Plenary Session: Border Security and CBP's Competing Missions

Tina Mendelson is a Principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP with experience advising government and public sector clients on strategy and complex transformations in nearly 30 countries. She is currently leading teams in support of homeland security clients, focusing on border security, trade and travel, and immigration. Tina engages leaders at the highest level of government to solve wicked problems, transform programs, and launch strategic initiatives, often in close partnership with industry, academia, and non-profits. In addition to homeland security, she has been serving government clients with missions across numerous sectors, including health care, transportation and logistics, defense, financial, agriculture, manufacturing and IT. This range of experiences shaped Tina’s ability to flip orthodoxies and partner with government executives during their transformation journey. In her prior role as the firm’s Strategy practice leader for the Deloitte’s Government and Public Services practice, Tina has focused on digital transformation and harnessing the power of data and AI capabilities, and partnership with C-suite and mission clients to reimagine business models. At HSEF 2023, Tina` is representing the Deloitte’s Future of Travel portfolio and looking forward to the conversation.

‍Diane J. Sabatino is the Acting Executive Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Field Operations (OFO), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). As the senior official for OFO, Mrs. Sabatino leads more than 31,000 employees and oversees an annual operating budget of $6.5 billion. In a typical year, Mrs. Sabatino oversees the facilitation of legitimate travel for more than 410 million travelers in the air, land, and maritime environments. In the cargo environment, she oversees the review of more than 29 million cargo containers to identify high-risk shipments, including processing more than 5.2 million containers.

Mrs. Sabatino most recently served as the Deputy Executive Assistant Commissioner (DEAC) of OFO. Among her notable achievements as DEAC includes her role in leading CBP’s National Incident Command for Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a historic success for CBP. As part of OAW, CBP upheld the United States’ safety and security while providing humanitarian relief for more than 84,000 people fleeing Afghanistan. She has also led development of the OFO strategy, incorporating field priorities and realigning key OFO processes to meet Agency mission goals.

Mrs. Sabatino previously served as the Director, Field Operations (DFO) for the Miami and Tampa Field Office, one of CBP’s largest and most complex operations. As the DFO, she oversaw all inspectional operations throughout the State of Florida, encompassing 19 airports and 12 seaports, including the top 3 cruise ship ports in the world. She also served as the Lead Field Coordinator for Incident Response, charged with managing the response to multiple hurricanes for all CBP resources compromising FEMA Region IV.

From September 2011 to August 2015, Mrs. Sabatino served as the Port Director for the Port of Miami, managing complex operations for maritime cargo and the largest cruise passenger port in the country. Prior to her appointment as the Port Director, Mrs. Sabatino served as the Assistant Port Director, Passenger Operations, at Miami International Airport where she was responsible for the oversight of all international passenger inspections and enforcement activities.

A native of New Jersey, Mrs. Sabatino graduated from Fordham University, New York City with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and a minor in Philosophy. Mrs. Sabatino is also a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Senior Executives in National and International Security Program and the Department of Homeland Security, Partnership for Public Service Fellows Program. She began her Federal Law Enforcement career in 1998 as an Immigration Inspector at John F. Kennedy International Airport.  

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Recognized worldwide as a security executive, Mr. Fleming has over 20 years of senior management and leadership experience in government, private industry and the non-profit sector. Mr. Fleming served the Transportation Security Administration as the Chief Operating Officer (COO), responsible for strategic planning, implementation, and oversight of all facets of the operation for an agency that employed 52,000 staff with an operational budget of 5.7 Billion dollars. After his tenure at TSA, Mr. Fleming joined the leading large-scale event security company and helped pioneer this service in the events industry. During his time there, Mr. Fleming recognized the need for a private company to assist governments and private industry to operate and maintain detection technologies; as a result of this he founded and developed S2 Global Inc., and a new inspection model. S2 Global became a service-based company focused on the operations, maintenance, and training for the use of detection technology for homeland security purposes. Now, Mr. Fleming serves as President of S2 Global and is responsible for leading the company’s efforts to provide turnkey screening solutions for airports, seaports, border crossings, events, and critical infrastructure for governments and private industry worldwide.

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Kevin has spent decades managing multi-thousand, cross-functional teams for U.S national security agencies around the world. Most recently he served as Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) where he managed over 240,000 employees and components of multiple security agencies including the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Coast Guard, and more. His past experiences include implementine innovations to the U.S. international arrival and departure process, which saved the government and travel industry millions of dollars. Kevin's received numerous awards for his service and leadership including a Presidential Rank Award-the nation's highest civil service award, and the Service to America Medal. Call to Service Award.

Reporter covering the Department of Homeland Security

Education: University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, MJ, 2006; University of California at Santa Cruz, BA, 2000

Nick Miroff covers immigration enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security on the National desk. He was a Washington Post correspondent in Latin America from 2010 to 2017, based in Havana and Mexico City. Miroff has been a staff writer since 2006. He has a master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and he studied Spanish and Latin American literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Honors and Awards: Maria Moors Cabot Prize, 2017; Overseas Press Club award, 2015; Overseas Press Club citation, 2012; Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award, 2008

Languages spoken in addition to English: Spanish

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