Homeland Security
Better Management Practices Could Enhance DHS's Ability to Allocate Investigative Resources Gao ID: GAO-06-462T March 28, 2006Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) mission is to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States and reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism while ensuring its mandated customs, immigration, and federal protective enforcement functions are not diminished. The ICE Office of Investigations (OI) supports that mission by investigating customs and immigration violations. This testimony addresses the following key questions that were answered in GAO-06-48SU, a restricted report issued with the same title: (1) What structure and activities has OI adopted to address its mission? (2) In fiscal year 2004 and the first half of fiscal year 2005, how did OI use its investigative resources to achieve its goals? (3) How does OI ensure that its resource use contributes to its ability to prevent the exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and immigration systems?
OI's organizational structure and investigative activities reflect those of its legacy agencies--the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service--and include activities to prevent terrorism. OI retained responsibility for enforcing customs and immigration laws, and its field structure was created by relying on the strategic priorities of its legacy agencies to determine the composition and locations of field offices. Senior OI officials said that OI seeks to accomplish its homeland security mission by focusing on cases that seem to have a connection to national security. Data from ICE's case management system indicate that its investigative activities generally relate to legacy missions, with about half of OI resources during fiscal year 2004 and the first half of 2005 used for cases related to drugs, financial crimes, and general alien investigations--investigations unlikely to contain a nexus to national security. Overall, between 10 and 15 percent of investigative resources were used for investigations considered to have a link to national security. OI's current method of tracking these cases captures data about the cases where a nexus to national security is assumed due to the nature of the violation, primarily investigations of munitions control, illegal exports, visa violations, and terrorism. Additionally, the equivalent of about 400 of its 5,600 special agents worked full time to identify incarcerated aliens who were eligible for removal from the United States, a function that does not require the skills and training of criminal investigators. ICE plans to free investigators for more appropriate duties by shifting these functions to other ICE units and to study whether other functions could be shifted to employees in a noninvestigatory job series. To make resource use decisions in pursuit of OI's goal to prevent the exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and immigration systems, OI primarily relies on the judgment of staff in its major field offices, in addition to national programs developed in headquarters that are implemented in multiple field offices. Although GAO found no evidence that OI has failed to investigate any national security-related lead that came to its attention, applying a risk management approach to determine what types of customs and immigration violations represent the greatest risks for exploitation by terrorists and other criminals could provide OI with greater assurance that it is focusing on preventing violations with the greatest potential for harm, while striking a balance among its various objectives. OI has taken some initial steps to introduce principles of risk management into its operations, but has not conducted a comprehensive risk assessment of the customs and immigration systems to determine the greatest risks for exploitation, nor has OI analyzed all relevant data to inform the evaluation of alternatives and allow risk-based resource allocation decisions. OI also lacks outcome-based performance goals that relate to its objective of preventing the exploitation of these systemic vulnerabilities. Finally, OI does not have sufficient systems to help ensure ongoing monitoring and communication of vulnerabilities discovered during its investigations.
GAO-06-462T, Homeland Security: Better Management Practices Could Enhance DHS's Ability to Allocate Investigative Resources
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Testimony before the Chairman, Subcommittee on National Security,
Emerging Threats, and International Relations, Committee on Government
Reform, House of Representatives:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
For Release on Delivery Expected at 2:00 p.m. EST:
Tuesday, March 28, 2006:
Homeland Security:
Better Management Practices Could Enhance DHS's Ability to Allocate
Investigative Resources:
Statement of Richard Stana, Director:
Homeland Security and Justice:
GAO-06-462T:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-06-462T, testimony before the Chairman, Subcommittee
on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives:
Why GAO Did This Study:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement‘s (ICE) mission is to prevent
terrorist attacks within the United States and reduce the vulnerability
of the United States to terrorism while ensuring its mandated customs,
immigration, and federal protective enforcement functions are not
diminished. The ICE Office of Investigations (OI) supports that mission
by investigating customs and immigration violations. This testimony
addresses the following key questions that were answered in GAO-06-
48SU, a restricted report issued with the same title: (1) What
structure and activities has OI adopted to address its mission? (2) In
fiscal year 2004 and the first half of fiscal year 2005, how did OI use
its investigative resources to achieve its goals? (3) How does OI
ensure that its resource use contributes to its ability to prevent the
exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and immigration
systems?
What GAO Found:
OI‘s organizational structure and investigative activities reflect
those of its legacy agencies”the U.S. Customs Service and the
Immigration and Naturalization Service”and include activities to
prevent terrorism. OI retained responsibility for enforcing customs and
immigration laws, and its field structure was created by relying on the
strategic priorities of its legacy agencies to determine the
composition and locations of field offices. Senior OI officials said
that OI seeks to accomplish its homeland security mission by focusing
on cases that seem to have a connection to national security.
