dataLayer.push({"event": "signup_submit", "form_detail":"enSubscribeSlideUp"}); Threats from domestic violent extremism are rapidly growing in the United States and endanger our way of life, our values, and our democracy.52 CAP has called for a strong, coordinated response that marshals the weight of the federal government and uses the right tools, developed using fact-based evidence, to reduce the likelihood of violent attacks before they occur.53 While federal efforts to respond to domestic violent extremism primarily fall within the FBIs authority, and because there are strong arguments that some prevention efforts would be better housed in the departments of Education or Health and Human Services, there is no agency charged with taking the lead in countering disinformation, coordinating federal grantmaking programs to promote resilience (along with the DOJs Office of Justice Programs), and providing support for risk-based prevention responses. DHS Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans Organizational Chart View the current organizational chart for the Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans. CBP focuses on keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the United States while facilitating lawful travel and trade. Organizational Structure Click on any block to visit that program office's web page. Joel Martinez is the Mexico policy analyst for National Security and International Policy at the Center. DHS has used its authorities in ways that have eroded already weak trust among swaths of the American population, particularly among marginalized communities. Since its founding, there has been persistent confusion about DHSs role as well as complaints about its structure, operations, and oversight. Necessary safeguards would need to be put in place to ensure that what immigration detention remains does not become wrapped up in the overall criminal carceral system. Meanwhile, the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office, housed within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has ballooned to 7,100 agents in 225 cities nationwide and is now one of the largest federal investigative agencies within the U.S. government.24 HSI claims broad legal authority to investigate a wide range of domestic and international criminal activities arising from the illegal movement of people, goods, money, and contraband into and within the United States and has access to the information stored in the CIRS database. Hiring surges in the DHS workforceincluding recently during the Trump administrations expansion of the law enforcement officer rankshave led to significant workforce growth at DHS in a short period of time.59 In some cases, this growth was accompanied by poor quality control in hiring: Investigations following hiring surges in ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have shown that following these large influxes of new hires, cases of corruption and misconduct spiked.60 Going forward, DHS has the opportunity to better align its human capital to meet current needs. But with shared objectives in gaining a more effective agency that can deliver for and to the American people, it can be done. Understanding these foundational issues and why they have not been effectively addressed is critical to articulating a new vision for DHSone that focuses headquarters limited attention on the right set of priorities. Former Senior Policy Analyst, Former Managing Director, Immigration Policy, Silva Mathema, Zefitret Abera Molla, Kiera Manser, Jared C. Bass, Jesse OConnell, Haneul Lee, Tobias Harris, Alan Yu, Lawrence J. Korb, Kaveh Toofan. A full list of supporters is available, Taking Migration Seriously: Real Solutions to Complex Challenges at the Border, 3 Things to Know Now that President Biden Has Canceled At Least $10,000 in Student Debt, Rising Anti-China Sentiment in South Korea Offers Opportunities To Strengthen US-ROK Relations, Why the United States Must Stay the Course on Ukraine, Paid Leave Policies Must Include Chosen Family, The Killing of Tyre Nichols Must Serve as a Catalyst to Root Out Racial Injustice in Policing, 5 Ways Governors and Mayors Can Leverage Federal Investments. At a minimum, this would mean elevating the CRCL officereven while remaining operationally independent to oversee complaints related to civil rights and civil libertiesto an assistant secretary level, with a seat at the management table, to be able to more directly influence agencywide decision-making. DHS should prioritize efforts where it can add value, paying special attention to those needs that, in todays federal government, DHS is best positioned to meet. We at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and also held positions at Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, Pepperdine University, Department of Homeland Security - Customs and Border Protection, The San Diego County District Attorney's Office, Christian Legal Aid of Los Angeles, Bentley, GRID . Homeland Security Investigations. It then provides an analysis of DHSs challenges, highlighting long-standing foundational problems, including where the department is absent or not contributing. That might mean proactively engaging with American businesses, alongside CBP, to inform efforts to improve the movement of goods and people across borders or refining immigration services so that processes dignify and welcome those who seek to invest their talents here. These steps include clarifying the CRCLs statutory authority to ensure that