Executive summary
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) was created closely 20 years ago in answer to catastrophic terrorist attacks on the United States. What America needs from DHS nowadays, however, is different from when it was founded. While the department still has an significant function to play in preventing attacks against the United States from overseas, it is time to refine the department ’ s mission and priorities to ensure that they fit current needs.
many of nowadays ’ s most serious threats to America ’ s safety and prosperity—natural disasters, pandemic disease, cyberattacks, and violent egg white supremacy—originate at home or are borderless by nature. In an era of increase motion of people and goods across borders, we need a DHS that prioritizes the rule of law, and one that protects all Americans adenine well as everyone who comes to live, study, study, travel, and seek base hit here .
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Despite consensus among policymakers that the department could be far more effective, 1 there is little agreement on how to fix it. public argue 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 DHS ’ randomness shortcomings is to hand it even more resources and responsibility. 3 Neither is the right choice .
The Center for American Progress believes that having a Cabinet agency such as DHS remains critical to the safety and wellbeing of Americans. With appropriate oversight and respect for civil liberties, the department has fantastic electric potential to advance public safety and provide critical services .
While the department will continue its efforts to protect, guarantee, prevent, and enforce, 4 CAP proposes a strategic transformation to a condom and services model for DHS that would bring the department ’ s existing responsibilities into libra and realign its priorities around five new core values : plug in, communicating, facilitating, welcoming, and helping. In recommending this chemise, CAP acknowledges that threats to Americans ’ safety and security will continue to require a solid and coordinated response from DHS. CAP besides recognizes that the base hit and services framework proposed will, in many areas, be enabled by the department ’ s terror management capabilities. But it is clock for DHS to focus on the missions and activities that it is uniquely capable of carrying out, and for which it, preferably than other agencies, is the natural lead. This means, for case, dialing up DHS ’ s stress on disaster relief and cybersecurity and dialing down its law enforcement focus, particularly where other politics agencies have or should have primary province. In line with this newfangled vision, CAP recommends that strictly fact-finding 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 .
To maximize its value and potency in today ’ sulfur environment, DHS should organize—and articulate its mission—around a balance specify of activities that prioritize safety and services roles more in full with DHS ’ s other protecting, securing, and defending roles DHS should dial up, or increase, its strategic concenter in the follow areas :
- Connecting: DHS should prioritize service and partnerships and invest in efforts to connect state, local, tribal, and territorial officials with federal resources and officials.
- Communicating: DHS should manage information sharing and public disclosures of intelligence between federal entities and their local counterparts through a leading role that would be a valuable public service.
- Facilitating: DHS should continue to facilitate lawful international trade and travel, ensure that U.S. transportation services are safe, and maintain U.S waterways and maritime resources.
- Welcoming: DHS should provide efficient and respectful service to aspiring citizens and other immigrants and emphasize its unique role in welcoming the people who immigrate to, visit, or seek refuge in the United States.
- Helping: DHS should expand its existing capacity on disaster relief and emergency management and invest in new, flexible headquarters and regional capabilities that can address a wide range of emergencies and situations.
DHS should dial down its strategic focus in the surveil areas, bringing them into balance with its other priorities :
- Protecting: DHS should coordinate cybersecurity and critical infrastructure to bridge the gap between public and privately owned infrastructure and ensure that federal protection efforts can effectively extend to all sectors across the country.
- Securing: DHS should maintain its core objective of securely, efficiently, and humanely managing our air, land, and maritime borders.
- Preventing: DHS should focus on the increasing prevalence of domestic challenges and borderless threats while maintaining its important role in preventing attacks against the United States at home and abroad.
- Enforcing: DHS should conduct a recalibration of its enforcement activities within broader department goals of safety and service and move law enforcement activities that are not aligned to this mission to other areas of the federal government that are better suited to these functions.
To make the subject for reform, this report first outlines the bequest of DHS ’ s hasty establish and how by attempts to reform DHS have failed to reorient the department away from a disproportionate focus on foreign threats. It then provides an analysis of DHS ’ south challenges, highlighting long-standing foundational problems, including where the department is lacking or not contributing. It besides identifies opportunities to reform the factors that hinder DHS from being maximally effective in providing value to the state. Next, the report reimagines what it means to keep America impregnable in nowadays ’ randomness universe and provides a newfangled framework for rebalancing the department ’ second focus toward new and emerging needs. It recommends that DHS adopt a new safety and services model, outlined above, that increases its emphasis on connect, communicating, facilitating, welcoming, and helping, while simultaneously recalibrating its focus on external threats by bringing its stress on protect, securing, preventing, and enforcing into better balance with its other priorities. last, this report proposes near- and longer-term steps that the current administration could take to realize this sight and deliver better prize for the american english people .
CAP’s study of the Department of Homeland Security
CAP conducted a qualitative study and revue of DHS informed by discussions with more than 35 stakeholders—including former and stream government officials, policy experts, and civil society members—from November 2020 to May 2021. CAP focused on first-order questions about DHS ’ s deputation and rate proposition and how that relates to the needs, challenges, and opportunities facing the nation nowadays. While the study does not make specific recommendations on the structure of DHS, this report proposes a model that has implications for restructure and recommends the DHS secretary and Congress realign the components of DHS around that model. The goal of this report is to provide a vision for what a revitalize DHS could achieve for Americans and those who visit or seek condom or opportunity here .
DHS has the potential to meet today ’ south consequence. There is no other department with DHS ’ south range of compromising authorities and unique capacity to respond to these issues and others that fall between the gaps of responsibilities of other federal departments and agencies. There is no other department better suited to coordinate effective federal emergency response ; convey threat information between the populace and individual sectors ; provide a work, humane approach to border management ; facilitate an incorporate cybersecurity and infrastructure capacity ; and implement effective approaches to counter the threats from domestic extremism fueled by white domination and the ascent of anti-government militia. And there is no early department with the mandate and chase record of playing a bridging role between country, local, tribal, and territorial officials and the federal government .
