Today the Department of Homeland Security announced three initiatives designed to “reorganize and better mobilize” the Department and strengthen the nation’s defenses. In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, Secretary Tom Ridge detailed plans to add additional federal air marshals, consolidate three separate border inspection functions into one system, and implement a secure communications line linking first-responders and security officials around the nation.

Under the first initiative, Ridge said the Department plans to add 5,000 armed federal law enforcement agents to the skies in order to significantly increase air security. The DHS will also transfer the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) and Explosives Unit from the Transportation Security Administration to USICE, in order to increase coordination and information sharing between federal air marshals and ICE officers.

The second plan, “One Face at the Border,” unifies the inspection process by “cross-training CBP inspectors” to perform three different inspection functions – combining the functions of an Immigration inspector, a Customs inspector and an Agriculture inspector. Ridge said the Department hopes to speed up the inspections so that travelers can be processed rapidly and potential risks can be identified and addressed simultaneously. Travelers will now meet a single primary inspection officer who will refer those whose “information, demeanor or actions raise questions” to secondary inspections officers for additional questioning.

According to the DHS news release, the secondary inspection will be operated by units of trained Counter-Terrorism Response inspectors designated to conduct follow-up examinations of “questionable passengers” who could have possible ties to terrorism. The CTR inspectors will be responsible for coordinating with the Passenger Analysis Unit and National Targeting Center to ensure that the referred travelers are researched thoroughly, conduct interviews, and detain travelers found to be in violation of the law.

Ridge also introduced the “Strategic Communications Resources (SECURE) Initiative,” designed to provide secure telephone and videoconference equipment to all 50 state Emergency Operations Centers, state governors and local Homeland Security officials around the nation.

Lastly, Ridge said he would be sending a plan to Congress that would centralize emergency preparedness grant programs currently scattered throughout the federal government, putting all of the government’s major terrorism preparedness grants in one location so that state and local governments will have a single access point to obtain critical grant funding.