CBP’s Office of Trade
My name is Elena Van
Horn, and my job title is Supervisory Attorney Advisor.
Also called a branch chief in our office
My job entails protecting the country
from the importation of counterfeit and substandard products.
So I supervise a team of attorneys and paralegals
that we focus on border enforcement of intellectual property rights.
But on a daily basis, we work with officers
that are stationed at all 328 ports of entry across the country,
and we advise them on whether goods that they have detained
or stopped from immediate release would be subject to seizure
or interdiction for violating an intellectual property rights.
My name is suffering from.
I am a chief economist for CBP of the trade
a supervisor branch of five economists,
and we work on regulations,
any regulation that the government issues needs
to have economic analysis attached to it
to basically tell the public whether it's a good idea or not.
So we look at the facts and CBP and the public and airlines
and trade members, whoever could be affected by the regulation,
and we add up the costs and benefits
and make a determination whether we should proceed with it the way.
My favorite part is
helping the agency make their decisions
I like looking at a regulation and figuring out ways of improving it
or ways of expressing to the public how good a job it is.
CBP does a lot of great things for travelers or the trade industry,
a lot for the general public in the form of security.
The best part of my job is the mission.
It's very easy to wake up every day and come to work
and know exactly what I'm doing and why I'm doing it,
and it's just incredibly rewarding and valuable.
We're looking for people that can write, people that can communicate orally,
that can gather information from
stakeholders, from other CBP employees about how the program works,
how different groups would be affected, and then expressing it in a written form.
That's very important stuff.
The main advice I would give is to stay persistent.
It's very competitive.
These positions, but to keep applying and keep at it.
And just because something maybe doesn't match
every serious criteria that you're looking for,
it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be an incredibly valuable experience.
For more information, visit cbp.gov/careers