As then-nominee Alejandro Mayorkas argued in his confirmation hearing, DHS is and should be “ basically, a department of partnerships. ” 5 He is right. Going ahead, DHS should prioritize service and partnerships, connecting people in the United States to federal services that reflect american english values and are all-important to America ’ s shared prosperity. The department ’ s threat-oriented roles will, of course, remain, but this newfangled framework will help DHS realign its focus and priorities on those areas where it can be maximally effective and provide measure to the american people and those who live, study, exercise, locomotion, and seek condom here .
The solution
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 deputation of the department nowadays. Since its establish, there has been dogged confusion about DHS ’ second function a well as complaints about its structure, operations, and oversight. Observers across the political spectrum have argued that, in the rush to stand up a new department, disparate components of the federal bureaucracy were shoe-horned into DHS, with assorted results. 6 today ’ randomness DHS claims a character in most national security issues—and a number of issues that fall outside of national security—but there are few areas where DHS leads the politics ’ second reaction and even fewer where it does therefore well and without controversy .
Despite consensus among policymakers that the department could be far more effective, 7 there is little agreement on how to fix it. populace argument is split between those who call for the department, or parts of it, to be dismantled 8 and those who argue that DHS needs more resources and duty. 9 Both approaches miss the point. Abolishing DHS and returning its components to where they came from is neither politically feasible nor wise, and giving DHS more resources and responsibility without substantive changes will do fiddling to fix the department ’ s underlie problems. reform of the agency—and decisions about its future size and oscilloscope of responsibilities—should begin not with a catalogue of DHS ’ randomness deficiencies but preferably with an analysis of America ’ s fatherland security system needs. It is critical to consider the following questions : What should be the primary stress of the department ? What does DHS need to do, and what is better left to, or better done by, other departments and agencies ? How has the department ’ s mission changed since its creation ? And how can DHS provide value to the american people and those who visit or seek base hit or opportunity here ?
As DHS approaches its 20-year mark, the United States has an opportunity to redefine the department ’ s respect proposition for the future and to better align DHS ’ mho structure and activities with its mission. It is time to reimagine what it means to keep America safe, batten, and comfortable in nowadays ’ mho earth and to recalibrate the priorities of the department charged with doing indeed .
CAP believes that DHS should take a broader opinion of what it means to keep the state guarantee. At the national degree, DHS ’ s attention and political emphasis is out of balance with many of today ’ s most good threats. While the department hush has an authoritative role to play in preventing attacks against the United States from abroad, many of today ’ s most serious risks to America ’ s guard and prosperity—including natural disasters, pandemic disease, cyberattacks, and domestic extremism fueled by white supremacy—originate at family or are borderless by nature. These dangers will require DHS to step up its efforts in areas that have not been its primary focus, prioritizing its missions differently than it has over the by two decades. The department can no long fulfill its determination by focusing disproportionately on external terrorism and immigration enforcement and must understand that enforcement-overdrive has damaged critical relationships with communities and their leaders all across the country. 10
alternatively, DHS should strategically recalibrate its priorities around a guard and services mannequin preferably than a threat-oriented model—which, in its current embodiment, is primarily concerned with counterterrorism and immigration enforcement, with communities of color, immigrants, and refugees treated as threats. This rebalancing does not ignore or downplay the risks that threaten american security and prosperity ; preferably, it properly focuses DHS ’ randomness character on where it is positioned to be most effective rather than overlapping or duplicating the workplace of other federal agencies.
Rebalancing toward a base hit and services model requires bringing DHS ’ s activities into balance and ensuring they are not excessively focused on threat-oriented priorities .
Seizing the opportunity to reimagine what it means to keep America fasten and recalibrate DHS ’ sulfur priorities accordingly would enable the department to refocus its efforts in areas where it can add unique measure and ensure that the government fulfills its duty to guarantee the base hit, security, and prosperity of all Americans and those who come to live, study, shape, travel, and seek safety here .
Background: The aftermath of 9/11 and the legacy of DHS’s hasty founding
Eleven days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge ( R ) was appointed to be the beginning conductor 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 union politics could better ensure the safety of Americans with a strong fatherland security council managed by the White House, he later transmitted his department marriage proposal to the U.S. House of Representatives on June 18, 2002 ; one of the most determine early proponents of the department was Joe Lieberman, then a democratic senator from Connecticut. The House approved the master beak on July 26, but the Senate was slower to consider the legislation due to partisan legal power claims, parliamentary factors, and the calculation of a few highly contentious issues. 12 It was not until after the November 2002 elections that Congress reconvened and passed a compromise charge .
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 fatherland. Soon thereafter, Congress besides put the wheels in movement to stand up a newfangled center for countering terrorism. 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 consolidation across the 17 components that make up the U.S. news community ( IC ). together, these efforts produced the most significant politics reorganization since the National Security Act of 1947 .
