How DHS Is Replacing Paper at the Border and Improving Coordination
Department of Homeland Security
The TMF’s $50 million investment enabled the Department of Homeland Security to replace manual, paper-based border processing with an integrated digital platform that connects multiple agencies and keeps coordination moving when it matters most.
Background
Every day, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and officers at the Southwest Border process thousands of cases involving individuals who need to be quickly identified, documented, and routed to the correct processing pathways. For years, that work relied heavily on paper. The teams responsible for protection, family reunification, and border management had no shared way to access information, passing physical documents back and forth to share information they all needed at once.
Challenge
Before this investment, critical information lived in separate systems that could not share data with each other, and staff had to move it manually from system to system, creating multiple chances for error and consuming hours that could be spent on enforcement operations. During periods of high activity at the border, that limitation had the potential for serious consequences. For cases involving unaccompanied children or family reunification, where speed and accuracy are critical, the risks of incomplete or delayed information were even greater.
Solution
The TMF invested $50 million in DHS’s Southwest Border Technology Integration Program to replace slow, manual processes with systems that share information automatically across multiple agencies.
Impact
Coordination between agencies that once took days now takes hours. Through January 2025, those savings totaled 62,500 officer workdays from mobile intake and 278 years in processing time between Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The shift to digital records built on those results. More than 5,000 digital immigration files are now created every month, with each one saving $25 in shipping costs and up to 30 minutes of staff time. Since this digital modernization effort began, 44% of all immigration files from both agencies were created electronically, with fewer errors in the records that inform critical decisions. DHS is continuing to build on this foundation, expanding digital filing, connecting additional agency systems, and keeping agents and officers trained as the technology grows.
Role of TMF
TMF funding, in addition to appropriated funds, enabled DHS to move faster on this work than it could have through standard budget processes. Border operations depend on real-time coordination across agencies that each control their own budgets, making it difficult to fund solutions that span multiple agencies through any single funding source. The TMF provided flexible funding the project needed to span multiple agencies, along with the oversight that kept the work on track, making a transformation of this scale possible at the border.