Dr. Luke Bellocchi, JD, LLM, MSSI, MBA
Associate Professor of Practice, Joint Advanced Warfighting School

Joint Forces Staff College, National Defense University 

Luke Bellocchi has served in senior and senior executive positions throughout his government career, mainly focusing on homeland security policy.  Prior to teaching at the Joint Forces Staff College, he served as the Immigration Detention Ombudsman at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  As required by statute, he reported directly to the Secretary after conducting investigations and serving as an independent and impartial resource for relevant stakeholders to resolve problems related to immigration detention.  Previously, he served at DHS as Assistant Commissioner, Customs & Border Protection (CBP), and as Deputy Ombudsman for Citizenship and Immigration Services.  He also had served as Strategic Advisor, Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Transportation.   

Earlier in his career, Mr. Bellocchi acted as Counsel on both House and Senate Committee staffs, including the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) and House Judiciary Committee.  His work included oversight investigations and hearings concerning counter-terrorism, detention issues, border security, comprehensive and merit-based immigration reform, human trafficking, watch-listing, fraud and corruption at immigration agencies, countering domestic terrorism, and implementing 9/11 Commission recommendations. Bellocchi has testified at a Senate hearing on homeland security policy.  

He started his full-time government career as an Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Department of State, handling consular, visa, and citizenship issues.  He was on long-term detail to the Operations Center (S/ES) to handle crisis management, including the evacuations of numerous U.S. embassies and consular posts (including NEOs and those related to the Kosovo campaign and the al Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies Nairobi and Dar es Salaam); he participated in SOCEX training and evacuation training at posts abroad.  He served in temporary positions at U.S. Consulate General, Toronto, and U.S. Embassy, Gaborone, and has lived long-term in numerous OCONUS locales, including India, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Botswana, Hawaii, and Vietnam.     

Mr. Bellocchi earned degrees from the University of Virginia (MBA), Georgetown Law School (LLM), National Intelligence University (Joint Military Intelligence College) (MSSI), State University of New York (JD), and the University of Rochester (BA).  He won the UR Ascher Award for best senior seminar thesis in political science (game theory) and has numerous publications concerning international relations.  He is a member of the Bar in Maryland, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.   

Selected Publications:  

• Red Teaming: A Tool to Conduct Risk Assessment, Develop Critical Thinking, and Challenge SOF Strategic Planning Assumptions, Joint Special Operations University Press, (Feb 2025) 

• The Art of Campaigning: Joint Planners Working at the Intersections of Everything, Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ), (co-authored) (Jan 2025). 

• Understanding the Department of Homeland Security: Immigration & Border Security, Phalanx (Summer 2024).

• The Strategic Importance of Taiwan to the US and its Alles (Part I and II), Parameters, US Army War College (2023), https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/11/ and https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss3/11/.   

• U.S. One China Policy: A Primer for PME Faculty, Campaigning, Joint Forces Staff College (2022), https://jfsc.ndu.edu/Media/Campaigning-Journals/Academic-Journals-View/Article/3026633/the-us-one-china-policy-a-primer-for-professional-military-education-faculty/.   

• Book Review: On Operations, by Brett Friedman, Campaigning, Joint Forces Staff College (2021), https://jfsc.ndu.edu/Media/Campaigning-Journals/Academic-Journals-View/Article/3014976/book-review-on-operations-operational-art-and-military-disciplines-by-brett-fri/.   

• Testimony, Is USCIS Prepared for DAPA, before the U.S. Senate, Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, Hearing: “Deferred Action on Immigration,” (2015).   

• A Ticking Time Bomb, Counterterrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government’s Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack (U.S. Senate, HSGAC report, contributor) (2011), https://www.hsdl.org/c/view?docid=10965.   

• Making America Safer, Congress’s Vigilance in the Five Years Since 9/11, Senate Republican Policy Committee (2006).  Cited by various news sources.   

• Cyber-spying in the Information Age and the Case for a New International Legal Concept in E-Property Law, Intelink (SIPR), http://www.cospo.sgov/osis/osis.gov/theses.html (2003).  

• Assessing the Effectiveness of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, International Journal for Intelligence & Counterintelligence, Fall 2001, vol. 14, no. 3.   

• The Effects & Trends in Executive Policy and Court of International Trade Decisions Concerning Antidumping and the Non-market Economy of the People’s Republic of China, New York International Law Review (1996).   

• Acknowledgment, War & Reason, Prof. Bueno de Mesquita (Stanford Univ.) (1992) 

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