what is the organizational structure of dhs

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. Department of Human Services Organizational Chart. Established in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security was largely defined by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the response to those tragic events continues to shape the priorities and mission of the department today. Chief Information Officer - Steve Buche. All subordinate Components must abide by the organizational structure outlined herein. Troy A. Miller is the Acting Commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Altering an organization's structure requires careful planning, but it can prove the greatest driver of success. 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. These have included allegations of using department resources to target, discriminate against, and detain and deport immigrants of color.30 Despite the documented patterns of abuse, this has yet to be remedied by Congress.31 Other DHS components, such as HSI, have authorities that overlap with other federal investigative agenciesauthorities the department interprets very broadly. Moreover, a dedicated, proactive focus on helping the public may provide a useful shift in DHSs public perceptionsomething sorely needed after the enforcement-heavy reputation it acquired during the Trump administration. I&A should reduce or eliminate its efforts to provide strategic intelligence on counterterrorism trends that are well covered by other departments and agencies. Choosing to focus DHSs prevention efforts where it can make unique contributions does not compromise U.S. security but rather helps ensure that the federal response is well coordinated and not duplicative. A full list of supporters is available here. While DHS can contribute to efforts to thwart organized crime and bring criminal actors to justice, the DOJ should continue to serve as the lead federal agency for TOC. Alexandra Schmitt is a senior policy analyst on the National Security and International Policy team at the Center. Based on this study, CAP makes the following recommendations and guidelines for the administration and Congress to transform DHS into the safety and services department CAP proposes. Successive reform efforts and the use of DHS to advance partisan political objectives have led to sharp swings in the departments headquarters-level focus. 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. 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. Incident response is a role that DHS is well situated to lead, and by doing so, and doing so well, other federal agencies can leverage DHSs incident response capacity and avoid replication. DHS' most recent and updated organizational chart as of June 2022. Learn about our sister organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, an advocacy organization dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans. The departments founding mission to prevent another 9/11-style attack continues to influence its outsize focus on counterterrorismdespite the fact that DHSs ability to prevent terrorism is limited, and entities such as the FBI and NCTC are often in the lead statutorily. 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 In each of the cases outlined below, there is another federal agency or office charged with a similar or identical mission that is better equipped to fulfill it or the current tasks do not fit todays needs. 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. I&A reportedly compiled dossiers on journalists covering the 2020 protests in Oregon, under a theory of expanded intelligence activities that DHS lawyers argued were necessary to mitigate the significant threat to homeland security that such activites posed.21 DHS has also ramped up the collection and retention of expanded categories of records during customs and immigration processing, including the collection of data on U.S. persons. Operational and Support Components A list of all Operational and Support Components that make up DHS. Recent examples include DHSs yearslong battle with the DOJ over which agency has the lead for transnational organized crime; tensions with the FBI and the IC over foreign influence and election interference roles and responsibilities;57 turf battles over cybersecurity jurisdiction between DHSs CISA and the National Security Agency;58 and persistent questions about the focus and utility of DHSs intelligence unit. False and damaging disinformation about the security of the 2020 general election caused millions of Americans to question the election results and led to a violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. But viewing immigration law violations, which are often civil in nature, through a punitive lens has resulted in a heavy-handed approach at the border and in the interior. FEMA is comprised of: Headquarters in Washington, D.C. where the Office of the Administrator and various program offices are located. Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are increasingly common and could grind the U.S. economy and daily life to a halt if targeted toward the electrical grid or communications and internet services. He directs CBP's three core missions of counterterrorism, border security, and trade . Had these functions been merged under the BOP when the Obama administration announced that it would end the use of private prisons in DOJ facilities,81 it would have likely meant a similar end to some of the most problematic facilities in the immigration context as well.82. At the national level, DHSs attention and political emphasis is out of balance with many of todays most serious threats. While the study does not make specific recommendations on the structure of DHS, this report proposes a framework that has implications for restructuring and recommends the DHS secretary and Congress realign the components of DHS around that framework. Citizenship and Immigration Services align our organizational structure to achieve the greatest efficiency and accomplish our mission. 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. An official website of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. endstream endobj startxref DHS also plays a critical role in adjudicating immigration benefits and promoting naturalization, which are the primary functions of USCIS. Silva Mathema is the acting director of Immigration Policy at the Center. Budget - Tiffany Blair, Director. