TOPICS
TOPICS
Homeland Security division seeks to begin hiring after restructuring
Officials from the Homeland Security Department's Air and Marine Operations division and Customs and Border Protection bureau are negotiating budget issues to determine when AMO can begin hiring personnel again.
DHS announced Tuesday that the division has been officially transferred from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau to CBP. The reorganization is an effort to integrate air and marine law enforcement assets within the department.
"The Department of Homeland Security was created to streamline and focus our efforts to secure the United States," Asa Hutchinson, DHS undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security, said in a news release. "This merger is another large step in that direction. Our goal is to achieve greater operational and cost efficiencies as we strive to make America even more safe."
AMO has more than 1,000 pilots, air and marine enforcement officers, detection systems specialists, support personnel and headquarters staff. Out of that, about 470 pilots and 50 air and marine enforcement officers operate 42 helicopters and 92 fixed-wing aircraft at stations, along with 93 marine enforcement officers who operate 73 high performance marine vessels in the nation's waterways.
The division plans to move forward with hiring additional personnel now that it is no longer part of ICE, agency spokesman Gary Bracken said Wednesday. It's not known when the hiring will take place, however, because the division's budget was frozen when it was under ICE. Bracken said officials from the division and CBP are negotiating budget issues as part of the merger.
"Our intention is to be able to go ahead with the hiring that we were working on before the hiring freeze went into effect," Bracken said. "Until we get through the approval of that with CBP staff, we can't do anything."
The merger has two phases, DHS officials said Tuesday. The first phase, completed on Sunday, involved moving the division from ICE to CBP. The second phase entails the integration of all air and marine personnel, missions and assets, which is not expected to be completed until the end of fiscal 2005.
"Throughout this merger, efforts will be made to find efficiencies with aviation and marine operations, locations, acquisition and recapitalization," according to the news release.. "While efficiencies will be gained, at no time will there be a drop in air or marine support to legacy missions in ICE, CBP or the other many agencies served by these resources."
COMMENTS
- This is very interesting. Air and Marine Pilots both go through training at the ICE Academy, which is the investigative framework, theoretically, for ICE OI criminal investigators/ special agents. Since Homeland Security is seeking to begin hiring for pilot positions and ICE currently looms under a hiring freeze, where will the pilots be trained. The last thing we heard in the field was that they were sending investigator trainees back to their home offices from FLETC due to lack of funding. How is that going to work? Does anyone at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security know what is going on? Rumors abound of Reduction-In-Forces and lay-offs of Schedule B employees, many of whom are trained investigators the government has invested heavily in, for protecting this great nation from another terrible tragedy on the homeland. Yet send an element from an agency the government has literally bankrupted, fiscally as well as morally, and boosting hiring is a slap in the face to the people left behind in what has culminated into ICE, that is now very well melting away at the feet of those who created it. How can you separate the investigative arm from Air and Marine? Send ICE investigators to CBP where the need is. That is where the funding is directed, which might very well be where resides or could reside, the investigator, inspector or officer who breaks the case and prevents another terrorist attack against the U.S. Someone, somebody wake up. A disenchanted S/A GovExec.com reader Posted November 30, 2004 11:09 PM
- I have been waiting since June 2004, for the Inspections Assistant position. After being told I pass the Investigation; were they went to my job to investigate and left me in the mercy of my supervisor to tell me there was a hiring freezes. This is welcoming news. GovExec.com reader Posted November 9, 2004 7:03 PM
