Alan D. Bersin

Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection

(Sarah L. Voisin/TWP)

Why He Matters

Throughout his career, Bersin has found himself in unfamiliar positions: as a prosecutor when he had little experience with criminal law, as a superintendent when he had little experience with education, and as head of the San Diego airport when he had little experience with aviation. Now, he is finally taking on a job he knows well: border czar.

Bersin, who is fluent in Spanish, will be charged with fighting illegal immigration into the U.S. and will play a crucial role in controlling the escalation of violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Many saw the appointment of Bersin, a former prosecutor who is often described as a law-and-order type, as a signal of the gravity President Obama is giving to the increasing drug violence in Mexico.

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Corrections?

Background

At a Glance

Career History: Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, Department of Homeland Security , Special Representative for Border Affairs (April 2009-March 2010); Chairman of the San Diego Regional Airport Authority (2006 to 2009); Secretary of Education for California (2005 to 2006); Superintendent of San Diego Public Schools (1998 to 2005); U.S. Attorney for San Diego (1993 to 1998)
Birthday: October 1946
Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.
Alma Mater: Harvard University, B.A., 1968; Oxford University, attended 1968 to 1971; Yale Law School, J.D., 1974

Spouse: Lisa Foster
Religion: Jewish
Web site

Path to Power

Bersin grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and attended Harvard University. He played football for the Crimson, and, even as an undersized guard who stood less than 6-feet tall, he managed to make the All-Ivy squad his senior year. Bersin was also regularly nominated as a top student athlete and he was class marshal at Harvard. As class marshal, he invited Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at the 1968 commencement, an offer King accepted before being killed in April of that year.

He graduated from Harvard magna cum laude, was a Rhodes Scholar and studied from 1969 to 1970 at Oxford University, where he met Bill Clinton. Both Bersin and Clinton went to Yale Law School and graduated in 1973. Bersin worked briefly as special counsel to the Los Angeles Police Commission, the governing body of the L.A. Police Department, before joining the L.A. law firm of Munger Tolles & Olson and specializing in securities litigation and RICO crimes. He eventually became partner at that firm, and was recognized for pro-bono work with the Hispanic Urban Center. But in 1992, Bersin took a sabbatical. He moved to San Diego, where he taught at the University of San Diego law school while working on the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign.

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Clinton Administration

In 1993, Bersin was recommended by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and nominated by President Clinton as U.S. attorney for San Diego despite the fact that he had no prosecutorial experience and virtually no criminal-law background.

But Bersin shook things up in the U.S. attorney's office, firing a handful of supervisors and increasing the conviction rate from 67 percent to 78 percent in a little more than a year. "The principal benefit I bring to the office," Bersin says, "is the fact that I did not grow up within the system, and have no particular desire or plans to go on further. I can come in and provide an honest assessment and different perspective."

In 1995, Attorney General Janet Reno designated Bersin as her special representative on border issues, a job that he held while retaining the position of U.S. attorney for San Diego. The position was created by Reno to consolidate the fight against drug and immigrant smuggling under one person instead of dividing responsibilities among the four states that border Mexico. "He will be the attorney general's eyes and ears" along the border, Justice Department spokeswoman Carol Florman said.

School Superintendent

After three years as Clinton's "border czar," Bersin changed directions again, accepting an offer as superintendent of the San Diego Unified School District despite having no previous experience in education.

Education officials expressed concern over an education neophyte leading such a large district, and some high-profile Latino groups were worried that it was inappropriate to appoint the former border czar to head a school system that is more than one-third Hispanic. "This is the challenge of a lifetime that I will devote all of my heart, soul and spirit to," said Bersin, who went to public school. "This is a deep emotional and intellectual commitment to public education."

Many of the doubts from Latino groups quickly faded, but Bersin made new enemies of the teachers' union, which saw Bersin as dictatorial and said his top-down approach denied them any input into the reforms that were made. "He blamed teachers for any failure in student achievement and in the school," said Terry Pesta, president of the San Diego teachers union. "He came in and pretty much said that everything had to change, no one was doing it right. It was his way or the highway." Bersin was also accused of misusing an expense account of school district money, an accusation Bersin called "simply not true."

Outside of San Diego, Bersin continued to be hailed as a reformer. In 2005, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) tapped Bersin to be the state's education secretary, and he moved to Sacramento for a little more than a year. In November 2006, Bersin, who had been commuting back to San Diego on weekends to be with his family, left state government to take a job as chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

In 2008, Bersin contemplated a run for city attorney in San Diego, but determined that the race would have been too difficult partially because of the bad blood with the teachers' union. In the spring of 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano named Bersin border czar, a position that will focus not just on illegal immigration but also on the escalating drug war on the Mexican side of the border with the U.S. "What's going on in Mexico, across the border in Juarez, requires that we support the government of Mexico in its very valiant, courageous effort to both stem violence and also deal with the drug trafficking organizations," Bersin said on CNN the day he was appointed.

The Issues

Throughout his career Bersin has been in the middle of controversy. He led the program that cracked down on illegal immigration on the San Diego border, and tackled the teachers' union in the San Diego public school system. "Alan Bersin loved to tackle the really thorny issues in education. He took them right on," said Katherine Nakamura, a San Diego school-board member who was aligned with Bersin. "He would wander out to the briar patch and tackle really tough issues, like academic achievement, like teacher training."

Immigration

Reno chose Bersin in part because of his record on immigration while in the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego, a city that is at the forefront of the debate over illegal immigration. Bersin preached dialogue with Mexico and humane treatment of immigrants while simultaneously cracking down on entering the country illegally. Talking about border security shortly before he was named Clinton border czar in 1995, Bersin said he wanted to focus on suspected smugglers of both drugs and people and was not interested in prosecuting "economic migrants." "I am still firm that I don't want to blur that distinction," Bersin said. "Constant repeat crossers can be presumed to be coyotes," or smugglers, he said.