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, enacted in December 2004, established the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to lead intelligence integration across the 17 components that make up the U.S. intelligence community (IC). The authors further understand that merging the detention functionswhich are often civil rather than criminalwith the Bureau of Prisons could inadvertently add to the overcriminalization of immigration. In achieving this recalibration toward a safety and services model, the two biggest components of CBPthe Office of Field Operations (OFO), staffing ports of entry, and the Border Patrol, securing the border between portsshould be merged into one integrated entity focused on border management. A shift toward a more service-driven department that treats immigration as an asset to be managed rather than a crime to be enforced against would go a long way in building a rational border management apparatus that facilitates the secure, efficient movement of people and goods while also ensuring a humane approach toward refugees requesting protection under U.S. asylum laws. Another challenge that has affected DHS from the outsetand grew increasingly problematic during the Trump administrationis that it was given broad and at times unclear legal authorities that it has used in ways that have harmed the public it is supposed to serve. DHS' most recent and updated organizational chart as of June 2022. DHS also wastes energy vying over bureaucratic turf when it could be solving problems. It has also faced ongoing challenges with employee morale and developing a united organizational culture across its operational elements, each of which brought its separate history to DHS. There is also a need for a more empowered and proactive agency that shares cyberthreat intelligence between businesses and government agencies, with the aim of helping organizations quickly identify and mitigate potential cyberincursions. dataLayer.push({"event": "signup_submit", "form_detail":"enSubscribeSlideUp"}); DHSs role in countering terrorism and domestic extremism has never been clear or without controversy. var subscribe = document.getElementById('enSubscribeFooter'); CBP focuses on keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the United States while facilitating lawful travel and trade. And new findings reveal other factors hindering DHSs performance which have dramatically worsened over the past few years, pointing to additional challenges for DHS that should be addressed. The Hypothermia Alert will be ACTIVATED at 7 PM, Tuesday, February 28, 2023. . Though the independence of the DOJ and FBI has been tested in the pastduring the J. Edgar Hoover era at the FBI, for example, and across the DOJ during the past four yearsrich institutional memory supported by decades of oversight at these other law enforcement agencies has resulted in unambiguous statutory authorities and well-established norms that have helped these institutions withstand politicization and guide department behavior. 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. In 2017 and with overwhelming bipartisan support, the House of Representatives passed H.R. The organizational structure of, for example, a company is a system used to define its hierarchy. 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. Finally, I&A should develop intelligence from those partners to share with the rest of the IC, within the appropriate guardrails of civil liberties and privacy protections against stereotypes and biased profiling. 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. How has the departments mission changed since its creation? Despite consensus among policymakers that the department could be far more effective,7 there is little agreement on how to fix it. To avoid duplicating the leading role of the FBI and NCTC, DHS should reduce its investigative activities and narrow the focus of its counterterrorism intelligence analysis, as described more fully below. Organizational Structure Click on any block to visit that program office's web page. Eleven days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-Pennsylvania Gov. DHS currently protects 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose networks and systems are deemed crucial to U.S. national security, economic security, and public health and safety, such as the critical manufacturing, communications, and energy sectors.70 These needs will only increase as digital connectivity plays a growing role in daily American life, particularly as the pandemic has forced many to work from home and increased everyones dependence on internet access. DHS should narrow the scope of its prevention activities to focus its efforts where DHS has sole or unique responsibilities such as in lawful screening and vetting of travelers and goods that cross U.S. borders, countering disinformation, and funding research into evidence-based approaches to preventing extremism. DHS policy has expanded the categories of records collected to include social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results.22 DHS has also launched a new system, the Customs and Border Protection Intelligence Records System (CIRS), to aggregate immigration, law enforcement, national security, and publicly available dataincluding social mediain a central database.23. DHSs role should also be carefully calibrated to focus where the department is best positioned relative to other agencies, such as at the borders and ports of entry, and to enable effective information sharing with the other relevant federal players. DHS I&A has long focused diffusely, to the detriment of focusing more precisely where it can make unique contributions. Because it is not the originator of most of the threat information it obtains, it has a limited ability to unilaterally disclose that information to the public, even when it may desire to do so. 701 0 obj <>/Filter/FlateDecode/ID[<5EEF0153778AD54CAE0095CB4026917C>]/Index[696 19]/Info 695 0 R/Length 49/Prev 83899/Root 697 0 R/Size 715/Type/XRef/W[1 2 1]>>stream %%EOF DHS should invest in innovation and first-rate customer service approaches that allow the department to secure our air, land, and sea borders while providing a welcoming and dignified experience. In the absence of a clear and well-defined mission, DHS has too often tried to make itself a utility player on every issue, arguing that it has authorities and capabilities that others lack. (October 1, 1986), available at, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Pelosi Announces Agreement on Committee Jurisdiction Regarding Department of Homeland Security., Scott Shuchart, Building Meaningful Civil Rights and Liberties Oversight at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2019), available at. 