Border security: spending climbs into billions, but skepticism grows.

Fueled by worries about terrorism, illegal immigration and drug smuggling, U.S. spending for border security is skyrocketing, but critics complain that much of the money is being wasted.

A recent study by Frost & Sullivan's aerospace and defense group found that border security has become a multi-billion dollar industry. "Revenue in this market totaled $5.99 billion per year in 2004 and is estimated to reach $8.1 billion by 2011," the study said.

For virtually its entire history, the United States has struggled to secure the nearly 7,000 miles of porous borders separating it from Mexico to the south and Canada to the north.

"This, however, is not an easy task," Mathew Farr, Frost & Sullivan's lead homeland security analyst, told National Defense. "Border security initiatives are difficult to implement, expensive and always carry the risk of political ramifications."

The federal government, for example, has tried in recent years to develop electronic systems of cameras and sensors to detect and identify border intrusions.

The newest effort got underway in April, when the Department of Homeland Security--which is responsible for controlling entry into the United States--issued a request for proposals for a $2.5 billion program intended to integrate existing infrastructure and new technologies into a single, all-inclusive border protection system.

The new system is part of a "secure border initiative," a multiyear plan launched in 2005 by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. Its goal is to bring U.S borders under operational control within five years.

"We cannot hermetically seal 7,000 miles of land borders and keep out 100 percent of illegal crossers," Chertoff said. "But we can create such a high likelihood of interdiction that it will have a strong and unequivocal deterrent effect on those who wish to cross illegally."

Gaining control of the borders requires focuses on all aspects of the problem--deterrence, detection, apprehension, detention and removal, he said.

The plan calls for more enforcement agents, expanded detention and removal facilities, enhanced physical security infrastructure, and a major upgrade in border control technology. In 2007, DHS plans to add 1,500 additional Border Patrol agents, continue the construction of the San Diego border fence, build permanent vehicle barriers in the Western Arizona Desert, install 6,700 more beds in detention centers, and spend $100 million to begin an integrated border surveillance system known as SBInet.

"Through SBInet, the department intends to create a comprehensive border security system that transforms, integrates and expands technology and infrastructure to reduce illegal entry into the United States," Chertoff told reporters. "What are we talking about? We're talking about stuff like unmanned aerial vehicles, satellite imagery, sensors, cameras that are computer-programmed to be able to operate based on algorithms that identify certain kinds of movements ...

"All of these systems, if integrated together, allow us to create a force multiplier for the Border Patrol, taking the ... assets we have and making them more effective to intercept and apprehend those people who are crossing the border illegally," Chertoff said. "That's the bottom line: identifying, disrupting and dismantling organizations that are bringing people illegally into this country."

Thus far, however, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been skeptical. "We've been at this juncture before," Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security; told DHS officials during an April hearing. "We have been presented with expensive proposals elaborate border technology that have eventually proven to be ineffective and wasteful systems."

As examples, Rogers named the integrated surveillance system and America's shield initiauve. Deployed in 1997 by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, ISIS was a system of sensors, cameras and databases. An audit performed in 2003 and 2004 by the General Services Administration's inspector general, however, found that the program suffered from inadequate contract management and oversight, acquisition planning, and provision for competition.

In 2004, ISIS was folded into ASI in an attempt to correct those problems. But in 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported that plans for ASI had not been approved by DHS' investment review board, as required, that the program needed to be integrated into the department's broader border enforcement strategy, and that it had not defined key acquisition management processes, such as overseeing contractors.

In response, DHS decided to incorporate ASI into SBI. "Let me just be blunt," Deputy DHS Secretary Michael Jackson told a recent industry briefing. "America's shield initiative is dead, but the spirit that animated the necessity to have that program has been strengthened."

Rogers, however, still had questions. "What we want to understand is simple: How does SBI differ from previous attempts? Or, to put it more directly; how is SBI not just another three-letter acronym for failure? We do not want more of the same tired formula of throwing money at a problem with limited results."

Since 1995, Rogers noted, the United States has quadrupled spending on border security, from $1.4 billion to $4.7 billion, and more than doubled the number of Border Patrol agents, from 5,000 to 12,381. Yet during that same period, he added, the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the United States has jumped from 5 million to more than 11 million.

DHS' 2007 budget request includes a $1.3 billion increase for SBI. "Despite this enormous price tag, the SBI request does not even include a strategic plan that clearly lays out how we are going to get from the present state of insufficient border security to operational control of our borders, coastlines and airspace," Rogers complained. "How do we know that this $1.3 billion is the right investment and not just another money pit?"

Gregory Giddens, director of DHS' SBI program executive office, promised to submit a strategic plan to the subcommittee. DHS, he said, is taking care that the mistakes of ISIS and ASI are not repeated.

Giddens noted that his office was established specifically to help provide more rigorous management for the SBI program. He cited other steps, including these:

* The Customs and Border Protection agency's SBI program management office will conduct "an independent, objective assessment" of acquisition planning and implementation activities.

* The prime contractor will be required to provide a quality management plan within 60 days of the contract award.

* CBP and the contractor will identify, assess, track and mitigate all risks that might impact costs, schedule and performance.

* CBP will establish a review system to ensure timely delivery and government inspection acceptance of deliverables required in the contract.

SBI, meanwhile, has gotten the attention of private industry. More than 400 company representatives attended a briefing on the project in February. While there will be roles for dozens, perhaps hundreds of subcontractors, in establishing and operating SBInet, DHS' first step, which it intends to complete by September, will be to choose a prime contractor to coordinate the work.

At least two major corporations, Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin, have announced their intention to compete for the contract. Raytheon, headquartered in Waltham, Mass., already has assembled a team of small and minority businesses, according to Gene Blackwell, vice president of the firm's rapid initiatives group. Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, Md., has conducted meetings with potential suppliers in New York, Texas, Arizona, California, Washington and the District of Columbia, Jay Dragone, Lockheed's vice president for homeland security programs, said in a statement.

Frost & Sullivan's Farr, for his part, predicted a golden future for the border security market. SBI is just the beginning, he said. "I think it will go far beyond that."