Expertise and Experience
Alan Bersin
Alan Bersin has held numerous senior positions at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice in two presidential administrations. Most recently, Alan served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy & International Affairs and Chief Diplomatic Officer at DHS. His prior federal appointments include service as the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the largest law enforcement agency in the United States; the Special Representative for Border Affairs (so-called “Border Czar”) at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and previously in the U.S. Department of Justice; and the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. Between 2012 and 2015, Alan served as Vice President of INTERPOL for the Americas Region and as a member of the INTERPOL Executive Committee.
Alan has also been a leader in public education reform. Between 1998 and 2005, he served as Superintendent of Public Education in San Diego, the United States’ eighth-largest urban school district. His school reform efforts in San Diego attracted broad notice, leading to his appointment as California’s Secretary of Education during the Administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Prior to entering public service, Alan was a long-time partner and litigator at the national law firm of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP. He also previously served as the chair of the executive committee of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.
Currently, Alan is a partner at BorderWorks Advisors, LLC. He also is a senior advisor and policy consultant at the international law firm Covington & Burling LLP, and a fellow at the Wilson Center and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center.
Ben Rohrbaugh
Ben Rohrbaugh is a Fellow in the Central America and Mexico Policy Initiative at the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. He is the co-founder of Lantern Unmanned Autonomous Systems, LLC, which develops systems to scan cargo containers using aerial drones, and a partner at the consulting and training firm BorderWorks Advisors, LLC. He was previously a Senior Advisor in the Department of Homeland Security Office of Policy. From 2014 to 2016, he served as the Director for Enforcement and Border Security at the National Security Council in the White House, where he coordinated policy on Central American migration, border management with Mexico and Canada, supply chain security, and cross-border infrastructure.
Previously he worked as a Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, where he handled engagement on customs, migration, and security cooperation with the Government of Mexico and negotiated the first entirely privately financed border crossing. Prior to this, Ben was Counselor to the Special Representative for Border Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, where he focused on border management, cross-border infrastructure, and communications interoperability. He also served as the Director for National Security within the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, where he was responsible for political appointments within the Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Defense, and international development organizations.
Ben previously worked on political campaigns including as the Field Desk for the Western United States on the Obama 2008 campaign and spent several years in China developing language learning materials. He received a B.A from the University of California at Davis in 2003 in History and Political Science.
Nate Bruggeman
Nate Bruggeman is currently a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center and the Executive Editor of the Homeland Security Project's Homeland Security Paper Series and a principal at the consulting and train firm BorderWorks Advisors, LLC.
He has extensive experience working with clients to solve emerging legal and policy issues, including addressing border security, law enforcement intelligence, and international partnership issues. Nate served as Counselor to the Special Representative for Border Affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In that capacity, he advised senior departmental leadership on emerging border security and intelligence issues, and he developed innovative solutions to facilitate border security operations. He then moved to U.S. Customs and Border Protection as a Counselor to Commissioner. He advised the Commissioner and other agency leadership on policy and operational issues related to passenger screening, Southwest border security, and enhancing the agency’s intelligence function.
Nate also has had a distinguished legal practice. After graduating with High Honors from The University of Texas School of Law, he clerked for the Hon. Patrick E. Higginbotham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Nate has been an attorney at the international law firm WilmerHale and the boutique litigation firm Wheeler, Trigg, O’Donnell. Most recently, he was an Assistant Attorney General at the Colorado Department of Law. He graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury College with an B.A. in Political Science.