Report: Homeland bureau successfully takes on immigration enforcement
Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau has taken on core jobs previously performed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but still faces staffing and budgeting challenges.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau has successfully integrated core jobs previously performed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but still faces challenges determining staffing and budget needs, according to a report released Monday.
Nineteen months after being created, ICE has successfully incorporated legacy INS immigration enforcement objectives, the Government Accountability Office concluded (GAO-05-66). ICE, part of the Homeland Security Department, is the second-largest investigative bureau in the federal government, with approximately 20,000 employees.
"Though ICE does not have a formal, distinct interior enforcement strategy, all the objectives contained in the legacy INS interior enforcement strategy have been incorporated within a broader mission aimed at strengthening homeland security through joint customs and immigration investigations," GAO noted.
According to the report, former INS functions are now performed within ICE by the Office of Investigations and the Office of Detention and Removal Operations. The offices have not implemented standards to measure performance, however, which hurts their ability to determine future budget and staffing needs, the report added.
For example, DRO officials said they will have difficulty determining which efforts are most effective and where future resources should be allocated until performance measures are developed for all activities. While the office plans to use performance data to help guide its fiscal 2006 budget request, that data will not be used extensively until fiscal 2007.
"DRO is not certain of the relative value of deploying fugitive operation teams in removing criminal aliens-for which it has performance measures-compared with other efforts where new performance measures are not yet fully developed, such as identifying removable aliens earlier in the judicial process," the report stated.
"DRO's ability to project staff needs is also challenged by the operations of other DHS components involved in immigration enforcement," GAO added. "DRO's draft strategic plan states, and DRO officials confirm, that they will need additional information on how ICE and non-ICE immigration enforcement entities, such as Customs and Border Protection, plan to address apprehending illegal aliens."
ICE and the Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau are developing a memorandum of understanding governing each organization's responsibility for benefits fraud investigations.
The GAO report said ICE's Office of Investigations has developed performance measures. But the data has not been approved for use and, therefore, will not be used for workforce planning in ICE's fiscal 2006 budget request.
"OI will use its performance measures to determine whether it should reallocate its existing staff, or request additional staff to better address the threats identified in [its] threat-assessment process," GAO noted. "ICE officials said linking threat assessments with workforce planning will become part of OI's staffing requirement methodology for future budget requests."
Overall, the report praised ICE for aligning its budget and workforce plans with performance data.
"ICE is moving in the right direction by developing outcome-based performance measures and threat assessments for determining future budget and staffing requirements," the report concluded. "If successful, this approach should help ICE measure its effectiveness in achieving its immigration-related goals and objectives and better ensure that limited resources are used effectively."