it is involved in the policymaking process from the beginning, rather than being asked to respond or investigate once policy is already set; that its recommendations receive timely responses from the agency; and more.86 In addition, this study recommends a broader policy role for DHS in protecting personal information and privacy. endstream endobj startxref Natural disaster-related losseshuman, ecosystem, and economicwill become more frequent and catastrophic due to climate change. By fully realizing the role envisioned for the secretary of DHS in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5enhancing the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents by establishing a single comprehensive national incident management system68as the principal federal official for domestic incident management, DHS can serve as a force multiplier for the rest of the federal government and use its institutional memory to improve Americas resilience to anything that humankind or nature throws its way. The FPS protects federal facilities, their occupants, and visitors by providing law enforcement and protective security services. Recalibrating the DHS mission would empower the agency and its workforce to play a more effective role in the federal bureaucracy. Silva Mathema is the acting director of Immigration Policy at the Center. As is apparent from a quick glance at a DHS organizational chart, the department is involved in a broad range of activities and coordinates a massive workforce of more than 240,000 federal employees.55 In the 20 years since it was founded, DHSs broad authorities and short attention span have led to mission creep,56 with DHS assuming new missions and creating new programs that are untethered to any overarching strategic goal. The Biden administration and Congress have the opportunity to transform DHS into an agency that provides much greater value to the American people and those who visit or seek safety or opportunity here. There is no other department better suited to coordinate effective federal emergency response; communicate threat information between the public and private sectors; provide a working, humane approach to border management; facilitate an integrated cybersecurity and infrastructure capacity; and implement effective approaches to counter the threats from domestic extremism fueled by white supremacy and the rise of anti-government militias. To maximize its value and effectiveness in todays environment, DHS should organizeand articulate its missionaround a balanced set of activities that prioritize safety and services roles more fully with DHSs other protecting, securing, and defending roles DHS should dial up, or increase, its strategic focus in the following areas: DHS should dial down its strategic focus in the following areas, bringing them into balance with its other priorities: To make the case for reform, this report first outlines the legacy of DHSs hasty founding and how past attempts to reform DHS have failed to reorient the department away from a disproportionate focus on foreign threats. As CAP has previously argued, Congress and the administration can do more to empower the current DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL). DHS also wastes energy vying over bureaucratic turf when it could be solving problems. DHS should reduce its counterterrorism investigative and intelligence analysis activities, as described below, and focus its efforts where it has unique responsibilities and authorities: managing the border, countering disinformation, countering violent white supremacy, and investing in evidence-based prevention approaches. Since no part of Congress authorizes the entire departmentwide functions, DHSs appropriators have largely become the subcommittees of de facto jurisdiction over the department. For example, CBP could greatly benefit from specialized training of its Border Patrol agents to initiate a cultural change of its workforce and prepare them to handle asylum-seekers at the border humanely and fairly. This structure is often mapped out in an organizational chart, which visually represents how each position within the company relates to each other. The current administration should evaluate how much of this realignment can be done within existing statutory functions and what requires congressional assistance and legislation. Balancing these missions effectively ensures that the Coast Guard can play a vital role in combating terrorism and interdicting drug trafficking while also leading efforts to save people, as it did during the deadly hurricanes in 2017 in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.74. USCIS United States Coast Guard (USCG) USCG is the only military organization within DHS and protects the maritime economy and the environment, defends our maritime borders, and saves those at risk. At the same time, DHS must do a better job of ensuring that its programs are not discriminatory and including serious guardrails for civil liberties to prevent bias-based activities, such as its past targeting of Muslims and other communities of color. ` " A more ambitious approach would involve making the protection of personal information and privacy a core DHS mission, assigning DHS the lead federal agency for protecting the privacy of U.S. persons information. This project and report reflect the contributions of many stakeholders, including former and current government officials, policy experts, and civil society members. DHS was formally established as a