Public safety is a top priority for all of us and that is what makes these partnerships work. network would not be possible unless the targets were meaningful for all concerned, he said. “It is all about partnership,” said Assistant Director Chaparro. “If we don’t have a good methodology, if we don’t get buy-in from our partners that these are the top targets, we’re not going to get the interagency engagement that we need, and ultimately we will not be successful,” Assistant Director Chaparro said. The first steps in prioritizing are to consult a host of U.S. agencies and assemble intelligence on numerous transnational criminal organizations. Contributing agencies include the departments of State and Defense, the law enforcement and intelligence communities, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents within ICE. For each criminal organization, officials When ICE put IPAS into motion last work through a methodical, repeatable year, it focused on human trafficking and process to develop criteria to assess threats. smuggling. Victims pay to be transported Assistant Director Chaparro listed some to the U.S. border and moved into the of the essential questions to assess the country illegally. Some face brutal forms magnitude of threat posed by a human of servitude, such as prostitution and smuggling organization: forced labor, to repay debts. • Do they have ties to terrorism? As ICE moves the IPAS approach for• Are they smuggling in people from ward, it is broadening the scope of the high threat nations? strategy to include other forms of global • Are there serious public crime, based on the agency’s process of corruption concerns? prioritizing threats. In an interview with • Humanitarian concerns? Inside Homeland Security, Assistant Di• Do they use violence against rector Chaparro discussed how he applies people they smuggle— the four strategic objectives to create netkidnapping, hostage taking? works to fight transnational crime. • What’s the volume they’re moving? Prioritizing threats • How adept are they with “There’s a million different criminal groups communications security? out there operating all around the globe. Which ones present the biggest threats to “Then we assign a ranking or score for our security, and how do we prioritize our each one of those attributes based on the work against them?” intelligence received,” Assistant Director During the interview, Assistant Direc- Chaparro said. At the end of this process, tor Chaparro often spoke in questions to officials decide which organizations to tarillustrate processes of investigation and get based on an objective assessment. enforcement. He said that, with regard to fighting human trafficking and smuggling, Investigate, identify, prioritizing was a new step in the meth- disrupt, dismantle odology. Combatting the far-flung reach To accomplish this objective, officials must of transnational organized crime would examine the systemic vulnerabilities in the require a network of partners within ICE illicit pathways that they have identified. If and other U.S. agencies, along with part- human smugglers are using a certain city ners in other nations. Assembling this as a pathway for transporting people, speThe IPAS directly supports the President’s strategy. It is designed to attack transnational organized crime along its entire continuum while at the same time address systemic vulnerabilities that allow these illicit networks to operate. The IPAS has four strategic objectives: • Prioritizing networks and pathways posing the greatest threats; • Working with counterparts to investigate, identify, disrupt, and dismantle transnational criminal organizations prior to their illicit activities reaching U.S. borders; • Maintaining robust interagency engagement; and • Coordinating a regional approach that leverages foreign partners.
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Summer 2012
cial agents must understand the reasons why criminals prefer that city more than any other around the world. “This is where intelligence fits in,” Assistant Director Chaparro said. He posed several key questions: • Is there a high level of public corruption? • Do the nation’s police and border officials need more training? • Do they have lax visa policies? • Do they have document security issues? “Once we understand these vulnerabilities, we can then work with our substantial overseas footprint to address them,” he said. These resources include not only ICE personnel but also such agencies as the State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL). They can offer the host country training and consultation on a broad palette of issues, such as training for law enforcement and border security officials, improvements in document security, and suggestions for model legislation to shore up weaknesses in laws. In addition, officials in the host nation will receive support from overseas embedded HSI special agents. These efforts to strengthen the capacity of a nation’s government to deal with transnational crime are essential to achieving a lasting impact, Assistant Director Chaparro said.
Interagency engagement This objective comes into play at the beginning in prioritizing threats, and it continues in the form of sharing intelligence across agencies and across governments in the efforts to identify, disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations. And equally important, ICE works closely with its interagency partners to bring a full range of capabilities against the illicit criminal networks. Assistant Director Chaparro described the role of intelligence, starting with the necessary questions: “Who are the logistics people? Who are their money people? Who are the ones doing the recruiting of the aliens? Who are the www.abchs.com
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