Data from ICE‘s case management system indicate that its investigative
activities generally relate to legacy missions, with about half of OI
resources during fiscal year 2004 and the first half of 2005 used for
cases related to drugs, financial crimes, and general alien
investigations”investigations unlikely to contain a nexus to national
security. Overall, between 10 and 15 percent of investigative resources
were used for investigations considered to have a link to national
security. OI‘s current method of tracking these cases captures data
about the cases where a nexus to national security is assumed due to
the nature of the violation, primarily investigations of munitions
control, illegal exports, visa violations, and terrorism. Additionally,
the equivalent of about 400 of its 5,600 special agents worked full
time to identify incarcerated aliens who were eligible for removal from
the United States, a function that does not require the skills and
training of criminal investigators. ICE plans to free investigators for
more appropriate duties by shifting these functions to other ICE units
and to study whether other functions could be shifted to employees in a
noninvestigatory job series.
To make resource use decisions in pursuit of OI‘s goal to prevent the
exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and immigration
systems, OI primarily relies on the judgment of staff in its major
field offices, in addition to national programs developed in
headquarters that are implemented in multiple field offices. Although
GAO found no evidence that OI has failed to investigate any national
security-related lead that came to its attention, applying a risk
management approach to determine what types of customs and immigration
violations represent the greatest risks for exploitation by terrorists
and other criminals could provide OI with greater assurance that it is
focusing on preventing violations with the greatest potential for harm,
while striking a balance among its various objectives. OI has taken
some initial steps to introduce principles of risk management into its
operations, but has not conducted a comprehensive risk assessment of
the customs and immigration systems to determine the greatest risks for
exploitation, nor has OI analyzed all relevant data to inform the
evaluation of alternatives and allow risk-based resource allocation
decisions. OI also lacks outcome-based performance goals that relate to
its objective of preventing the exploitation of these systemic
vulnerabilities. Finally, OI does not have sufficient systems to help
ensure ongoing monitoring and communication of vulnerabilities
discovered during its investigations.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommended that Homeland Security implement management practices
to support resource allocation decisions, including a risk assessment,
revised performance measures, and monitoring and communication systems
to provide meaningful data about resource use.
The Department of Homeland Security concurred with GAO‘s
recommendations.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-462T.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Richard Stana at (202)
512-8816 or stanar@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to be here today to share our views on the progress the
Department of Homeland Security's (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) Office of Investigations (OI) has made in pursuing
its homeland security mission. OI was formed in March 2003, mainly from
legacy INS and Customs investigative components. OI is responsible for
conducting investigations covering a broad array of national security,
financial, and smuggling violations, including illegal arms exports,
financial crimes, trade violations, human trafficking, narcotics
smuggling, child pornography/exploitation, and immigration fraud. OI is
also responsible for conducting investigations aimed at protecting
critical infrastructure industries. This testimony is an unrestricted
version of our recent Law Enforcement Sensitive report we did for this
subcommittee entitled HOMELAND SECURITY: Better Management Practices
Could Enhance DHS's Ability to Allocate Investigative
Resources.[Footnote 1] In my testimony today, I will discuss the
following topics:
* What structure and activities has OI adopted to address its mission?
* How did OI use its investigative resources in fiscal year 2004 and
the first half of fiscal year 2005?
* How does OI ensure that its resource use contributes to its ability
to prevent the exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and
immigration systems?
To identify OI's structure and the activities it uses to address its
mission we met with OI officials and reviewed documents used to support
organizational decisions. To determine how OI used its investigative
resources to address its goals, we analyzed case management data that
showed the types of investigations performed nationally between October
2003 and March 2005--the most recent period for which comparable data
were available. In addition, we interviewed the management staff of OI
and the special agents-in-charge (SAC) at 7 of the 26 ICE OI field
offices to learn how they set investigative priorities and allocate
human resources to investigations. We selected the special agent-in-
charge offices based on their size (the number of agents) and location,
seeking to include a variety of offices representing differing
investigative focuses. Because our sample was a nonprobability sample,
the opinions of these special agents-in-charge cannot be projected
beyond those interviewed.[Footnote 2] We also collected and analyzed
data specific to the 7 offices we visited. We assessed the reliability
of the investigative resource data--the hours spent on different types
of investigations--by reviewing the internal controls of the case
management system and through interviews with knowledgeable OI staff
about these controls and the quality assurance procedures in place to
ensure data reliability. We determined the investigative resource data
were sufficiently reliable for our purposes. We determined how OI
ensures that its resource use contributes to its ability to prevent the
exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and immigration
systems using information collected during interviews with OI
officials, including the special-agents-in-charge and by examining
documents used to support organizational decisions. We evaluated OI's
current approach to resource allocation decision making by comparing
this information with the standards for internal control in the federal
government and to the risk management approach that we have advocated
in our prior work.[Footnote 3]
Summary:
OI's organizational structure and investigative activities reflect
those of its legacy agencies--the U.S. Customs Service and the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. OI retained responsibility for
enforcing customs and immigration laws and its field structure was
created by relying on the strategic priorities of its legacy agencies-
-for example, proximity to high-volume smuggling corridors, to state
and federal prisons, and significant money laundering infrastructure--
to determine the composition and locations of field offices. Senior OI
officials told us that rather than concentrating on any particular
category of investigation, OI seeks to accomplish its homeland security
mission by focusing on cases that seem to have a connection to national
security. This would include placing a priority on activities to
prevent terrorism.
