Homeland Security Project

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, one thing is already clear: most nations, including the United States, have struggled to effectively contain the spread of this deadly new virus. Countries have adopted a wide range of unilateral measures to counter the pandemic with highly varying degrees of success; some have nearly contained the virus and have reduced the mortality rate, while others have continued to experience mounting loss of life and severe economic damage. The reasons for these varied outcomes are complex and include factors that cannot be controlled by governments battling the pandemic (e.g. the size and heterogeneity of the country) but other factors are squarely within a government’s power to control.

One striking difference between several of the governments that have been most successful against COVID-19 and those that have not is the effective use of border screening to slow down and contain the spread of the virus. Countries that implemented border screening measures up front, including New Zealand and Japan, have seen dramatically lower COVID-19 death rates1 and less immediate damage to their economies. While life in these countries has resumed some semblance of normalcy eight months into the pandemic, the United States continues to face staggering human and economic costs, including an unemployment rate more than twice what it was before the pandemic, an ongoing recession, and, at the time of writing, 200,000 Americans who have lost their lives.

Although no nation has developed a truly comprehensive border strategy for countering a global pandemic, the results from countries that acted swiftly in this regard are promising, and what we know about the spread of COVID-19 supports the idea that early mitigation at the border is critical. As seen in New Zealand, border screening of all arrivals coupled with aggressive contact tracing can prove highly effective when implemented in the early stages of a pandemic, before large-scale community spread occurs, and the United States should be prepared to take similar steps.

Juliette Kayyem details why the end of summer is a bitter reminder: America's coronavirus ordeal won’t end when 2020 does.

Drawing on two decades of government efforts to “secure the homeland,” experts offer crucial strategic lessons and detailed recommendations for homeland security.

The Security and Global Health Project is proud to present a weekly web series with Security Mom Juliette Kayyem and Medicine Mom Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux. Each week our experts will answer your questions from quarantine and give you advice on staying sane and sanitary in a global crisis. We hope you'll join our Moms every Tuesday and if you have a question that you want answered tweet with #QuestionsFromQuarantine.

Federal agents confronting protesters in Portland offers a reminder of how much discretionary power every U.S. president exercises—and why voters should not give the job to someone whose instincts are fundamentally authoritarian.

In the modern history of the United States’ response to disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic stands out as uniquely deadly and widespread, posing an emergency simultaneously in all fifty states and killing Americans in each of them, while causing a tumultuous national economic downturn with job losses unseen since the Great Depression. To combat the virus, local, state and federal agencies launched a robust emergency response, unprecedented in its scale. Although unprecedented, these response efforts also revealed—indeed, magnified—many of the weaknesses and tensions extant within our emergency management regime.

This article identifies and analyzes several of those weaknesses and tensions. Overall, it concludes that while emergencies may be “locally executed, state managed, and federally supported,”1 the federal government must play a central and catalytic role in harmonizing national policy across the federalist system, and ensuring that states cooperate rather than compete with one another. The article proposes policy changes that would improve the United States’ approach to all threats and hazards while better integrating emergency management into the larger homeland security enterprise.

When a crisis occurs, be it a hurricane, forest fire, or a pandemic­, highly skilled disaster teams are on standby to assess situations, deploy resources, and coordinate amongst multiple organizations allowing the fastest possible recovery. Every crisis manager asks similar questions when confronted with a significant issue. Successful crisis managers utilize a similar thought process, one that can be replicated when dealing with any crisis. 

Juliette Kayyem points out that despite the good works of many elected officials, the heroic efforts of nurses and doctors, and months of dutiful hand-washing, social-distancing, and mask-wearing by millions of Americans, the United States is being judged by its sickest states and most reckless politicians. Becoming a global pariah isn't just embarrassing: It could also limit Americans' economic activity and freedom of movement in ways that citizens of the world's leading power are unaccustomed to seeing.

CNN security expert and Cambridge mother of three Juliette Kayyem has plenty to say about Donald Trump, Boston's recovery, and staying safe this summer.

We pledge to be allies in the work to heal the wounds of racism, injustice, and oppression. To implement positive and lasting progress we must come together and unite behind the ideals of this nation’s founding—that we are all created equal and deserve equal treatment under the law.