In the 20 years since it was established, DHS has become the largest federal law enforcement agency in the government, with more than 240,000 employees—more than doubly the size of the U.S. Department of Justice ( DOJ ), the tip department charged with law enforcement activities. 13 DHS ’ mho budget has besides more than doubled in size since its establish, from roughly $ 30 billion in fiscal year 2004 to more than $ 64 billion in FY 2018—not counting disaster relief funds, which vary depending on emergencies that happen each class. Including catastrophe easing, DHS ’ s budget was more than $ 88 billion end fiscal year—triple its size 20 years ago and about triple the DOJ ’ second annual budget of $ 32.4 billion concluding class. 14
The master legislation that created DHS tasked the newfangled agency with seven primary missions, about all of which associate to counterterrorism :
- Preventing a terrorist attack within the United States
- Reducing the United States’ vulnerability to terrorism
- Minimizing the damage and assisting in the recovery from terrorist attacks that do occur within the United States
- Carrying out all functions of entities transferred to the department, including responding to natural and human-made disasters
- Ensuring that missions related to homeland security are fulfilled
- Ensuring that such activities do not affect the overall economic security of the United States
- Monitoring connections between illegal drug trafficking and terrorism15
The original government proposal in June 2002 to create DHS proposed a “ clear and effective organizational structure ” with four divisions : frame and exile security ; hand brake and readiness response ; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasures ; and data analysis and infrastructure protection. 16 By the time it came into universe, however, the original agencies and different components of the federal politics brought together under the DHS umbrella represented a much broader crop of activities. 17
Congress has repeatedly attempted to guide DHS and shape the prioritization of its missions but has achieved short success. In part because of the disparate nature of DHS authorizing and appropriating entities, Congress has never passed an authority poster for the department. In 2017 and with overpowering bipartisan support, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2825, the Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act of 2017, which sought to reauthorize DHS for the first meter since its creation. 18 More recently in 2020, respective House Democrats introduced H.R. 8719, the DHS Reform Act of 2020, in reception to perceive abuses of DHS ’ south authorities during the Trump administration. 19 Congress never passed either poster, however, and congressional oversight remains divided and largely ineffective at setting overall priorities for the department .
DHS ’ south complicated world wide web of roles and responsibilities besides means that it plays a supporting function about everywhere but rarely leads. The department ’ s founding mission to prevent another 9/11-style attack continues to influence its outsize focus on counterterrorism—despite the fact that DHS ’ s ability to prevent terrorism is limited, and entities such as the FBI and NCTC are often in the lead statutorily. The dominating focus on counterterrorism comes at the expense of other activities that DHS is uniquely positioned to execute among union agencies such as providing efficient, safe, and respectful immigration services ; facilitating international trade and change of location ; serving as the nation ’ south gamble adviser for critical infrastructure ; and proactively responding to disasters that do not fall within the missions of other parts of the union bureaucracy .
DHS’s intelligence apparatus: A muddled mission meets expansive authorities
As separate of reform efforts in 2006 after DHS ’ s failed response to Hurricane Katrina, the Office of Intelligence and Analysis ( I & A ) was established as an intelligence entity within DHS that would inform department operations and connect it to early union intelligence efforts. A member of the IC, it is charged statutorily with delivering news to state, local anesthetic, tribal, and territorial officials, ampere well as private sector partners, and with developing news from those partners for DHS and the IC. 20 The under secretary of I & A is besides the foreman intelligence officer of the department, overseeing the news activities of the respective DHS component agencies .
DHS intelligence activities, at one time derided as being uncoordinated and duplicative of function being done elsewhere, have more recently raised concerns that DHS was acting beyond its already broad authorities. The addled intelligence deputation and an expansive set of authorities present a worrying combination that has led to abusive activities and human rights violations. I & A reportedly compiled dossiers on journalists covering the 2020 protests in Oregon, under a hypothesis of elaborate intelligence activities that DHS lawyers argued were “ necessity to mitigate the significant threat to homeland security ” that such activites posed. 21 DHS has besides ramped up the collection and retentiveness of expand categories of records during customs and immigration process, including the collection of data on U.S. persons. DHS policy has expanded the categories of records collected to include “ social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable data, and search results. ” 22 DHS has besides launched a newfangled system, the Customs and Border Protection Intelligence Records System ( CIRS ), to aggregate immigration, law enforcement, national security, and publicly available data—including social media—in a central database. 23
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 nationally and is now one of the largest federal fact-finding agencies within the U.S. government. 24 HSI claims broad legal authority to investigate a wide-eyed rate 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. Despite maintaining an intelligence records system and roll up, aggregating, and storing information on millions of individuals, including U.S. persons, HSI is not an intelligence agency. 25 Yet it is collecting, analyzing, and storing information in ways that have previously been the exclusive domain of the IC .
Establishing a net, narrowly tailor intelligence mission for DHS would help ensure that DHS ’ s intelligence activities are lawful and utilitarian, are shaped to achieve congressionally authorized goals, and are not violating the rights of—or being used to unfairly target—marginalized or at-risk populations. DHS is full suited to collect information that other agencies can not, chiefly at ports of submission, and use that data for intelligence purposes. And with a clear intelligence mission, DHS can redouble its efforts as originally envisioned to facilitate the communication of terror information between the federal politics, express and local authorities, and the secret sector, while besides ensuring that its intelligence activities are not beyond the oscilloscope of its authorities or excess to activities conducted by early intelligence agencies .
Diagnosing DHS: Foundational problems, unfulfilled needs, and study findings
Critics offer competing ideas about the sources of DHS ’ south challenges. Some believe that long-standing foundational problems have inhibited DHS ’ randomness potency as its missions and focus have expanded and morphed. Others believe DHS is absent today and falls short-circuit in serving Americans ’ condom and security system needs. And newfangled findings reveal other factors hindering DHS ’ sulfur performance which have dramatically worsened over the by few years, pointing to extra challenges for DHS that should be addressed .
Foundational problems
Since the creation of DHS, challenges related to the foundations of the department and its operations have inhibited its performance. Understanding these foundational issues and why they have not been effectively addressed is critical to articulating a new vision for DHS—one that focuses headquarters ’ limited attention on the properly set of priorities .
Persistent confusion about DHS’s shifting and reactive priorities
consecutive reform efforts and the consumption of DHS to advance partisan political objectives have led to sharp swings in the department ’ s headquarters-level focus. These efforts have been at some times political and at other times reactive rather than grounded in a clear articulation of DHS ’ s character within the federal bureaucracy. After the department ’ s abysmal reaction to Hurricane Katrina, reformers pushed for DHS to take an “ all hazards ” approach path and develop capacities and capabilities to respond to a wide range of likely disasters. 26 then, after the fail bombard try on a trajectory to Detroit on Christmas in 2009, the department shifted again to double down on terrorism prevention as “ the cornerstone of fatherland security system. ” 27 More recently, the Trump government radically reoriented DHS ’ mho stress toward the southerly margin and interior enforcement, shifting the headquarters-level focus toward immigration enforcement and exile and diverting resources toward President Donald Trump ’ s ill-conceived molding wall. 28 far from clarifying the department ’ sulfur role and priorities, these swings have left the department fatigued and ailing aligned with any overarching strategic finish .