Data from ICE's case management system indicate between 10 and 15
percent of investigative resources were used for investigations
considered by ICE to have a link to national security. These
investigations are primarily related to munitions control, illegal
exports, compliance enforcement of visa violations, and terrorism. Most
of OI's investigative activities generally relate to legacy missions,
with roughly half of OI resources during fiscal year 2004 and the first
half of 2005 used for cases related to drugs, financial crimes, and
general alien investigations. Most of these investigations did not
contain a nexus to national security. Moreover, with regard to the
resources used for general alien investigations, the equivalent of
about 400 of OI's 5,600 special agents were working full time to
identify incarcerated aliens who were eligible for removal from the
United States, an ICE responsibility. This activity does not require
the skills and training of criminal investigators. ICE plans to free
investigators for more appropriate duties by shifting these functions
to other ICE units, and to submit a plan for the expanded use of a
noninvestigatory job series for civil and administrative violations.
OI tries to ensure that its resources contribute to the prevention of
exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and immigration
systems by making most investigative resource use decisions in OI's
major field offices, based on the judgment of the agents in charge,
with priority on investigating national security-related cases that
arise. Divisions and units within OI headquarters also develop and
manage special programs that are implemented in multiple field offices.
For example, Project Shield America is a National Security Division
program where OI conducts outreach to private sector companies to
prevent the illegal export of sensitive U.S. munitions and strategic
technology. The Cornerstone program in the Financial and Trade Division
is a similar outreach program to the financial industry. Operation
Community Shield is a national law enforcement initiative that is
designed to bring all of ICE's immigration and customs-related law
enforcement powers to bear in the fight against violent street gangs.
Although we found no evidence that OI has failed to investigate any
national security-related lead that came to its attention, applying a
risk management approach to determine what types of customs and
immigration violations represent the greatest risks for exploitation by
terrorists and other criminals could provide OI with greater assurance
that it is focusing on preventing violations with the greatest
potential for harm, while striking a balance among its various
objectives. OI has taken some initial steps to introduce principles of
risk management into its operations, but has not conducted a
comprehensive risk assessment of the customs and immigration systems to
determine the greatest risks for exploitation, nor analyzed all
relevant data to inform the evaluation of alternatives and allow OI to
make risk-based resource allocation decisions. OI also lacks outcome-
based performance goals that relate to its objective of preventing the
exploitation of these systemic vulnerabilities. Finally, OI does not
have sufficient systems to help ensure ongoing monitoring and
communication of vulnerabilities discovered during its investigations.
We made recommendations to address these deficiencies.
Background:
ICE is the largest investigative arm of DHS. ICE is composed of four
offices: (1) Investigations, (2) Intelligence, (3) Detention and
Removal Operations (DRO), and (4) the Federal Protective Service. As of
September 2005, OI had more than 5,600 special agents; about 94 percent
of these are assigned to 26 major field offices, headed by Special
Agents-in-Charge (SAC), and OI's foreign attaché offices. These offices
and their subordinate units were created using the immigration and
customs staff and locations in existence at the time ICE was formed.
At headquarters ICE, OI is divided into five divisions as shown in
figure 1. Three of the five divisions--National Security, Finance and
Trade, and Smuggling and Public Safety--were created to incorporate the
core missions and functions of legacy immigration and customs
investigations. These divisions and the units within them are to
provide a functional line of communication from the Director of OI to
the groups in the SAC offices that conduct investigations. Divisions
and units within OI headquarters also develop and manage special
programs that are implemented in multiple field offices. For example,
Project Shield America is a National Security Division program where OI
conducts outreach to private sector companies to prevent the illegal
export of sensitive U.S. munitions and strategic technology. The
Cornerstone program in the Financial and Trade Division is a similar
outreach program to the financial industry. Operation Community Shield
is a national law enforcement initiative that is designed to bring all
of ICE's immigration and customs-related law enforcement powers to bear
in the fight against violent street gangs.