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Bersin is often tied to the 1994 border policy called "Operation Gatekeeper," implemented under Clinton with Bersin as its head. The policy shifted the U.S. focus from the arresting of immigrants who actually crossed the border to an increased border presence designed to stop border crossing in the first place. When Bersin left the position in 1998, border arrests were on pace for an 18-year low of just more than 200,000. Operation Gatekeeper also increased the number of federal prosecutors handling illegal immigration and established "port courts," border courtrooms designed to allow for the quick trying of border cases.

But Latino groups complained that Operation Gatekeeper was immoral, saying the program monitored the border near San Diego but simply forced illegal immigrants to other, more dangerous areas. "It demonstrated you can control the border, but the bad news is you can't just do it 14 miles here or there," said Peter Nunez, the U.S. attorney in San Diego before Bersin and a professor at the University of San Diego. "It's a long border, 2,000 miles long."

Education

As the San Diego school superintendent, Bersin was successful in collecting support for a $1.5 billion bond initiative to improve deteriorating public schools. But the cornerstone of Bersin's tenure in San Diego was the "Blueprint for Student Success," which was credited with helping to raise test scores in the district but was criticized for denying students a comprehensive education.

Included in the Blueprint was full-day kindergarten at all schools, and a literacy program in elementary schools that mandated the first 90 minutes of every school day be focused on reading, a program that won him support in the Latino community. But critics said Bersin had turned elementary education into a combination of reading and math to raise test scores. "The Blueprint has taken what was once a well-rounded education and turned it into two subjects: three hours of reading and an hour-and-a-half of math," said Jeff Lee during his 2002 campaign for a seat on the San Diego school board.

Bersin also clashed with the teachers' union while in San Diego. His reforms were seen as heavy-handed and lacking input from teachers, many of whom Bersin required to be retrained. Some thought the reforms were particularly difficult to swallow coming from a public-education neophyte.

The Network

Bersin has always known some of the right people. He attended Harvard University at the same time as Vice President Al Gore, and met President Bill Clinton at Oxford University, where they were both Rhodes scholars. He then went to Yale Law School with Clinton and met Hillary Rodham Clinton. He played football at Harvard with movie actor and Gore roommate Tommy Lee Jones. His wife, Lisa Foster, is prominent in San Diego social and political circles.

Bersin knew Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano because they were both federal prosecutors in the Clinton administration along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Campaign Contributions

Bersin has given more than $50,000 to political campaigns since 1999, almost all of it to Democrats. He donated nearly $40,000 during the 2008 election cycle: the maximum possible to both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama; $28,500 to the DNC and less than $1,000 to the Democratic Party in Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Missouri, Indiana, Colorado and Wisconsin.

Additional Resources

Magee, Maureen, "Bersin's legacy a study in contradiction," San Diego Union-Tribune, May 1, 2005
Rotella, Sebastian, "Reno names prosecutor as 'Border czar,'" Los Angeles Times, Oct. 14, 1995
Dotinga, Randy, "A lightning rod takes on California schools," Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 2005
Perry, Tony, "'Border czar' is named San Diego schools chief," Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1998
Harman, Liz, "Profile: Alan Bersin - law office's success testifies to his abilities," San Diego Business Journal, Feb. 6, 1995
"Football foundation honors Bersin for superiority as scholar-athlete," Harvard Crimson, Nov. 29, 1967
Marosi, Richard and Meyer, Josh, "Border czar will try to repeat his success," Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2009
Gross, Gregory, "Reno designates successor to Bersin in 'border czar' post," Copley News Service, Sept. 17, 1998
Alvord, Valerie, "No change expected in border policy," San Diego Union-Tribune, March 10, 1998
"One-time prosecutor hailed as schools chief," Associated Press via the Boston Globe, Jan. 2, 1999
Simowitz, Lee H., "King will talk on war at '68 commencement," Harvard Crimson, March 28, 1968
Gao, Helen, "Nakamura is being tested in re-election bid," San Diego Union-Tribune, May 13, 2006
Magee, Maureen, "Four school board candidates focus on Bersin's 'Blueprint,'" San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 29, 2002
Caldwell, Alicia A. and Spagat, Elliot, "Ex-prosecutor picked for new US 'border czar,'" Associated Press, April 15, 2009
Ristine, Jeff and Hall, Matthew T., "Bersin to return for airport board post," San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 16, 2006
"Operation Gatekeeper: An investigation into allegations of fraud and misconduct," U.S. Department of Justice and the Office of the Inspector General, July 1998
Alvord, Valerie, "Visiting USD professor selected for U.S. attorney," San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 22, 1993
Sachs, Micah, "The hardest job in America?" San Diego Jewish Journal, September 2003
Milbourn, Todd, "Audit questions Bersin's spending," Sacramento Bee (California) April 1, 2006
Ellingwood, Ken, "'Border czar' ends a highly visible reign," Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1998
Magee, Maureen, "'Blueprint' gets high marks," San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 15, 2002
Magee, Maureen, "U.S. attorney will lead S.D. schools," Copley News Service, March 10, 1998
Transcript, "The new border czar's responsibilities, problems," CNN Newsroom, April 15, 2009
Alvord, Valerie, "Bersin has friends, and foes, in high places," San Diego Union-Tribune, March 9, 1998
Center for Responsive Politics
Huspek, Michael, "Producation of state, capital, and citizenry: The case of operation gatekeeper," Social Justice, Summer 2001