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Return to Article: Federal Protective Service moves out of immigration bureau

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  Any organization is only as good as its leadership. Post 9/11 FPS made minor progress forward in some areas. The decision to assign the agency to ICE only served to further compound the organizations struggle with its defining role. ICE looked at FPS as a liability not as a resource. With a director who tells his organization (privately and publicly), they are fundamentally incompetent with respect to 50% of their primary mission. Add to that the implementation policy and procedures that are empty to support the burden and mission of the agency. One size fits all approach to national issues. Ultimately, the fundamental absence of technical critical infrastructure and support; prevents and endangers those who serve from completing their mission. The internal struggles continue to tear at the very foundation of the workforce.

  If an agency is going to present their staff as uniformed law enforcement officers with a special skill to assess, determine and implement security needs of a facility; then those charged with the leadership have to make clearly defined mission statements. The mission has to address issues in priority; safety then security. If that agency is going to have uniformed officers, then they have to be cops first and security specialist second. Any FPS uniformed personnel who carry themselves "security" first, "law enforcement" second; is woefully endangering themselves and those who they are sworn to protect.

  FPS has been treated as orphans in a third world country by their parent organizations, until they are recognized and treated appropriately; there will continue to be a distorted, frustrated and ineffective organization floundering in an effort to protect federal facilities.

  Two-Cents Posted November 19, 2009 1:49 PM
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  The next step is to call for the removal of the FPS Director Gary Schenkel who has ran this Great Agency of our into the ground and he is still following Julie Myers lead ,he is still loyal to her because she was the one who hired him under the Bush Administration, Homeland Security Secretary or the Head of NPPD should call for his removal, this guy calls us Law Enforcement Security Officers(LESO) sounds like a Glorified Security Guard, remember that title when meeting with your next BSC and head of major law enforcement agencies . This man has never been a cop on the streets and he and John Ulianko are leaches sucking the life out of this agency. The Union, if they have any back bone should call for the removal of these two.

  ICY BALLS Posted November 5, 2009 6:46 PM
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  Am I correct that the FPS will be the largest component in NP&PD both by FTE and contracting dollars? Also the only uniformed personnel and armed and badged?

  Please do a comment on the NP&PD?

  William R. Cumming Posted November 5, 2009 11:32 AM
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  Nice move, now make sure FPS have and keep their original authority to enforce laws to protect the Federal workplace and things will be done better with better moral.

  George Davis Posted November 4, 2009 12:12 PM
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  Why do we need a separate dedicated FPS in the 1st place??? Let local police have jurisdiction since they are the only ones capable of conducting an investigation before and after any crime.

  dan m ketter Posted November 3, 2009 4:48 PM
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  It is too late to fix FPS. This outfit is doomed to flounder into oblivion. Those who say that it was not appropriately placed into ICE are only partially correct. The main problem with FPS is that it has no leadership and never has. The current Director and Deputy Director are so over their head and have no ability to truly articulate the facility protection mission due to their lack of experience. How these clowns got into these positions only speaks towards how the rest of ICE is run. That is where ICE failed FPS. FPS is a facility proteciton outfit with NO EXPERTISE in protecting facilities. Their personnel are poorly prepared for the core mission and their leadership is dreadfully unprepared to lead. Go figure.

  Clueless at FPS Posted November 2, 2009 1:19 PM
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  Why not start by firing the head of FPS instead of putting everyone on the typical government reorganization merry go round? The last several directors of FPS, to include the current director, were under performers who lacked the vision, leadership and ability to bring FPS into the post 9/11 security world. It doesn't matter what parent agency FPS belongs to. Agency performance starts with leadership. Poor performance will not be remedied by transferring the agency. Secondly, try increasing the standards and selection criteria within FPS. Most FPS Police are really nothing more than security guards filling government positions. They have few Police duties and even less Police experience. Reclassify them to what they really do: security duties. FPS should be returned to GSA. The problem is not what parent agency they belong to. FPS fought GSA because they had this image that they were cops and they did not want to belong to a service organization. They are still not cops, never will be and still perform more security than law enforcement. They have about as much real law enforcement duties and responsibilities as a traffic crossing guard. This is just like security screeners at the airport. Call them whatever you want, give them nice fancy uniforms, and badges. They are still security screeners who look in suitcases and check airline tickets. Its mindset, standards, accountability and leadership. All of which FPS has lacked and will continue to lack no matter what parent agency they are punted to.

  Doubting Thomas Posted October 31, 2009 10:53 AM
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  Next step to increase efficiency should be to take CBP/Office of Air and Marine (OAM), and put it directly under DHS. That way when we have another Hurricane Katrina, or a satellite falling to earth, the American people can expect assets to be properly re-located in a timely manner at the direction of DHS, and bypass getting Border Patrol's approval. OAM, touted as the world's largest civilian law enforcement agency, should support all of DHS at the direction of DHS, and not report to one component of DHS, meaning CBP, with further reporting to a different component within CBP. The current structure is non-sensical and defies common sense. How in the hell did we get there?

  Baffled Posted October 30, 2009 4:57 PM
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  Long overdue and about time. FPS never belonged in ICE in the first place. While they're at it, they should also address the artificial separation of uniformed officers and criminal investigators from Customs and INS into CBP and ICE, and combine them into one law enforcement agency. This would eliminate duplication of effort, increase efficiencies, consolidate administrative functions and systems, better enforce our customs and immigration laws, and save taxpayers a bundle.

  ICEd Posted October 30, 2009 11:59 AM
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  Perhaps guard services should be contracted for by GSA and charged for through the rent. FPS would still do the background investigations, training certifications and the like, but the actual procurement of the services move to GSA. This would link the cost of security to the tenant's space costs. Tenants will then be more careful about what they say they need since they will be paying for it directly.

  Doug Posted October 30, 2009 10:28 AM
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  Glad to see this improvement removing FPS out from ICE. All they need to do now is put Customs and Immigration back the way they used to be and bring the Inspectors back together with the Agents of each former respective agency instead of having them in entirely separate organizations.

  retired uscs Posted October 30, 2009 8:24 AM
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  Well they got it partly right. But the correcft effective decision would be to remove it from DHS altogether.

  Potato Man Posted October 29, 2009 2:03 PM