A politicized department with few institutional guardrails
The combination of DHS ’ s hasty establish, its expansive authorities, and its at once decentralized nature and even lack of institutional independence from the executive arm has left the department susceptible to presidents using DHS and its expansive authorities for political purposes. Compared with executive ramify agencies with longer histories and institutional protections and norms—such as the DOJ, founded in 1870, or the FBI, founded in 1908—DHS lacks a history and polish of independence from political influence. Though the independence of the DOJ and FBI has been tested in the past—during the J. Edgar Hoover era at the FBI, for example, and across the DOJ during the past four years—rich institutional memory supported by decades of supervision at these other law enforcement agencies has resulted in unequivocal statutory authorities and well-established norms that have helped these institutions withstand politicization and guide department behavior. DHS lacks those bureaucratic guardrails, and the consequences of weak constraints on DHS became particularly clear during the Trump administration .
Overly broad authorities and harmful overreach
Another challenge that has affected DHS from the outset—and grew increasingly debatable during the Trump administration—is that it was given broad and at times unclear legal authorities that it has used in ways that have harmed the populace it is supposed to serve. DHS has used its authorities in ways that have eroded already faint trust among swaths of the american population, particularly among marginalize communities. Most notably, DHS ’ s vetting activities—including the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System ( NSEERS ), viewed by many as a Muslim register 29 —have faced dogged claims of religious and racial bias. These have included allegations of using department resources to target, discriminate against, and stay and expatriate immigrants of color. 30 Despite the document patterns of mistreat, this has even to be remedied by Congress. 31 other DHS components, such as HSI, have authorities that overlap with early federal fact-finding agencies—authorities the department interprets identical broadly. Carrie Cordero from the Center for a New american english Security ( CNAS ) has written extensively on the want for enhance supervision and accountability to address the growth in size and telescope of DHS ’ south activities. 32 As Cordero argued, there is a dogged mismatch between DHS ’ s foundational statutory mission and its daily operations. In besides many instances, DHS has pursued policies absent an joint legal initiation, with black results, including : DHS personnel acting as domestic law enforcement in response to peaceful protests in Portland, Oregon ; ICE arresting a survivor of domestic abuse seeking a protective holy order in a courthouse ; and the U.S. Border Patrol stopping a 10-year-old girlfriend in an ambulance on her way to emergency surgery. 33 Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ), have documented good abuses and overreach by DHS officials, particularly at U.S. borders and in immigration enforcement operations. 34 It is difficult to overstate the harm that the Border Patrol and ICE have caused to relationships with communities and local officials across the state. 35
Oversight is constrained and disorganized
About 90 committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction over DHS ’ sulfur design, policies, and budgets—each focused on a small part of the department rather than the entire fatherland security operational matrix. This fracture structure makes it closely impossible for DHS headquarters leaders to manage the department efficaciously or efficiently. 36 CAP has joined the Atlantic Council and the CNAS in calling for amalgamate oversight of DHS. 37 In addition, six former secretaries and acting secretaries of fatherland security system recently signed a letter to congressional leadership calling for the House and Senate to consolidate congressional supervision of DHS in a single empower committee—as is done for other departments such as the Department of Defense. 38 A more streamline structure under one empower and one appropriating committee—such as that governing the Pentagon post-Goldwater-Nichols reform, where oversight was centralized under the Armed Services committees—would allow lawmakers to more effectively oversee the broad range of the department ’ second activities and ensure they are properly balanced against the agency ’ second overall priorities. 39 The recent memo of understanding announced by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a welcome measure toward improving oversight coordination among the assorted 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
A weak and decentralized secretary’s office
The organizational chart for DHS suggests that the repository and deputy secretary are responsible for overseeing 23 separate agency and agencies ranging in size from the Office of Public Affairs to the stallion U.S. Coast Guard to the Transportation Security Administration ( TSA ), which has 65,000 employees. 41 Yet the resources for the secretary of DHS pale in comparison to those of early federal agencies : The State Department ’ s Office of the Secretary had some $ 57 million for FY 2019 and 75 employees to oversee a bureaucracy of 70,000 personnel while DHS ’ second had merely $ 19 million for FY 2018 and 68 employees for a bureaucracy of 240,000. 42 Studies by the Atlantic Council and the CNAS recently proposed the creation of an companion secretary position to improve coordination and management at the highest levels of the department. 43 While more bureaucracy is not constantly the answer, the current secretary ’ second office does not have the personnel, resources, or assurance to efficaciously lead a department of DHS ’ s size today .
Low employee morale and a demoralized workforce
DHS besides suffers from gloomy employee esprit de corps and poor satisfaction among its work force : It ranked dead last among U.S. federal agencies in the most holocene sketch conducted by the Partnership for Public Service and has systematically been at the bed of the list since 2010. 44 While there are many reasons for low employee morale at DHS, the work force culture is specially toxic within sealed agencies that have excessively politicized activities. 45 ICE and the Border Patrol under the Trump government, for exemplar, focused on maximizing arrests and deportations with few limits on the targets for enforcement actions or the methods they would employ—the clearest exemplar being the Trump government ’ s barbarous family separation policy. 46 Personnel asked to pursue these political objectives—most of whom are career public servants—have been required to perform deeply unpopular enforcement tasks that have not advanced sensible law enforcement or public guard priorities and have subjected them to sharp public criticism.