The Investigative Services Division provides direct forensic,
undercover, and other operational support to OI investigations carried
out by the three core divisions, and the Mission Support Division
provides policy guidance and services to facilitate executive
oversight.
Figure 1: ICE Office of Investigations Organizational Structure:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Carryover Organizational Structure and Investigative Activities from
Legacy Agencies Affect OI's Investigative Focus:
The headquarters and field organizational structures adopted by OI
reflect the legacy functions of the customs and immigration services--
e.g. drug investigations, human smuggling, and commercial fraud--and
include activities to prevent terrorism within this structure. In April
2005, ICE completed an interim strategic plan that established as its
mission to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States and
reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism while
ensuring all of its mandated trade, immigration, and federal protective
functions are not diminished. According to ICE officials, the national
security objectives are not accomplished through any particular type or
category of investigation. Instead, these objectives are addressed by
examining investigations on a case-by-case basis and determining the
relationship of any single case to national security. For example,
although OI has the authority to investigate any employer that might
have violated laws that regulate alien employment eligibility, OI
instructs investigators to focus on employers at critical
infrastructure sites.
When ICE was created, it retained responsibility for enforcing the
customs and immigration laws that were the purview of its legacy
agencies. These include criminal statutes addressing the illegal import
and export of drugs, weapons, child pornography, stolen antiquities,
and other contraband, as well as alien smuggling, human trafficking,
and the international laundering and smuggling of criminal proceeds. OI
also is responsible for legacy customs enforcement of certain
intellectual property and trade-related commercial fraud statutes and
legacy immigration enforcement of laws prohibiting document fraud,
benefit fraud, illegal entry into the United States or violations of
the terms and conditions of entry, and employment without
authorization.[Footnote 4] OI's field structure was created by merging
the existing Customs and INS field offices located primarily in cities
near major ports of entry. In addition, ICE relied on the strategic
priorities of the legacy agencies to determine the composition and
locations of SAC offices--for example, high-volume smuggling corridors,
proximity to state and federal prisons, and significant money
laundering infrastructure.
There are some long-standing functions of the legacy agencies that OI
continues to perform, which also drive some of the types of
investigative activities that are conducted. For example, OI has
continued the legacy Customs practice of responding to violations
concerning seized drugs or merchandise or detained persons uncovered at
ports of entry by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspectors. U.S.
Customs had historically been involved with helping to implement the
President's National Drug Control Strategy. Consistent with this
involvement, DHS now receives funding specifically to support
activities related to the strategy. A senior OI official said OI will
continue to be responsible for performing a significant level of drug
investigations because there simply is no other agency available to
conduct the large number of border-related drug investigations U.S.
Customs has historically performed and that are now carried out by OI.
Another carryover function that OI now performs is the legacy INS
practice of identifying aliens incarcerated in prisons and jails that
are eligible for removal from the United States.
OI Investigative Resources Were Used for Investigations Related to Its
Legacy Missions, but Most Were Not Considered to Have a National
Security Nexus:
Between 10 and 15 percent of investigative hours were classified by OI
as having a direct nexus to national security. Although there is no
firm standard for how OI should distribute its investigative resources,
ICE's interim strategic goals and objectives place a strong emphasis on
national security-related activities. According to OI, the majority of
the national security-related investigative hours were charged in a few
case categories related to munitions control, illegal exports,
compliance enforcement of visa violations, and terrorism. Most of the
investigative hours within those case types that consumed roughly half
of OI resources--drugs, financial, and general alien--were rarely
classified as having a direct nexus to national security.[Footnote 5]
In its fiscal year 2007 budget justification, DHS requested funds to
increase the level of resources dedicated to visa compliance
enforcement by more than 40 percent through the addition of over 50
special agent and support staff dedicated to these types of
investigations.
Roughly half of OI investigative resources during fiscal year 2004 and
the first half of fiscal year 2005 were used for cases related to
drugs, financial crimes, and general alien violations. The resource use
in the other case categories pertains to investigations of a variety of
customs and immigration violations including commercial fraud, general
smuggling, human smuggling and trafficking, identity fraud, document
fraud, and worksite enforcement. None of the investigative categories
that apply to these violations individually accounted for more than 8
percent of investigative resource use during the period under study. In
most instances these other case categories accounted for 5 percent or
less of resource use.
