James Gibney, Columnist

The Big Question: Can the U.S. Prevent Another Crisis at the Border?

A Q&A with Alan Bersin, former commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, on how the Biden administration should handle a looming surge in migration.

February 7, 2021 at 1:00 PM UTC

By James Gibney

James Gibney is an editor for Bloomberg Opinion. Previously an editor at the Atlantic, the New York Times, Smithsonian, Foreign Policy and the New Republic, he was also in the U.S. Foreign Service from 1989 to 1997 in India, Japan and Washington.

Business is about to pick up.
Photographer: John Moore/Getty Images North America

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This is one of a series of interviews by Bloomberg Opinion columnists on how to solve today’s most pressing policy challenges. It has been condensed and edited.

James Gibney: President Joe Biden has suspended construction of the Trump administration’s border wall, but he’s also called for strengthening the border by improving technology and infrastructure at and between ports of entry. As the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection from 2010 to 2012, and the chief diplomatic officer at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from 2012 to 2017, you know just how hard it is to deal with various threats — from terrorism and drug smuggling to irregular migration and now, pandemics. Is the U.S. Southwest border more secure now than it was four years ago?