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. There are 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any . Secretary Deputy Secretary Chief of Staff Immediate Office of the Secretary (IOS) Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs (IEA) Office of the Secretary Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration (ASA) 714 0 obj <>stream Chief Accountability Officer, Gary Kramer. Close collaboration with civil society groups will be key to ensuring these rights are respected. DHS regularly interacts withand collects information onAmericans and U.S. persons in the routine course of its duties. Elisa Massimino is a senior fellow with the National Security and International Policy team at at the Center. What America needs from DHS today, however, is different from when it was founded. In part because of the disparate nature of DHS authorizing and appropriating entities, Congress has never passed an authorization bill for the department. The TSAs Federal Air Marshal Service provides additional passenger safety on commercial passenger flights. }. CBP and the TSA are primarily focused on enabling the safe and secure movement of goods and people and have narrow law enforcement roles that enable these primary missions. The Biden administration should also work with Congress to significantly increase resources in future appropriations toward the secretarys front office to be more commensurate with the bureaucracys size and scope, ideally through reallocations within the existing budget. Even the Secret Service, which focuses largely on protecting elected leaders, plays an important role in ensuring public safety at National Special Security Events, playing a safety and services role that is critical to working with local communities across the nation on events of critical or high-visibility importance.78, In contrast, components such as the FPS and ICE are examples of DHS components that are primarily focused on enforcing federal laws and should not remain in a reimagined DHS. This initiative would be part of efforts to develop a pipeline of leaders, encourage creativity and innovation, and drive a cultural shift within the department toward its new service-oriented framework. CAP believes that DHS should take a broader view of what it means to keep the nation secure. Mara Rudman, Rudy deLeon, Joel Martinez, 5 More 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. An official website of the United States government. With appropriate oversight and respect for civil liberties, the department has tremendous potential to advance public safety and provide critical services. 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. Without such a mechanism, America lacks critical information on threats that could be mitigated, and the government is unable to enlist the capacity of American businesses and the American people in its threat response. ICE is charged with enforcing immigration laws and investigating the illegal movement of people and goods. Moving forward, DHS should ensure that all agencies charged with transportation security and infrastructure maintenanceincluding the TSA but also the Coast Guard and CBPare charged with delivering safety and security to customers and contributing to the nations economic prosperity. It has also warped the public perception of migrants as well as the political debate about immigration policy and has sidelined the service provider components of DHS which encompass the equally important mission of facilitating travel, trade, and administration of immigration benefits. 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. Who we serve The initiative should consider what changes might be needed in human capital and launch programs to realign the future workforce accordingly. Seizing the opportunity to bring DHSs purpose into focus and recalibrate the departments priorities could also result in a department that fills critical gaps in the current federal bureaucracy. As DHS approaches its 20-year mark, the United States has an opportunity to redefine the departments value proposition for the future and to better align DHSs structure and activities with its mission. ICE, which views itself as essential law enforcement partners,79 enforces immigration laws and combats transnational crime, a mission that overlaps with that of the DOJ. 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. Rudy deLeon is a senior fellow with the National Security and International Policy team at the Center. var onSuccessSubmitenSubscribeSlideUp = function() { This fractured structure makes it nearly impossible for DHS headquarters leaders to manage the department effectively or efficiently.36 CAP has joined the Atlantic Council and the CNAS in calling for consolidated oversight of DHS.37 In addition, six former secretaries and acting secretaries of homeland security recently signed a letter to congressional leadership calling for the House and Senate to consolidate congressional oversight of DHS in a single authorizing committeeas is done for other departments such as the Department of Defense.38 A more streamlined structure under one authorizing and one appropriating committeesuch as that governing the Pentagon post-Goldwater-Nichols reform, where oversight was centralized under the Armed Services committeeswould allow lawmakers to more effectively oversee the broad range of the departments activities and ensure they are properly balanced against the agencys overall priorities.39 The recent memorandum of understanding announced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a welcome step toward improving oversight coordination among the various committees that have jurisdiction over DHS, but more work is needed to centralize authority under the Committee on Homeland Security in the House and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in the Senate.40. Meanwhile, with few exceptions, DHS has not yet found its stride in the conduct of its core responsibilities. HW]o6}7@`s! An official website of the United States government. Organizational Chart See how the Department of Homeland Security and all of its component agencies are organized by exploring the Organizational Chart. Homeland Security Investigations. Contract Administration - Brian Bond, Director. USCG United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Critics offer competing ideas about the sources of DHSs challenges. DHS, primarily through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Coast Guard, is already the nations helper. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created nearly 20 years ago in response to catastrophic terrorist attacks on the United States. Sarnata Reynolds, Caroline Medina, Molly Weston Williamson, Rachael Eisenberg, Brandon Tucker, Hadi Sedigh. 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. 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. When disaster strikes, FEMA is oftenthough not often enoughthe nations first responder. Likewise, the merging of the OFO and the Border Patrol would help to ensure effective border management that does more to help border communities, businesses, families, visitors, and those seeking refuge here, even as it continues to ensure a secure border. Refocusing DHSs immigration activities on the provision of services to facilitate admission, with enforcement that supports that objective, will pay dividends for America by promoting family unity rather than family separation; ensuring American employers can more easily access a global workforce; enhancing the United States influence by streamlining access to the country for tourists and visitors from around the world; and restoring our identity as a generous nation that keeps the door open to those fleeing harm in their home countries. In this role, he leads more than 60,000 employees and ensures the advancement of the agency's mission, strategic objectives, and related Administration priorities. endstream endobj 700 0 obj <>stream 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.
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