Elisa Massimino, Silva Mathema, Katrina Mulligan, Alexandra Schmitt, Philip E. Wolgin. And there is no other department with the mandate and track record of playing a bridging role between state, local, tribal, and territorial officials and the federal government. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created nearly 20 years ago in response to catastrophic terrorist attacks on the United States. Next, the report reimagines what it means to keep America secure in todays world and provides a new framework for rebalancing the departments focus toward new and emerging needs. A. Chief Accountability Officer, Gary Kramer. Todays digital environment means that our critical infrastructure is more connected and more dependent on functioning cybersecurity than ever. See the organizational chart for the Department of Homeland Security. It is critical to consider the following questions: What should be the primary focus of the department? The organization of DHS is in accordance with the Homeland Security Act, as modified by previous notices to Congress under Section 872 of the Homeland Security Act and by future legislative enactments. (LockA locked padlock) Yes No Compared with executive branch agencies with longer histories and institutional protections and normssuch as the DOJ, founded in 1870, or the FBI, founded in 1908DHS lacks a history and culture of independence from political influence. Whether leading the federal response or coordinating other federal players, local governments, and nongovernmental organizations, the United States needs an agency charged with emergency preparedness and response capabilities that serves as the lead coordinator of U.S. government emergency preparedness and response efforts on the wide range of emergencies that affect the country. Meanwhile, DHS is missing opportunities to meet needs that other departments and agencies cannot and opportunities to lead where DHSs unique strengths would be maximally effective in solving problems. Fiscal Services - Mark Bartolozzi, Director. Previously, Ries was senior adviser to HHSC's chief . 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. Abbott announces approval of federal emergency declaration for severe winter weather, February 14, 2021, available at, Fernandez and others, People Actively Hate Us: Inside the Border Patrols Morale Crisis; Ted Hesson, Kristina Cooke, and Mica Rosenberg, U.S. Recognizing the challenges DHS faces, the department remains critical to the safety and well-being of many. To maximize its value and effectiveness in today's environment, DHS should organizeand articulate its missionaround a balanced set of activities that prioritize safety and services roles more. 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. The departments threat-oriented roles will, of course, remain, but this new framework will help DHS realign its focus and priorities on those areas where it can be maximally effective and provide value to the American people and those who live, study, work, travel, and seek safety here. DHSs Trusted Traveler programs are good examples of what DHS can do when it focuses on providing services and delivering real value to Americans and those traveling to the United States. In line with this new vision, CAP recommends that purely investigative and detention functions be moved out of DHS and transferred to other agencies, such as the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons, which are the federal lead for those functions. The organizational structure of, for example, a company is a system used to define its hierarchy. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. This means, for example, dialing up DHSs focus on disaster relief and cybersecurity and dialing down its law enforcement focus, particularly where other government agencies have or should have primary responsibility. Rebalancing toward a safety and services model requiresbringingDHSs activitiesintobalance andensuring they arenot overly focused on threat-oriented priorities. dhs DHS . By investing in its role to connect with federal, state, and local partners and with the private sector and civil society, DHS can add unique value to the nation, managing risk while also ensuring economic prosperity and upholding American values. HW]o6}7@`s! The muddled intelligence mission and an expansive set of authorities present a worrying combination that has led to abusive activities and human rights violations. Sign Up Most notably, DHSs vetting activitiesincluding the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), viewed by many as a Muslim registry29have faced persistent claims of religious and racial bias. An organizational structure is the allocation of authority and responsibility within a company. 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. subscribe.submit(); Pandemics can uproot daily life and economic security when border-screening measures fail to halt early transmission. An expanded DHS role might focus on planned disaster response and preparedness as expectations for climate-related disasters increase. The initiative should consider what changes might be needed in human capital and launch programs to realign the future workforce accordingly. This study makes the case that DHS should be more active in the areas where it is the most effective player within the federal bureaucracy and less so where its efforts are duplicative of other agencies. It would also provide a framework through which officials could then turn to reforming the structure of DHS, to determine which elements of the agency need to stay within DHS and which may better fit within other parts of the bureaucracy. FEMA declared an emergency and allowed Texans to apply for federal assistance for storm recovery,71 but a more proactive responsewith better cooperation at the state and local levelmight have prevented such severe destruction from occurring in the first place. FEMA recently covered DHS logos on vehicles used for vaccine distribution after concerns that the urban community it was targeting would refuse services from the department.69. Looking ahead, it is easy to imagine threats to Americans economic security or food supply that DHS could help to solve through its critical infrastructure and emergency response capabilities, were it determined to do so. It screens and vets travelers, interacts with asylum-seekers and aspiring citizens, provides emergency support during natural and human-made disasters, and performs certain law enforcement functionseach of which results in the collection and retention of information on U.S. persons. Successive administrations have continued to interpret DHSs mission as primarily focused on protecting the homeland from threats from abroad. In part because of the disparate nature of DHS authorizing and appropriating entities, Congress has never passed an authorization bill for the department. Experienced Military Veteran and Quality Assurance professional with a demonstrated history of working in government, hospital, acute health care settings, and private physician based . 