Unfulfilled needs: Where DHS is missing in action today
Recognizing the challenges DHS faces, the department remains critical to the safety and wellbeing of many. But the stream DHS operate emphasis precludes its effectiveness in squarely meeting this central mission or fulfilling unmet needs today .
A leading federal emergency response system
federal emergencies will continue to pose significant threats to Americans and their way of life. natural disaster-related losses—human, ecosystem, and economic—will become more frequent and catastrophic due to climate deepen. Pandemics can uproot daily biography and economic security when border-screening measures fail to halt early transmission. The United States needs a proactive emergency readiness and resilience capacity and a flexible and able reception system that can respond to a wide roll of emergencies cursorily and efficiently. Whether leading the federal reply or coordinating other federal players, local governments, and nongovernmental organizations, the United States needs an agency charged with emergency readiness and answer capabilities that serves as the run coordinator of U.S. politics emergency readiness and response efforts on the across-the-board crop of emergencies that affect the nation .
A better way of communicating threat information to and from the public and private sectors
The politics ’ s current mechanisms for communicating threat data to the populace and private sectors are inadequate. In a world where the populace and secret sectors must take independent carry through to ensure America ’ s condom and security, the government needs a trust, effective mechanism to communicate menace information, including intelligence information, with the public and private sectors and between different levels of state, local, and federal government officials. Without such a mechanism, America lacks critical information on threats that could be mitigated, and the politics is unable to enlist the capacity of american businesses and the american people in its threat answer. DHS already plays an authoritative function connecting federal entities and officials to their department of state, local, tribal, and territorial counterparts and has had success coordinating security and resilience efforts across the private and public sectors through Joint Terrorism Task Forces and other mechanisms. But there is no representation that presently leads the union government ’ south efforts at the national level to partake data, preach for greater government transparency, or develop new communications capacities that add value to the american people. At the same time, there is a clear want for strengthen protections and safeguards for civil liberties and privacy to prevent abuses—such as those DHS has committed in the past—whereby religious, racial, ethnic, and migrant communities are disproportionately moved or targeted by such threat-sharing. Without strengthen protections and an ethos committed to protecting all Americans equally, such share may do more damage than effective .
A fair, workable, and humane approach to border management
Factors such as devastating hurricanes and droughts due to climate change, political unrest, and gang violence, particularly in central american english countries, have translated to a high number of migrants, including bombastic numbers of families and unaccompanied children, seeking refuge in the United States. 47 Over the past several decades, every administration has struggled to manage this flow, and Congress ’ failure to create a feasible legal immigration system has turned refuge into the lone feasible avenue. During the Trump presidency, however, the focus of DHS shifted squarely toward heavy-handed enforcement designed to terminate access to the area for asylum-seekers. 48 The Biden administration has taken a different approach to border management and is beginning to reverse policies and repair the damage made to the immigration and mental hospital systems during the Trump administration. 49 however, many challenges persist and demonstrate the need for a reorientation of cultural norms at DHS. A change in policies alone will not achieve the goal of building a fair, humanist, and feasible immigration system. 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 direction in building a rational margin management apparatus that facilitates the fasten, effective drift of people and goods while besides ensuring a humane approach toward refugees requesting protective covering under U.S. refuge laws .
A truly integrated cyber and critical infrastructure capacity
Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure are increasingly coarse and could grind the U.S. economy and casual life to a stop if targeted toward the electric power system or communications and internet services. The recent SolarWinds chop affected an estimated 18,000 government and private computers at the departments of Justice, State, Treasury, Energy, and Commerce—an alarming national security attack perpetrated by the russian government. 50 One of the noteworthy successes from the Trump administration ’ s DHS was that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ( CISA ) carved out a clear and useful function for itself as “ the Nation ’ s gamble adviser, working with partners to defend against today ’ sulfur threats and collaborating to build more fasten and resilient infrastructure for the future. ” 51 There is a clear necessitate for farther developing the U.S. response by expanding the indicators and mechanisms for sharing cyberthreat information. There is besides a need for a more empowered and proactive representation that shares cyberthreat intelligence between businesses and government agencies, with the target of helping organizations quickly identify and mitigate likely cyberincursions .
An effective response to domestic violent extremism largely fueled by white supremacy and the rise of anti-government militias
Threats from domestic crimson extremism are quickly growing in the United States and endanger our means of life, our values, and our majority rule. 52 CAP has called for a hard, coordinated reply that marshals the weight of the federal politics and uses the right tools, developed using fact-based testify, to reduce the likelihood of violent attacks before they occur. 53 While federal efforts to respond to domestic violent extremism primarily fall within the FBI ’ s authority, and because there are potent arguments that some prevention efforts would be better housed in the departments of Education or Health and Human Services, there is no agency charged with taking the conduct in countering disinformation, coordinating federal grantmaking programs to promote resilience ( along with the DOJ ’ mho Office of Justice Programs ), and providing support for risk-based prevention responses. At the same time, past mistakes in prevention-based programs have been good documented, and a more proactive government approach must carefully consider potential risks to civil rights and liberties when designing programs to counter violent extremism of any ideological bent. 54
A core mission focused on protecting civil liberties and privacy
DHS regularly interacts with—and collects information on—Americans and U.S. persons in the routine course of its duties. It screens and vets travelers, interacts with asylum-seekers and aspiring citizens, provides hand brake subscribe during natural and human-made disasters, and performs certain jurisprudence enforcement functions—each of which results in the collection and retentiveness of information on U.S. persons. DHS has a responsibility to safeguard the information it acquires and to protect the civil liberties and privacy of U.S. persons—and all persons—when permitting the use of that information for other purposes. Beyond the information the department collects and retains, DHS besides has an important role to play in safeguarding the security of personal or individual information from malicious cyberactors and foreign governments. Establishing the protection of civil liberties and privacy as a core DHS deputation would fill a critical gap in executive branch roles that is not presently being comprehensively addressed by other departments and agencies .
