CGA Team
Monte Hawkins,
Senior Advisor
Monte Hawkins served in a diverse set of federal leadership roles across the homeland and national security disciplines for over two decades. Most recently, Hawkins was a senior executive at U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), serving as Senior Advisor for National Security in the Office of the Commissioner. Prior to that, he was the founder and first Director of CBP’s National Vetting Center (NVC).
Before joining CBP in 2018, Hawkins was an intelligence officer with the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), managing policy issues and operational programs for over a decade related to terrorist use of the internet, foreign terrorist fighters, terrorist watchlisting, and classified screening and vetting. During his time at NCTC and CBP, Hawkins successfully completed three assignments for the National Security Council at the White House across the Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. During his most recent assignment from 2023-2025, Hawkins served as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Transborder Security Directorate, where he managed White House policy development on maritime security, aviation security, visa security, screening/watchlisting, and regional migration.
During his career, Hawkins also served in positions at the DHS Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans, CIA’s Counterterrorism Mission Center, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, and the U.S. Secret Service, where his federal career began in 2001.
Hawkins is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University, where he teaches a graduate-level Homeland Security course. He earned his B.A. in Sociology from the University of Tulsa and his M.A. in Criminology/Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland, College Park.