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. Leadership Director Congressional Relations Diversity and Civil Rights Firearms and Tactical Programs Immigration Program Evaluation Partnership and Engagement Regulatory Affairs and Policy Public Affairs Deputy Director Chief of Staff Directorates Some believe that long-standing foundational problems have inhibited DHSs effectiveness as its missions and focus have expanded and morphed. Their combined mission would include traditional security components; facilitating the movement of goods and people to grow binational economies; upholding U.S. domestic and international protection obligations; and promoting quality of life for all people living in and migrating to and between border communities.73, The way the current Coast Guard balances its enforcement and service mission is commendable and could serve as a guide to recalibrating border management. 2i{,g%_,=@,(}H30h*cD@ J 714 0 obj <>stream var onSuccessSubmitenSubscribeFooter = function() { What America needs from DHS today, however, is different from when it was founded. Learn about our sister organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, an advocacy organization dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans. Collections Internal Directives Strategy and Doctrinal Products Keywords Policy Topics Homeland Security Enterprise Last Updated: 01/10/2023 Was this page helpful? Organizational Structure Click on any block to visit that program office's web page. Tackling Climate Change and Environmental Injustice, A New Framework for DHS To Meet Todays Challenges, The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. DHS already plays a pivotal role in connecting nonfederal officials with their counterparts in the federal system and serves as the primary connection between state, local, tribal, and territorial officials and the federal government and its resources, as well as between the private and public sectors, including civil society organizations. 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. Chief Financial Officer - Robert Brock. var subscribe = document.getElementById('enSubscribeFooter'); DHS should reduce its TOC efforts and transfer investigative leads and other TOC activities to the DOJ. )M&bmVAi[-yH]R$[T >sp6Ih9}gOEj@0!C~oB?gc&q c)m1sm4`8RD? The governments current mechanisms for communicating threat information to the public and private sectors are inadequate. endstream endobj 697 0 obj <>/Metadata 35 0 R/OCProperties<>/OCGs[702 0 R]>>/PageLabels 692 0 R/PageLayout/OneColumn/Pages 694 0 R/PieceInfo<>>>/StructTreeRoot 49 0 R/Type/Catalog>> endobj 698 0 obj <>/Font<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text]>>/Rotate 0/StructParents 0/Tabs/S/Type/Page>> endobj 699 0 obj <>stream Johan Hassel, Kate Donald, Laura Kilbury, 1 More Organizational Chart See how the Department of Homeland Security and all of its component agencies are organized by exploring the Organizational Chart. 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. Without clear and streamlined oversight responsibilities, Congress lacks the ability to act in its appropriate legislative role to set and guide the departments priorities and activities. Rob Ries is the Health and Human Services Commission's deputy executive commissioner of Compliance and Quality Control. Though it will be hard, the potential outcome would be well worth the effort; the entire system would start moving toward being more fair, humane, and workable. DHS is best suited to collect information that other agencies cannot, primarily at ports of entry, and use that information for intelligence purposes. The current administration should work with the new secretary to empower the secretarys office and staff to better manage, delegate, and oversee responsibilities across the bureaucracy. See U.S. Agency for Global Media, Legislation: Facts About Smith-Mundt Modernization, available at, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Statement from CISA Director Krebs Following Final Day of Voting, Press release, November 4, 2020, available at, AllOnGeorgia, TSA Touting Success: 10 Million Pre-Check Enrollees, March 9, 2020, available at, American Civil Liberties Union, National Security Entry-Exit Registration System; American Civil Liberties Union, Secure Communities (S-COMM); Aarti Kohli, Peter L. Markowitz, and Lisa Chavez, Secure Communities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Process (Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley Law School, 2011), available at, American Immigration Lawyers Association, Walled Off: How USCIS Has Closed Its Doors on Customers and Strayed from Its Statutory Customer Service Mission, February 12, 2021, available at, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Trade, available at, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5, available at, Lisa Fernandez, @ljfernandez, February 19, 2021, 3:45 p.m. Operational and Support Components A list of all Operational and Support Components that make up DHS. subscribe.submit(); But with shared objectives in gaining a more effective agency that can deliver for and to the American people, it can be done. Many of todays most serious threats to Americas safety and prosperitynatural disasters, pandemic disease, cyberattacks, and violent white supremacyoriginate at home or are borderless by nature. In recommending this shift, CAP acknowledges that threats to Americans safety and security will continue to require a strong and coordinated response from DHS. }. 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. Factors such as devastating hurricanes and droughts due to climate change, political unrest, and gang violence, especially in Central American countries, have translated to a high number of migrants, including large numbers of families and unaccompanied children, seeking asylum in the United States.47 Over the past several decades, every administration has struggled to manage this flow, and Congress failure to create a workable legal immigration system has turned asylum into the only viable avenue. DHS could also develop better warning and prediction systems that enable a more proactive federal response and assistance presence. Advisory panels and committees that provide advice and recommendations on mission-related topics from academic engagement to privacy. 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