Transforming DHS: Recalibrating DHS’s headquarters-level priorities to meet today’s needs
DHS should take a broader view of what it means to keep the nation procure and adapt its deputation and activities accordingly. DHS must recognize that many good challenges to America ’ s safety and security originate at home or are largely borderless by nature. Going forward, DHS should reorganize its activities around roles in connect, communicating, facilitating, welcoming, and helping—in addition to a recalibrated role for protecting, securing, preventing, and enforcing. DHS should prioritize service and partnerships, connecting people in the United States to union services and providing value to the american people and those who live, study, employment, travel, or seek base hit here .
Seizing the opportunity to bring DHS ’ s function into concentrate and recalibrate the department ’ randomness priorities could besides result in a department that fills critical gaps in the current union bureaucracy. DHS should prioritize efforts where it can add value, paying special attention to those needs that, in nowadays ’ s federal government, DHS is well positioned to meet. This will besides help reduce DHS ’ s engagement in activities better left to other union agencies that have more appropriate authorities, experience, and workforces, while ensuring that America ’ sulfur security system needs continue to be addressed by the federal government .
The opportunity: How recalibrating DHS’s activities allows the department to provide value
Understanding the opportunities DHS has today is critical to transforming the representation to better meet unfulfilled needs around Americans ’ safety and security, to address the issues that emerged or significantly worsened during the by four years, and to focus care on the right field jell of priorities for the department going forward. Recalibrating DHS ’ mho activities to fit the safety and services model, consistent with acknowledging and addressing threats that impede safety and services, would create space for a fresh sight for DHS .
DHS could increase its capacity to respond to today’s most pressing threats
consecutive administrations have continued to interpret DHS ’ s deputation as chiefly focused on protecting the fatherland from threats from afield. As a resultant role, DHS has not invested in building its capacity to respond to borderless threats, such as natural disasters and cyberattacks against government enterprises, and those, such as the growing threat from white supremacist ferocity, that originate within U.S. borders. Looking ahead, it is easily to imagine threats to Americans ’ economic security or food supply that DHS could help to solve through its critical infrastructure and emergency reception capabilities, were it determined to do thus. DHS should play a leadership character in responding to all emergencies that threaten the safety and security of Americans, evening when the response will rely heavily upon expertness housed in other federal departments—such as the Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) expertness that is critical to the pandemic response—or at the state level. In cases where limited expertness is required, DHS can serve as an emergency reception quarterback, identifying resources and making them available to the departments and agencies that need them. Moving advancing, DHS has an opportunity to focus on the most pressing threats, including domestic and borderless threats in summation to ongoing ball-shaped threats, and to hone the department ’ s capacity to serve as the emergency answer quarterback for a broader set of national emergencies.
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DHS could focus on where it the best-suited agency to act and lead
As is apparent from a quick glance at a DHS organizational chart, the department is involved in a across-the-board range of activities and coordinates a massive work force of more than 240,000 federal employees. 55 In the 20 years since it was founded, DHS ’ s broad authorities and curtly attention span have led to deputation fawn, 56 with DHS assuming newfangled missions and creating new programs that are untethered to any overarching strategic finish. meanwhile, with few exceptions, DHS has not so far found its pace in the conduct of its core responsibilities. Some of these include protecting critical infrastructure, including electricity and election security ; administering citizenship and immigration services ; and countering terrorism. DHS besides wastes energy vying over bureaucratic turf when it could be solving problems. late examples include DHS ’ randomness yearslong battle with the DOJ over which agency has the lead for multinational organized crime ; tensions with the FBI and the IC over alien influence and election interference roles and responsibilities ; 57 turf battles over cybersecurity jurisdiction between DHS ’ s CISA and the National Security Agency ; 58 and haunting questions about the focus and utility of DHS ’ s intelligence unit. In the absence of a clear and well-defined deputation, DHS has excessively frequently try on to make itself a utility player on every issue, arguing that it has authorities and capabilities that others lack. interim, DHS is missing opportunities to meet needs that other departments and agencies can not and opportunities to lead where DHS ’ s singular strengths would be maximally effective in solving problems. Going forward, DHS has an opportunity to focus its attention in areas where it is the natural leader, where it is not duplicating efforts, and where it does not face bureaucratic headwinds so that it can devote care to solving problems at the heart of America ’ s safety and security needs .
DHS’s workforce can better align with its needs and primary mission
Hiring surges in the DHS workforce—including recently during the Trump administration ’ s expansion of the law enforcement officeholder ranks—have led to significant work force growth at DHS in a inadequate time period of time. 59 In some cases, this emergence was accompanied by inadequate timbre control in rent : Investigations following lease surges in ICE and Customs and Border Protection ( CBP ) have shown that following these large influxes of new hires, cases of corruption and misbehave spiked. 60 Going forward, DHS has the opportunity to better align its human das kapital to meet current needs. DHS officials should conduct a human capital needs appraisal, properly screen individuals with ties to extremist groups, and ensure department personnel receive adequate coach before they are sent into the field .
A framework for a redefined DHS
To maximize its prize and effectiveness in today ’ randomness environment, DHS should organize—and articulate its mission—around connect, communicating, facilitating, welcoming, and helping, in addition to protecting, securing, preventing, and enforcing .
Toward safety and services: Dial up DHS’s focus on the following five priorities
Connecting: Invest in efforts to connect state, local, tribal, and territorial officials with federal resources and officials
DHS already plays a pivotal function in connecting nonfederal officials with their counterparts in the federal system and serves as the chief connection between state, local, tribal, and territorial officials and the federal government and its resources, american samoa well as between the private and populace sectors, including civil society organizations. By investing in its function to connect with federal, country, and local partners and with the private sector and civil club, DHS can add singular measure to the nation, managing risk while besides ensuring economic prosperity and uphold american values. At the lapp prison term, DHS must do a better job of ensuring that its programs are not discriminatory and including serious guardrails for civil liberties to prevent bias-based activities, such as its by target of Muslims and other communities of color. close collaboration with civil society groups will be key to ensuring these rights are respected .
