"In 2014, the Australian government announced the integration of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service (ACBPS) and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) into a single government department, including the formation of the Australian Border Force (ABF). A year after the integration began, the DIBP leadership sought an independent analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of the integrated department. This analysis required the RAND Corporation to take a deeper and longer view of the two organisations as they existed, understand how the combined organisation has been able to incorporate into a single entity, and assess the degree to which the new organisation has been able to mitigate weaknesses and reinforce strengths. The integration of the DIBP reflects an important inflection point in the history of customs, immigration, and border-management activities within the government of Australia. The degree to which this reform achieves its goals largely rests on the ability of the leadership to keep up the momentum, bring the workforce along, and ensure that the necessary capacities that have been built are able to survive"--Back cover.