Moreover, with regard to general alien investigations, the equivalent
of about 400 OI investigators performed, as a central part of their
daily duties, functions that are noninvestigative in nature (i.e., not
consistent with the position description of a criminal investigator as
defined by the Office of Personnel Management.) According to OI
officials, some of these noninvestigative activities were formerly
performed by legacy INS investigators and include identifying
incarcerated criminal aliens who are eligible for removal, an ICE
responsibility, and responding to state and local police agencies that
have apprehended illegal aliens. According to ICE's interim strategic
plan, ICE plans to shift this duty to ICE's Office of Detention and
Removal Operations (DRO). A DRO official told us DRO planned to take
over this role from OI incrementally by first assuming responsibility
for this activity in several major metropolitan areas in 2005 and 2006.
OI investigators also perform worksite enforcement, which according to
the OI Deputy Assistant Director responsible for this function,
includes activities that might be more economically performed by
noninvestigatory staff. This function--verifying that employees at
critical and noncritical worksites are eligible to work in the United
States--was described by OI officials as a compliance function that is
not clearly aligned with the criminal investigator job description.
Since the late 1990s, the level of investigative resources legacy INS
and then ICE dedicated to this function has decreased. Since the
terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, INS and ICE have concentrated
worksite investigative resources at critical infrastructure facilities.
In its fiscal year 2007 budget justification, DHS requested funds to
support the addition of 206 positions--171 of which are special agents--
to conduct worksite enforcement. If these resources are approved and
used for worksite enforcement, this would increase OI's worksite
enforcement effort significantly compared to what was done in fiscal
year 2005.
The fiscal year 2006 Department of Homeland Security Appropriations
Conference Report[Footnote 6] directs ICE to submit a plan for the
expanded use of immigration enforcement agents to focus on civil and
administrative violations, raising the possibility that additional
noninvestigative duties may be shifted from OI investigators, making
them available for criminal investigations.
OI Places Priority on National Security Investigations, but Key
Management Practices Could Enhance OI's Resource Allocation Decision-
Making:
OI tries to ensure that its resources contribute to the prevention of
the exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities in customs and immigration
systems by making most investigative resource use decisions in OI's
major field offices, based on the judgment of the agents in charge,
with priority on investigating national security-related cases that
arise. Although we found no evidence that OI has failed to investigate
any national security-related lead that came to its attention, applying
a risk management approach to proactively determine what types of
customs and immigration violations represent the greatest risks for
exploitation by terrorists and other criminals could provide OI with
greater assurance that it is focusing most intensely on preventing
those violations with the greatest potential for harm while striking an
appropriate balance among its various objectives. According to the
Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, one of the
foundational components of a good control environment is risk
assessment--including the assessment of risks, estimation of their
significance, the likelihoods of their occurrence, and decisions about
how to respond to them.
OI has taken some initial steps to introduce principles of risk
management into its operations--for example, encouraging its field
managers to think about violations in terms of vulnerabilities to the
customs and immigration systems. In addition, OI classifies each
investigation using the numeric designations 1, 2, and 3, with class 1
indicating the highest relative importance within that category of
investigation. However, it has not conducted a comprehensive risk
assessment of the customs and immigration systems to determine the
greatest risks for exploitation or analyzed these data to provide
information to evaluate alternative investigative strategies and allow
OI to make risk-based resource allocation decisions. Such a system
could provide OI with greater assurance that it is striking an
appropriate balance among its various objectives while focusing most
intensely on preventing those violations with the greatest potential
for harm.
Application of a risk management approach by OI involves a risk
assessment that would provide information in three areas: (1) threat--
what strategic intelligence and experience suggest about how customs
and immigration systems might be exploited by terrorists and other
criminals; (2) vulnerabilities--the ways that customs and immigration
systems are open to exploitations and the kinds of protections that are
built into these systems; and (3) consequence--the potential results of
exploitation of these systems, including the most dire prospects. For
example, ICE's strategic goal to prevent the unlawful movement across
U.S. borders of people, money, and materials, includes as one of its
strategies giving highest priority to closing those vulnerabilities
that pose the greatest threat to our national security. However, OI has
not performed a risk assessment to determine which vulnerabilities pose
the greatest threat so that it can direct resources to those
investigations that best address these vulnerabilities. Figure 2
demonstrates how the risk assessment and investigator's judgment would
combine to inform case selection and resource allocation.
