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James McCament

  • Adjunct Professor
  • JD, University of Notre Dame
  • BA, Mount Vernon Nazarene College

Professional Information

  • Area(s) of Expertise:
    • Homeland Security Law and Policy
    • International Law and Diplomacy
    • Legislative Affairs

Contact Information

Biographical Sketch

James McCament serves as the first Chief Digital Transformation Officer at the U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP). In this role, he ensures CBP’s secure facilitation of lawful trade and travel by reducing and simplifying procedures, harnessing innovative technologies, and streamlining operations to improve mission critical service delivery. His agency-wide efforts focus upon finding and removing obstacles of process to return time in the execution of CBP's vital national security mission.

From November 2024 through January 2025, Professor McCament led CBP’s 2025 Presidential Transition Team and previously served as CBP’s interim Chief Operating Officer from 2023–2024. In that role, he led the Offices of Enterprise Services and Operations Support and worked to equip CBP employees with the personnel, tools, and information needed to improve the agency’s collective ability to adapt and respond to an ever-changing threat landscape. As interim Chief Operating Officer, he oversaw the creation of the agency’s first published AI strategy.

Professor McCament has more than 25 years of federal government experience with the Departments of Treasury and Homeland Security, serving as a founding member of DHS Office of General Counsel, and subsequently as Science and Technology Advisor to Secretaries Ridge and Chertoff. He has held multiple senior level leadership roles across DHS, including as the first Deputy Under Secretary of DHS PLCY, as well as operational leadership roles at CBP and previously as U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services, where he served as Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer, demonstrating his proven abilities to rapidly identify, advance and implement critical innovative capabilities to strengthen our nation’s security services. For his transformative leadership. he was named the 2025 Service to the Citizen’s Government Executive of the Year.

Professor McCament received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School and his bachelor’s degree from Mount Vernon Nazarene College. He has served an adjunct professor since 2010.