Todd Bensman is Senior Adviser/White House Administration assigned to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement where he serves the Office of the Border Czar and other leadership as needed. He began this role on June 2, 2025. Previously, Bensman served as the Texas-based Senior National Security Fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington, D.C. policy institute for which he traveled extensively abroad and produced field research-based reports, reporting-based editorials for a dozen publications, and testified before Congress as an expert witness on terrorism, counterterrorism, illegal immigration and land border security. Bensman built his brand as a recognized expert on the nexus between immigration and national security by traveling often to report from both sides of the U.S. Southwest Border, and widely throughout Mexico, Central America, South America, and Europe. (See: Frontline Field Reports from the Greatest Mass Migration Crisis in U.S. History). The former journalist of 23 years and two-time National Press Club award winner (foreign and diplomatic correspondence) has worked in 40 countries.
Bensman authored the investigative book OVERRUN, How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History (Posthill Press/Bombardier Books, February 2023) and also America’s Covert Border War: The Untold Story of the Nation’s Battle to Prevent Jihadist Infiltration (Posthill Press/Bombardier Books, February 2021).
His work in recent years can also be found in reportorial columns and editorials about homeland security and terrorism subjects for The New York Post, The Daily Mail Online, The American Mind, Homeland Security Today, Townhall, The Federalist, The Daily Wire, The National Interest, and other publications. He has taught terrorism, intelligence analysis, and journalism as a university adjunct lecturer.
For nearly a decade prior to joining CIS in August 2018, Bensman led counterterrorism intelligence for the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division and its multi-agency fusion center. (See details below). Before his homeland security service, Bensman worked as a reporter for more than two decades, as a foreign war correspondent and later covering domestic national security after 9/11 as an investigative staff writer for major newspapers, at home and also abroad. (See details below)/
Bensman at a White House event for political appointees in June 2025
Contact Todd at news@toddbensman.com and sign up for his newsletter to receive alerts when new columns and reports publish.
Intelligence Career
In 2009, Bensman left journalism to join the Texas Department of Public Safety as a senior counterterrorism programs specialist, analyst, and manager of an analytical unit. He designed and directed collection operations that fed the Intelligence Community, prompted or advanced FBI counterterrorism investigations, and produced confidential human sources. And he oversaw intelligence support for Texas capitol complex security in Austin.
Until departing in 2018 after nine years, he routinely briefed DPS leadership, elected leaders and members of Congress about domestic and international threats.
Holding a DHS security clearance, Bensman worked frequently with Texas-based FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces, ICE and its Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Border Patrol Intelligence, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, the National Targeting Center, DHS Intelligence & Analysis Division, the National Counterterrorism Center, Department of Defense intelligence groups, and intelligence community agencies.
Journalism Career
Prior to his government service, Bensman worked for 23 years as a reporter, on staff for The Dallas Morning News, CBS, and Hearst Newspapers and as a foreign correspondent in more than 40 countries.
After 9/11, he began to specialize in national security and served on investigative teams, authoring long-form stories with emphases on homeland security, counterterrorism, the southern U.S. border, and Mexico’s drug wars. His reporting on migration from Islamic countries and cross-border gun smuggling to cartels earned two National Press Club awards (2008 and 2009), an Inter-American Press Association award, and two Texas Institute of Letters awards. His reporting on corruption also earned reporting plaudits after spurring numerous federal investigations, indictments and convictions.
During the early 1990s, he reported on the Gulf War, to include scud missile attacks and refugees, from Israel, Egypt and Jordan. He went on to cover Eastern Europe from Prague, to include armed conflict in Moldova, and a year covering warfare in Bosnia, where he provided frequent dispatches from the siege of Sarajevo at the height of hostilities.
Bensman on the Israel-Jordanian border during Gulf War 1, January 1991
Education
M.A. in Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security (2015, Outstanding Thesis designee).
M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism (2009).
BS in journalism (with honors) from Northern Arizona University, School of Journalism and Communication Arts (1987).
In 2017, Bensman completed a 350-hour State of Texas Command College leadership program sponsored by the Texas Department of Public Safety.