Figure 2: Potential Decision-Making Approach for Evaluation and
Selection of Investigative Resource Allocation Alternatives:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
ICE has begun to incorporate elements of risk management into its
resource allocation decision making. OI has several ongoing programs
within its National Security Division designed to identify and mitigate
national security threats. One is Project Shield America, where special
agents conduct outreach to the export industry to educate these
businesses about U.S. export laws and to solicit their assistance in
preventing the illegal foreign acquisition of their products. OI also
uses the Threat Analysis Unit and Compliance Enforcement Unit within
the National Security Division to screen nonimmigrant students,
exchange students, and other visitors for the purpose of identifying
potential national security threats. The value of risk management goes
beyond these types of resource allocation, however. Specifically, a
more comprehensive risk management approach would enable OI to better
ensure that its resources are effectively and efficiently applied to
its national security and other missions by giving it a foundation for
determining how resources might be best distributed within and across
investigation types, for example, (1) how to best allocate its
resources among case categories (e.g., visa violations, drug smuggling,
and financial crimes); (2) the appropriate level of investment in
national-security related investigations; and (3) the appropriate mix
of case classifications within each category (i.e., the three-level
classification of cases based on relative importance).
Effective risk management also requires outcome-based performance
measures and goals. We found OI lacks outcome-based performance goals
to monitor the full range of its efforts to prevent the systemic
vulnerabilities that allow terrorists and other criminals to endanger
the United States. Performance goals--consisting of a target
(acceptable level of performance) and a measure (a means to assess the
performance level)--are an essential management tool in managing
programs for results. In addition, our Standards for Internal Control
in the Federal Government and the Office of Management and Budget call
for agencies to have performance measures and indicators that are
linked to mission, goals, and objectives to allow for comparisons to be
made among different sets of data (for example, desired performance
against actual performance) so that corrective actions can be taken if
necessary.
Currently, OI relies primarily upon statistics related to investigative
resource use--such as arrests, seizures, and convictions--to monitor
performance. In fact, ICE reports only one output performance measure
for OI on the DHS Performance and Accountability Report--the percentage
of investigations that result in an enforcement action (e.g., an
arrest, conviction, or fine). Measuring the percentage of
investigations that result in enforcement action provides only an
indirect indicator of success in preventing systemic vulnerabilities
that allow terrorists and other criminals to endanger the United
States. Among other things, it lacks the ability to reflect successes
of OI's programmatic activities that are designed to deter the
exploitation of systemic vulnerabilities before a crime is committed--
for example, a measure of the outcomes of actions taken to close or
control identified vulnerabilities. Without outcome-based performance
goals, it is difficult for OI to gauge the effectiveness of its
operational activities and to use this information to assess what types
of corrective actions might be required--such as changes to programs or
work processes in order to better align activities with strategic
objectives.
Finally, OI does not have sufficient systems to help ensure ongoing
monitoring and communication of vulnerabilities discovered during its
investigations. These controls could enhance OI's ability to take
action to eliminate those vulnerabilities or to recommend mitigation
practices to entities that control the applicable customs or
immigration system. Standards for Internal Control in the Federal
Government calls for agencies to establish monitoring and communication
systems that assess the quality of performance over time and ensure
that findings of deficiencies are corrected and result in improvements
to the process. OI officials said they are trying to use Cornerstone--a
program to identify and reduce systemic vulnerabilities in financial
systems--as a model for creating such a feedback loop (see fig. 3).
Cornerstone was created by ICE to encourage coordination with the
financial industry. OI officials in headquarters and field offices
conduct outreach to the private sector and partner with private
industry as well as with state and other federal law enforcement and
regulatory agencies. The private sector provides ICE with information
regarding the vulnerabilities it has observed, and ICE uses this
information to develop criminal investigations. ICE also disseminates
information on vulnerabilities to financial sector stakeholders through
the Cornerstone Report. When vulnerabilities are identified that cannot
be addressed by the private sector alone, ICE officials told us that a
joint law enforcement and regulatory approach is utilized to eliminate
or minimize vulnerabilities.
Figure 3: The Cornerstone Process:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
With the exception of the Cornerstone program for financial
investigations, OI does not have a complete system in place to help
ensure that information gained during the course of investigations
feeds back into the operations of other DHS components, other federal
agencies, state and local partners, and relevant private sector
entities to proactively reduce the vulnerabilities that facilitate
violations. OI has taken initial steps to apply parts of the
Cornerstone approach to all its investigative areas. For example,
Project Shield America uses the same outreach techniques to the export
sector as Cornerstone does to the financial sector, without the
emphasis on changing policies and practices to reduce identified
vulnerabilities. However, OI officials told us that OI does not have a
process to help ensure that action is taken to mitigate the risks from
the vulnerability identified during the course of its investigations
across all SACs. A systemwide process for capturing the information and
ensuring that OI takes appropriate actions in response to information,
extending beyond financial crimes, would better support its ability to
reduce vulnerabilities in immigration and customs systems by allowing
OI to monitor the progress of efforts to reduce vulnerabilities and the
identification of those involved in these efforts. Such a process is
especially important for OI, since so many of its operations are
collaborative, and the vulnerabilities identified through its
investigations may require legal or policy changes that are controlled
by external stakeholders.
