. The National Targeting Center in Virginia run by Customs and Border Protection checks the background of every traveler who seeks to enter the country.

  Alan Bersin

  Running, Country, Protection

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Six million jobs in the US depend on trade with Mexico. Ten border states - six in Mexico and four in the United States - combined have the third or fourth largest economy in the world. Twenty-nine US states depend on Mexico as their primary export market.

  Alan Bersin

  World, Economy, Trade

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Every air traveler entering Mexico is vetted against US databases. The air passenger screening system Mexico has in place involves these checks against US national security and criminal data bases. There are plainclothes US officers stationed at airports in Mexico working with Mexican immigration officials to protect the United States. This joint security program has been in place for at least six years and is a huge asset.

  Alan Bersin

  Mexican, Immigration, Program

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• In the last two years, the Mexicans have detained nearly 400,000 migrants whose intent was to come to the United States. The Mexicans return the detained Central American migrants by bus or by air to the countries they come from.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, Bus

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• The work the Mexicans are doing in terms of migration control on Mexico's southern border is crucial to our own border security.

  Alan Bersin

  Southern, Term, Security

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• The image and the costs of a Berlin-like wall or a Great Wall of China is something that the American people have not accepted to date.

  Alan Bersin

  Wall, People, Accepted

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• As former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pointed out, if you build a 50-foot wall, you'll soon be confronted with a 51-foot ladder. You need a strategy that involves layered defense: deployed patrols, sophisticated sensor equipment, and surveillance from the air. That is what has had a positive impact over the last generation.

  Alan Bersin

  Wall, Strategy, Sophisticated

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• I think there's no question that the barriers, the fences and in certain urban areas, the walls, have had an important effect in terms of increasing the manageability and the security of the border. But in fact as Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly acknowledged at his confirmation hearing, walls and barriers alone are insufficient to insure security.

  Alan Bersin

  Wall, Thinking, Important

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• The law change during the Bush administration gave the Department of Health and Human Services a central role in relocating Central American minors in the United States.

  Alan Bersin

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Migrants come up and no longer seek to evade the Border Patrol, but are actually left at the border by their smugglers. And they seek out Border Patrol agents or Customs and Border Protection officials to surrender to them and request political asylum. That's the way in which they get entry into a system that will eventually release them into the country.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, Political, Protection

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Indeed, many of the illegal crossers who have entered the country in the last two years after being detained have actually been either unaccompanied minors or families who request political asylum. The ability of the smugglers to attract large numbers of families and unaccompanied minors is a function of the inability of our immigration court system to process asylum claims in a timely fashion.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, Fashion, Political

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• Mexico now has the 13th largest economy in the world. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts it will have a larger economy than Germany by 2042.

  Alan Bersin

  World, Cooperation, Economic

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• The idea was to restore the rule of law, to bring order to a chaotic situation. The results became more and more apparent. Crime rates went down in the border region. Today, the number of migrants crossing is at a 30-year low. That's because of years of bipartisan work on this issue.

  Alan Bersin

  Today, Crime, Situation

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• In the course of 25 years, we have developed a constructive relationship with Mexico that was nonexistent before. During the last eight to 10 years there have been continued efforts which have resulted in a strategic alliance with the Mexicans and improved safety and security at the border.

  Alan Bersin

  Safety, Effort, Safety And Security

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

• We can't defend the country by looking at the borderline as the first line of defense rather than as the last line of defense. We have to secure the flow of goods and people by engaging with foreign entities. We assure our security by securing the flows as early as we can before they arrive and as far away from our borders as we can.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, People, Borders

  Source: www.salon.com

• We have to remember that information sharing is restricted by legal barriers and cultural barriers and by the notion that information is power and therefore should be hoarded so if you share information you can extract something in exchange. In today's digital online world, those who don't share information will be isolated and left behind. We need the data of other countries to connect the dots.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, Data, Information Sharing

  Source: www.salon.com

• We must recognize that this massive economic bloc that's emerging in North America cannot be accomplished unilaterally. It must be accomplished in partnership with Mexico and Canada. And we have to work together to secure the continent in order to keep dangerous people and dangerous things out and strengthen perimeter security on a continental basis.

  Alan Bersin

  Order, America, People

  Source: www.salon.com

• Homeland security is inherently transnational today. There's hardly anything adverse that happens in our homeland that doesn't have a cause or effect that's generated abroad. Increasingly, we must rely on our allies and foreign governments to share information and data to secure our country.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, Government, Data

  Source: www.salon.com

• Our security in a global world must be looked at on a continental basis.

  Alan Bersin

  World, Bases, Security

  Source: www.salon.com

• People in our so-called Rust Belt have lost out, and politics and society have not been responsive either in providing the kind of additional support they need or to retrain them for jobs that are being created in the new economy.

  Alan Bersin

  Jobs, People, Support

  Source: www.salon.com

• The potential of Mexico, Canada and the United States is enormous. We have a combined population of half a billion people; peaceful trade-friendly borders that are the envy of the world; the prospect of energy independence is within reach and will change the geopolitical situation of United States; we do a trillion dollars in trade among the three countries; more than 18,000 American companies are involved in foreign direct investment in Mexico and Canada; an increasing number of Mexican companies are creating jobs in the United States.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, Jobs, Numbers

  Source: www.salon.com

• We need to realize that the economic situation between Mexico and the United States is not just one in which we trade with one another. We make things together. We have shared production platforms. Cross-border trade is part of a single production process, and while apparently the Trump administration will seek to re-examine elements of that production platform, it is what it is and won't be easily dismantled.

  Alan Bersin

  Together, Borders, Needs

  Source: www.salon.com

• The cry of "Make America Great Again" reflects accurately that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the sole superpower status of the United States is coming to an end. For the first time since the second World War, we are not the sole dominant economy in the world. In large part this is because of the success of policies followed by the United States to create an environment, a peaceful period in history in which economies could grow and countries could benefit.

  Alan Bersin

  Country, War, Fall

  Source: www.salon.com