Introduction
Homeland security has been one of the primary focuses of the United States since the attacks on September 11th, 2001. Since this attack, the way that the federal government has evolved to keep citizen’s safe with the nation’s borders. However, there has also been an upturn in the amount of private companies that have made it their business to produce products and services designed to aid in the fight against terrorism. These products and services are sometimes used by the federal government and require a partnership between the two organizations. Cooperation by the public and private sector is essential for the continued protection of the country. One document that discusses how the private sector aids in the protection of the
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One way that the private sector has been able to assist in deterring illegal immigration is by not hiring workers who are in the United States illegally (Department of Homeland Security, 2014, p 7). This is subtle technique that would, over time, discourage those who do not have proper documentation to be in the United States and in theory should cause a decline in people attempting to gain access to the country illegally. Another important piece of technology that is being used to help enforcing immigration laws is the biometric systems. Biometric systems are used to collect fingerprints, eye scans, and facial images that are stored in an extremely large database that can be used by many different governmental agencies (Kephart, 2013). These systems also help federal agencies administer immigrations laws by detecting legal foreign nationals who have overstayed or violated the agreement of their terms of admission (Kephart, 2013). According to the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Coast Guard has begun using a mobile biometric system that is used to identify past criminal activity, immigration violations, as well as people on the terrorist watch lists (Department of Homeland Security, 2015). This private sector system is becoming more and more popular all over the world as the database grows