stand-alone, Cabinet-level department on March 1, 2003, bringing 22 federal agencies under one umbrella to coordinate efforts to secure the homeland. Recognizing that screening remains a key safety component, a better-managed system would increase the capacity of DHS to process and screen applicants for family, employment, and visitor visas; to reduce processing time and delays; and to provide more reliable and dignified services. Despite maintaining an intelligence records system and collecting, aggregating, and storing information on millions of individuals, including U.S. persons, HSI is not an intelligence agency.25 Yet it is collecting, analyzing, and storing information in ways that have previously been the exclusive domain of the IC. Previously, Sally was a Law Clerk at U.S. Organization Organization The list of all Operational and Support Components that make up the Department along with our organization chart and the list of senior leadership. Public debate over the future of DHS has fallen into two predictable camps: One side calls for the department, or parts of it, to be dismantled,2 while the other side argues that the solution to DHSs shortcomings is to hand it even more resources and responsibility.3 Neither is the right choice. Federal emergencies will continue to pose significant threats to Americans and their way of life. CISA is one of DHSs most visible success stories. CAP also recognizes that the safety and services framework proposed will, in many areas, be enabled by the departments threat management capabilities. I&A should reduce or eliminate its efforts to provide strategic intelligence on counterterrorism trends that are well covered by other departments and agencies. Tom Ridge (R) was appointed to be the first director of the White House Office of Homeland Security and charged with overseeing and coordinating a comprehensive national strategy to prevent future terrorist attacks on the country.11 Although President George W. Bush initially believed that the federal government could better ensure the safety of Americans with a strong homeland security council managed by the White House, he later transmitted his department proposal to the U.S. House of Representatives on June 18, 2002; one of the most determined early proponents of the department was Joe Lieberman, then a Democratic senator from Connecticut. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. But it is time for DHS to focus on the missions and activities that it is uniquely capable of carrying out, and for which it, rather than other agencies, is the natural lead. About. Instead, DHS should strategically recalibrate its priorities around a safety and services model rather than a threat-oriented modelwhich, in its current incarnation, is primarily concerned with counterterrorism and immigration enforcement, with communities of color, immigrants, and refugees treated as threats. See the organizational chart for the Department of Homeland Security. These law enforcement roles enable the safety and services model to operate. This would require new interpretations on current legal constraints in this area, 62 close collaboration with civil society groups to ensure communications do not violate civil rights and liberties or unfairly target vulnerable communities, as well as a more amplified role for the officer of civil rights and civil liberties. Renewing the DHS workforce also is critical to the departments long-term success. With the premise that DHS should recalibrate toward a safety and services model, and that DHS should focus on the things that it is best capable of doing, this study distinguishes between two types of law enforcement functions: law enforcement functions that enable a safety and services model to operate and those for which law enforcement is the primary focus. What does DHS need to do, and what is better left to, or better done by, other departments and agencies? Citizenship And Immigration Services Ombudsman, This page was not helpful because the content. The Office of the Secretary oversees DHSs work to enhance security, protect cyberspace, administer immigration and respond to disasters. It also helps ensure that DHS capacity is aligned to where DHS has the most to contribute. Some law enforcement functions are compatible with a safety and services model at DHS. Despite consensus among policymakers that the department could be far more effective,7 there is little agreement on how to fix it. !6nuM)CtW$okCLzOiR$F&Ar,>7Om0h@8n8jV(OG)n*YGdDvKL~&7;9 {;1g\w0cwo#4)LaN|q.:-X2 `-5 cL`&@[;`A*|^4vc9ZZA\(cGPZ|xFar+f3lrt-c7&:~3-Ua`QKW. The . Going forward, DHS should prioritize service and partnerships, connecting people in the United States to federal services that reflect American values and are essential to Americas shared prosperity. The United States needs a proactive emergency preparedness and resilience capacity and a flexible and capable response system that can respond to a wide range of emergencies quickly and efficiently. HSI, within ICE, investigates transnational crime and threats and claims a role in nearly all criminal activity, even those only tangentially related to DHSs mission. DHS should reduce its TOC efforts and transfer investigative leads and other TOC activities to the DOJ. It will also put the department and its workforce in a better position to focus on the needs that only DHS can meet given its flexible authorities and unique capacity to respond to a range of issues that fall between the gaps of responsibilities of other federal departments