Conclusions:
Although OI, as the primary investigative agency of the Department of
Homeland Security states that it places priority on national security,
from a practical standpoint, it is focused on enforcing all laws and
regulations governing the customs and immigration systems. Before the
creation of the DHS, these efforts, carried out by legacy INS and U.S.
Customs service had a limited relation to national security--and indeed
even since becoming a part of DHS, cases considered to be directly
related to national security have demanded a relatively small portion
of OI's resources. Particularly considering its wide-ranging mission, a
more comprehensive risk management approach could provide OI with
better information to evaluate its alternatives and balance its
resource allocations most effectively across the broad array of
violations it is responsible for investigating. Although OI has applied
some of the principles of risk management to its operations, applying a
comprehensive risk management approach would provide a stronger
evidence-based foundation to help it ensure that its resource
allocation best supports its ability to prevent those systematic
vulnerabilities with the most potential to endanger the United States.
Specifically, a more comprehensive risk management approach would
enable OI to better ensure that its resources are effectively and
efficiently applied to its national security and other missions by
giving it a foundation for determining how resources might be best
distributed within and across investigation types, for example, (1) how
to best allocate its resources among case categories (e.g., visa
violations, drug smuggling, and financial crimes), (2) the appropriate
level of investment in national-security related investigations, and
(3) the appropriate mix of case classifications within each category
(i.e., the three-level classification of cases based on relative
importance).
Lacking OI-wide outcome-based performance goals to assess its ability
to prevent the exploitation of systematic vulnerabilities in customs
and immigration systems that allow terrorists and other criminals to
endanger the United States makes it difficult for OI to evaluate the
results of its efforts in light of that objective. In addition, this
lack may promote a tendency for OI to stay in the functional mindset of
its legacy agencies. In particular, using data like the number of
arrests, fines, drug and other seizures, prosecutions, and convictions
gives OI some ability to assess the outputs of its activities. However,
relying primarily on this type of performance data may make it more
difficult for OI to determine if it should alter its investigative
focus because favorable outputs (e.g., high numbers of arrests) tend to
reinforce the current focus whether or not it is helping accomplish the
ICE mission. Without outcome-based performance goals that are tied to
ICE's mission and objectives, the agency will lack a sufficient basis
for assessing the alignment of resources that might offer the greatest
contribution to this broad mission. Developing measures that can
meaningfully gauge performance related to an expansive deterrence
mission like ICE's is not an easy task. However, armed with information
about the relative risk to the customs and immigration systems, OI
could be in a better position to measure its performance and make
resource use decisions based on the potential to mitigate the most
crucial identified risks.
Finally, a critical part of the ICE mission is to reduce the
vulnerability of the United States to terrorism. OI's Cornerstone
program and efforts to extend this approach to other investigative
areas are intended to reduce vulnerabilities by feeding lessons learned
from criminal investigations back into the organization's systems and
practices. However, these efforts do not include sufficient monitoring
and communication systems to ensure that information is systematically
fed back and that it consistently results in corrective actions. A
feedback process that includes processes and procedures (for example,
clearly established lines of reporting and authority and documented
protocols) to help ensure that vulnerabilities OI uncovers during its
investigations will result in mitigation measures or in recommendations
for such measures to entities responsible for the applicable system
would enhance OI's ability to reduce vulnerabilities in customs and
immigration systems.
Recommendations:
To put OI in a better position to allocate its investigative resources
in a manner that maximizes their contribution to the achievement of
ICE's mission, we recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security
direct the Assistant Secretary of ICE to take the following three
actions:
* Conduct comprehensive threat, vulnerability, and consequence risk
assessments of the customs and immigration systems to identify the
types of violations with the highest probability of occurrence and most
significant consequences in order to guide resource allocation for OI
national programmatic activity and to expand the available information
upon which SACs base their decisions to open new cases.
* On the basis of the results of the risk assessment, develop outcome-
based performance goals (measures and targets) that reflect the
contribution of various investigative activities to ICE's mission and
objectives and develop a reliable method for tracking national security-
related activity and classification criteria for the case management
system that express the contributions of each investigation.
* Develop an OI-wide system to monitor and communicate the more
significant vulnerabilities in customs and immigration systems that are
identified during the course of OI investigations. This process should
include a method to mitigate the vulnerability internally or to ensure
that the vulnerability and associated mitigation recommendations are
communicated to external stakeholders with responsibility for the
applicable system.