Connecting in action
CISA is one of DHS ’ s most visible achiever stories. Working as “ the Nation ’ mho risk adviser, ” the CISA partners with the secret and public sectors to defend against threats and build more guarantee 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. That might mean proactively engaging with american businesses, aboard CBP, to inform efforts to improve the movement of goods and people across borders or refining immigration services so that processes dignify and welcome those who seek to invest their talents here. It might mean working with public and individual sector stakeholders to deliver better information about risks to critical infrastructure. Or it might mean partnering with engineering companies to thwart domestic extremist messaging on on-line platforms. In these and early areas, DHS should lead the federal government ’ south efforts to connect nonfederal officials with their counterparts in the union politics and should use those relationships to advance guard and security .
Communicating: Lead the federal government’s efforts to communicate threat information to the public
DHS has an uneven role in communicating threat information to the public. Because it is not the originator of most of the terror information it obtains, it has a specify ability to unilaterally disclose that data to the public, even when it may desire to do therefore. An expanded role for DHS in managing information share and public disclosures of news between union entities and their local counterparts would be a valuable public service and enhance DHS ’ south role as a communicator. DHS could become the lead for communicating threat information to the public, such as intelligence on threats to critical infrastructure, and could expand its capacity to work with police enforcement and intelligence agencies to appropriately protect sensitive intelligence while disclosing information necessary to enlist the secret sector and the american people in protecting the nation. DHS could besides play an important function in countering disinformation in partnership with the State Department ’ s Global Engagement Center. With the State Department focused on messaging abroad, DHS could play the spark advance for countering disinformation domestically. This would require newfangled interpretations on stream legal constraints in this area, 62 close collaboration with civil society groups to ensure communications do not violate civil rights and liberties or unfairly aim vulnerable communities, angstrom good as a more amplify function for the officer of civil rights and civil liberties. ( see p. 23 )
Communicating in action
False and damaging disinformation about the security system of the 2020 cosmopolitan election caused millions of Americans to question the election results and led to a violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Despite being hamstring by political leaders, some DHS officials however publicly reassured the nation that there was “ no testify any foreign adversary was able of preventing Americans from voting or changing vote tallies. ” 63 such steps were critical to maintaining credibility in the elections. In the future, DHS should continue to play a growing role in communicating with the american english public about threats, dispelling disinformation, and serving as a reliable informant of information. In doing sol, DHS can uniquely enlist the individual sector and the american english people in protecting the state.
Facilitating: Secure and facilitate economic services and the lawful movement of commerce, travel, and people
DHS should continue to facilitate lawful international trade and travel, ensure that U.S. transportation services are safe, and maintain U.S waterways and nautical resources. Moving forward, DHS should ensure that all agencies charged with transportation security and infrastructure maintenance—including the TSA but besides the Coast Guard and CBP—are charged with delivering safety and security to customers and contributing to the nation ’ s economic prosperity. This includes boundary line management issues, where the concenter should be more on facilitate safe and batten travel and commerce to ensure that businesses get the goods and workers they need, visitors are able to travel safely and efficiently, and families can be reunited more cursorily. DHS should invest in invention and first-rate customer service approaches that allow the department to secure our air out, down, and ocean borders while providing a welcome and dignified experience .
Facilitating in action
DHS ’ sulfur 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. DHS ’ s development of programs that facilitate customer interactions—such as TSA Precheck and Global Entry, which facilitate flying screen at airports for U.S. domestic and external flights—are innovations that provide better services and security. 64 The department must besides intelligibly delimit its own exponent over travelers, visitors, and residents by prohibiting implementation of past baffling programs such as the NSEERS and Secure Communities. 65
Welcoming: Provide efficient and respectful service to aspiring citizens and other immigrants
To put America on the strongest foundation garment, DHS should emphasize its unique character in welcoming the people who visit, immigrate to, or seek refuge in the United States. First, DHS should adopt a service-oriented access to citizenship and immigration services that is welcoming to immigrants and the U.S. citizens and residents hoping to sponsor them. It should besides prioritize reducing the backlog of visa applications accumulated under the Trump government. 66 Focusing on these aspects will provide value to U.S. citizens, visitors, those who seek to become Americans, those who want to reunite with family members, and the businesses that rely on these individuals to help the U.S. economy mature. Second, DHS should recalibrate its activities at the frame to emphasize efficient and impregnable management of the stream of goods and people while welcoming asylum-seekers with a condom, legal, and orderly work for them to seek recourse in America ; to rehabilitate its relationships in boundary line communities ; and to work to create a vibrant surround region. 67
Welcoming in action
Refocusing DHS ’ s immigration activities on the provision of services to facilitate entrance fee, with enforcement that supports that aim, will pay dividends for America by promoting family integrity rather than family separation ; ensuring american english employers can more easily access a ball-shaped work force ; enhancing the United States ’ influence by streamlining access to the state for tourists and visitors from around the populace ; and restoring our identity as a generous nation that keeps the door overt to those fleeing injury in their home countries. Recognizing that screening remains a key condom part, a better-managed system would increase the capacity of DHS to process and screen door applicants for class, employment, and visitor visa ; to reduce march time and delays ; and to provide more reliable and dignified services. A better-managed organization would besides plan for shifting flows of migrants and asylum-seekers at the border, anticipate the infrastructure needed to safely and humanely process and screen them, and cultivate a welcoming culture of front-line service agents .
