Inherited problems plague immigration enforcement agencies, GAO finds

Several management problems that doomed the former Immigration and Naturalization Service live on in security agencies responsible for enforcing the nation's immigration laws, a top government auditor recently said.

INS was dismantled after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Homeland Security Department was created and the bureaus of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement took over enforcing immigration laws. CBP is responsible for inspections and border patrol, while ICE is in charge of investigations, intelligence, and detention and removal operations.

"A number of management challenges similar to those found at INS have continued in the new organizations now responsible for immigration enforcement functions," Richard Stana, director of the Government Accountability Office's Homeland Security and Justice Issues Division, recently told lawmakers.

"These INS management challenges included a lack of clearly defined priorities and goals; difficulty determining whom to coordinate with, when to coordinate and how to communicate; and inadequately defined roles resulting in overlapping responsibilities, inconsistent program implementation and ineffective use of resources," Stana added.

Stana testified May 5 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims.

Stana said the creation of CBP posed fewer challenges than ICE. While CBP is a combination of programs that largely worked together before the merger, ICE is "a patchwork of agencies and programs," he said.

"The integration of INS and Customs investigators into a single investigative program has involved the blending of two vastly different workforces, each with its own culture, policies, procedures and mission priorities," Stana said about ICE. "Both programs were in agencies with dual missions that prior to the merger had differences in investigative priorities. For example, INS primarily looked for illegal aliens and Customs primarily looked for illegal drugs. In addition, INS investigators typically pursued administrative violations, while Customs investigators typically pursued criminal violations."

Some current and former DHS officials recently told Congress that ICE and CBP should be merged.

Stana did not take a stand on the merger. Instead, he said Congress should consider three main factors in deciding whether to make organizational changes.

"The first factor is whether ICE and CBP currently have good management frameworks in place. Such a management framework, among other items, would include a clear mission, a strategic planning process, good organizational alignment, performance measures, and leadership and accountability mechanisms," he said.

"The second factor is whether ICE and CBP have developed systems and processes to support the management frameworks they may have in place. The third factor is that the management challenges in these two bureaus exist in the larger context of the creation and evolution of DHS."

Transformation and integration activities at DHS, Stana said, could take five to seven years to accomplish and some management challenges with ICE and CBP might be resolved in that process.