In response to our first recommendation, DHS agreed risk management is
a valuable tool to establish priorities in a multiple threat
environment and said ICE intends to take a broader, component-wide
approach to assessing risk. DHS agreed that the ICE Office of
Investigations resource decisions should be based on priorities derived
from a strategic-planning process in which directors and unit managers
from all ICE OI program areas participate, including mission support.
DHS said priorities set forth in the strategic plan should be reviewed
annually, revised as necessary, and communicated to each SAC.
While DHS agreed with our second recommendation, it said that ICE needs
to maintain the flexibility to develop performance goals that reflect
its mission and may not necessarily be measurable in an outcome-based
manner. DHS said the Office of Management and Budget has acknowledged
that for certain activities (e.g., law enforcement) "outcome-oriented"
performance measures may be difficult to identify and performance may
be tracked by using a variety of output as well as qualitative
measures. DHS said each division within OI uses standard law
enforcement statistics covering all of its program units that can be
shared, understood, and compared over the years, including arrests,
indictments and convictions, broken out by category. We agree that
developing outcome-based performance measures for law enforcement
activities can be difficult and that some output measures can be
beneficial. However, we continue to believe that where possible OI
should seek to develop outcome-based performance measures that would
better demonstrate the value of its efforts. OI needs to allocate
resources to the types of investigations that have the best chance of
mitigating potential vulnerabilities in customs and immigration systems
to terrorism.
With regard to our third recommendation, DHS said that OI headquarters'
program managers regularly communicate with the SAC offices to obtain
feedback on significant cases and identified vulnerabilities. This
information is documented in reports that are transmitted two times a
day to both the OI and DHS leadership. A weekly report also is prepared
that summarizes the significant cases of the week. DHS said that OI has
established designated liaisons to both U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services and CBP and they communicate specific
vulnerabilities and threats. While these efforts are useful, our
recommendation envisions a more comprehensive strategy to identify and
mitigate vulnerabilities in customs and immigration systems and
processes. We are encouraged that OI intends to continue to expand such
outreach and partnership efforts. In implementing our recommendation,
we believe that OI should obtain and use feedback from all relevant
governmental and nongovernmental organizations in its efforts to
mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to
respond to any questions that you or other members of the Subcommittee
may have at this time.
GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
For further information about this testimony, please contact Richard
Stana at 202-512-8777.
Other Key contributors to this statement were Michael Dino and Tony
DeFrank.
FOOTNOTES
[1] GAO, HOMELAND SECURITY: Better Management Practices Could Enhance
DHS's Ability to Allocate Investigative Resources, GAO-06-48SU
(Washington, D.C.: December 9, 2005).
[2] Nonprobability sampling is a method of sampling where observations
are selected in a manner that is not completely random, usually using
specific characteristics of the population as criteria. Because each
unit in a population does not have an equal chance to be selected, it
is possible for a nonprobability sample to contain a systematic bias
that limits its ability to describe the entire population.
[3] GAO, Homeland Security: Summary of Challenges Faced in Targeting
Oceangoing Cargo Containers for Inspection, GAO-04-557T (Washington,
D.C.: Mar. 31, 2004); Transportation Security: Systematic Planning
Needed to Optimize Resources, GAO-05-357T (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 15,
2005); Strategic Budgeting: Risk Management Principles Can Help DHS
Allocate Resources to Highest Priorities, GAO-05-824T (Washington,
D.C.: June 29, 2005); Standards for Internal Control in the Federal
Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1 (Washington, D.C.: November 1999).
[4] OI also has investigatory responsibilities for certain
international terrorism offenses, such as providing material support to
foreign terrorist organizations. Although anti-terrorism laws passed
before and after the creation of DHS, such as the USA PATRIOT Act of
2001, Pub. L. No. 107-56, 115 Stat. 273, and the Intelligence Reform
and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Pub. L. No. 108-458, 118 Stat.
3638, did not give ICE additional authority, they did expand many of
the criminal statutes ICE enforces, especially those concerning certain
terrorism and money-laundering offenses.
[5] Although they do not fall into the categories that OI identified as
having a national security link, OI officials told us that there may be
other investigative categories that could be considered national
security related. National Security Presidential Directive 25
designated international drug trafficking organizations and their
linkages to international terrorist organizations as a threat to
national security. If the OI resources dedicated to the investigation
of drug trafficking that involves major criminal organizations are
included in the national security-related measure, then the percentage
of investigative resources devoted to national security might be as
high as 18 percent in fiscal year 2004 and 19 percent in fiscal year
2005.
[6] H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 109-241, at 47 (2005).
