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I think there has been a tremendous amount of growth for CBP.
On June first of 2009, when we implemented the Western hemisphere travel initiative
we transformed the way we do business at the land border.
Meaning that every traveler entering the United States is entering with a secure document
which is being queried against the law enforcement databases for terrorism and wants and warrants
and at the same time I'm promising them a forty five second inspection.
I'd say that's a home run.
We were still conducting business the exact same way
as when I was a grade five officer in Buffalo, New York.
And I vowed, on the day that WHTI came in,
we would take the land border into the twenty-first century; and we did it.
It was heroics.
It was heroics to get this done on time and on budget and the team really pulled it off.
And every Officer in the field was there on June First of '09 and was ready for it.
The program was nominated by the GAO, as one of the best-run Federal programs in the government.
Everyone was okay, actually, carrying a document;
no different than carrying a driver's license.
Even my Mother, who didn't want to get a document realized that,
"Hey, getting an enhanced driver's license isn't such a bad idea."
It's just a personal source of pride for me and the agency, I think,
and to this day, we still have a 97% compliance rate.
The same kinds of efficiencies and effectiveness that we secured with WHTI
could be done in our other mission core areas.
I think the next ten years are going to be exciting.
I think the future is extremely bright in terms of our ability
to move people through the border in a very secure and efficient way.
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