and agencies. Looking for U.S. government information and services? Working as the Nations risk advisor, the CISA partners with the private and public sectors to defend against threats and build more secure and resilient infrastructure for the future.61 DHS should scale efforts being led by the CISA to prioritize partnership with stakeholders across its missions and priorities. The muddled intelligence mission and an expansive set of authorities present a worrying combination that has led to abusive activities and human rights violations. Service orientation and safety need not be in tension; the Coast Guard provides a good model for how the two can be well balanced within a single organization. )M&bmVAi[-yH]R$[T >sp6Ih9}gOEj@0!C~oB?gc&q c)m1sm4`8RD? }. Xs~_7^{$}UAe5u)haU8vP6179kqZ>95[6No4%OcE6:&v+ yz DHS should take a broader view of what it means to keep the nation secure and adapt its mission and activities accordingly. DHS also suffers from low employee morale and poor satisfaction among its workforce: It ranked dead last among U.S. federal agencies in the most recent survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service and has consistently been at the bottom of the list since 2010.44 While there are many reasons for low employee morale at DHS, the workforce culture is especially toxic within certain agencies that have overly politicized activities.45 ICE and the Border Patrol under the Trump administration, for example, focused on maximizing arrests and deportations with few limits on the targets for enforcement actions or the methods they would employthe clearest example being the Trump administrations cruel family separation policy.46 Personnel asked to pursue these political objectivesmost of whom are career public servantshave been required to perform deeply unpopular enforcement tasks that have not advanced sensible law enforcement or public safety priorities and have subjected them to sharp public criticism. The recent SolarWinds hack affected an estimated 18,000 government and private computers at the departments of Justice, State, Treasury, Energy, and Commercean alarming national security attack perpetrated by the Russian government.50 One of the notable successes from the Trump administrations DHS was that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) carved out a clear and useful role for itself as the Nations risk advisor, working with partners to defend against todays threats and collaborating to build more secure and resilient infrastructure for the future.51 There is a clear need for further developing the U.S. response by expanding the indicators and mechanisms for sharing cyberthreat information. However, the DHS secretary should launch an initiative specifically to study the departments recruitment, retention, and training efforts to further identify areas of success and for improvement. During the Trump administration, however, the focus of DHS shifted squarely toward heavy-handed enforcement designed to terminate access to the country for asylum-seekers.48 The Biden administration has taken a different approach to border management and is beginning to reverse policies and repair the damage made to the immigration and asylum systems during the Trump administration.49 However, many challenges persist and demonstrate the need for a reorientation of cultural norms at DHS. An official website of the United States government. Without strengthened protections and an ethos committed to protecting all Americans equally, such sharing may do more harm than good. At the same time, DHS should step back from roles where it is neither needed nor best suited. CAP focused on first-order questions about DHSs mission and value proposition and how that relates to the needs, challenges, and opportunities facing the nation today. !f1!Belqe0-{eQ%!Fq\\O!CaOL9'tMf1lPEM>HsU ^4!ha.p5Gu+24r3eG~u!P A=hu3~>i8o5 B@bVBiKdY)VY;V!8a&6 e.b*T Understanding the opportunities DHS has today is critical to transforming the agency to better meet unfulfilled needs around Americans safety and security, to address the issues that emerged or significantly worsened during the past four years, and to focus attention on the right set of priorities for the department going forward. 714 0 obj <>stream As extreme weather events and changing environments become more common, DHS should quarterback incident response, leading coordination with state and local officials, leveraging its flexible and responsive capabilities, and drawing on capacity within other federal departments and agencies. As discussed above, broad interpretation of DHS authorities by former department officials has led to questionable activities and occasions of abuse or violations, particularly in the immigration space.75 One example of these broad authorities occurred when the Trump administration deployed DHS officials to respond to protests in Portland, Oregon, where the administration stretched legal authorities to justify activities that harmed the public that DHS is supposed to serve. Consistent with this emphasisand with the affirmative vision that CAP previously put forth of a more fair, humane, and workable immigration system that would rebalance immigration enforcementICE is primarily a law enforcement agency, and as such its responsibilities should be transferred out of DHS.87. ] With appropriate oversight and respect for civil liberties, the department has tremendous potential to advance public safety and provide critical services. 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