Helping: Be the go-to source for disaster relief and emergency management
DHS besides has a traditional function in calamity respite services that should be expanded. DHS should work toward expanding existing capacitance and investing in new, compromising headquarters and regional capabilities that can address a wide compass of emergencies and situations. Incident reply is a function that DHS is well situated to lead, and by doing so, and doing so well, early federal agencies can leverage DHS ’ s incident reception capacity and debar replication. By in full realizing the function envisioned for the secretary of DHS in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5—enhancing the ability of the United States to manage domestic incidents by establishing a unmarried comprehensive examination national incidental management system 68 —as the chief federal official for domestic incident management, DHS can serve as a force multiplier for the perch of the federal government and use its institutional memory to improve America ’ s resilience to anything that humankind or nature throws its manner .
Helping in action
DHS, chiefly through the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( FEMA ) and the Coast Guard, is already the state ’ s benefactor. When catastrophe strikes, FEMA is often—though not often enough—the nation ’ sulfur beginning respondent. As extreme weather events and changing environments become more common, DHS should quarterback incident reception, leading coordination with country and local anesthetic officials, leveraging its flexible and responsive capabilities, and drawing on capacitance within early union departments and agencies. This approach should apply for other national incidents and emergencies equally well. This helping mission would besides naturally equip with DHS ’ s existing character as a connection between union resources and country and local authorities, which must work closely together during calamity management response and easing efforts. furthermore, a dedicated, proactive concentrate on helping the public may provide a utilitarian shift in DHS ’ s populace perception—something sorely needed after the enforcement-heavy reputation it acquired during the Trump administration. 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
Recalibrate DHS’s focus on the following four threat-oriented priorities
Protecting: Coordinate cybersecurity and critical infrastructure
nowadays ’ mho digital environment means that our critical infrastructure is more get in touch and more subject on functioning cybersecurity than always. DHS presently protects 16 critical infrastructure sectors whose networks and systems are deemed crucial to U.S. national security, economic security, and populace health and safety, such as the critical fabrication, communications, and energy sectors. 70 These needs will only increase as digital connectivity plays a growing role in daily american english life, peculiarly as the pandemic has forced many to work from home and increased everyone ’ sulfur addiction on internet access. Cybersecurity now demands a whole-of-government solution to protect national security, critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and medium personal data. Given these demands, DHS will be relied upon to bridge the gap between public and privately owned infrastructure and ensure that federal protection efforts can efficaciously extend to all sectors and are executed with strong civil liberties and privacy protections in position. DHS ’ s enhanced cybersecurity coordination character would need to be submit to rigorous transparency and oversight .
Protecting in action
DHS could have played a larger role in responding to the dangerous winter storms that crippled the electric grid in Texas in early 2021. FEMA declared an hand brake and allowed Texans to apply for federal aid for storm convalescence, 71 but a more proactive response—with better cooperation at the state of matter and local anesthetic level—might have prevented such severe end from occurring in the first stead. An elaborate DHS function might focus on plan calamity reaction and readiness as expectations for climate-related disasters increase. DHS is best positioned among the union bureaucracy to cross the private-public separate at the state and local degree to help municipalities mitigate anticipated climate effects. DHS could besides develop better warn and prediction systems that enable a more proactive federal response and aid bearing .
Securing: Execute a balanced and effective approach to immigration and border management
DHS should maintain its core objective of securely, efficiently, humanely managing our air, land, and maritime borders. CBP, under DHS, is charged with functions that range from countering terrorism, securing the border, and facilitating trade and travel. ICE is charged with enforcing immigration laws and investigating the illegal movement of people and goods. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ( USCIS ) is creditworthy for delivering immigration services and benefits. These agencies—especially CBP and ICE—center their focus and activities around the police enforcement aspects of their functions. 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. It has besides warped the public perception of migrants a well as the political argue about immigration policy and has sidelined the serve provider components of DHS which encompass the evenly important mission of facilitating travel, craft, and administration of immigration benefits. even more so, the Border Patrol has a meaning deficit of confidence to make up in surround communities, which in plow has led to morale issues within the rank and file and resistor to policy changes. 72
Service orientation course and condom need not be in tension ; the Coast Guard provides a good model for how the two can be well balanced within a unmarried organization. To bring its law enforcement and service planning roles into similar balance, CBP must understand and embrace its authoritative function in providing service to asylum-seekers at the molding. Working to recruit and train CBP agents with the tools to excel at working with populations seeking protection will help create the foundations for a shift in cultural norms. But meaningful change will besides require headquarters-level prioritization and the institution of newfangled inner incentives to drive CBP ’ s cultural evolution. Though it will be intemperate, the electric potential result would be well worth the attempt ; the entire system would start moving toward being more fairly, humane, and feasible. CBP would hush retain its law enforcement functions, but it would operate with a better understand of the broader agenda—as well as the border communities—it serves. A well-managed bound will be dependable and procure while besides efficiently offering different services needed to travel, barter, or seek refuge in the United States .
In achieving this recalibration toward a safety and services model, the two biggest components of CBP—the Office of Field Operations ( OFO ), staffing ports of introduction, and the Border Patrol, securing the border between ports—should be merged into one incorporate entity focused on bound management. Their combined mission would include traditional security components ; facilitating the motion of goods and people to grow binational economies ; upholding U.S. domestic and external protection obligations ; and promoting quality of animation for all people living in and migrating to and between border communities. 73
Securing in action
The way the current Coast Guard balances its enforcement and service deputation is admirably and could serve as a guide to recalibrating bound management. While the Coast Guard plays an significant character in maritime security and maritime law enforcement efforts, it is besides responsible for—and takes great pride in—search and rescue and catastrophe easing efforts. Balancing these missions efficaciously ensures that the Coast Guard can play a full of life character in combating terrorism and interdicting drug traffic while besides leading efforts to save people, as it did during the deadly hurricanes in 2017 in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 74
Preventing: A recalibrated and targeted response to threats
DHS silent has an authoritative role to play in preventing attacks against the United States and Americans at base and abroad. But the prevention deputation must focus on the increasing preponderance of domestic challenges and borderless threats, including flannel supremacist-fueled domestic extremism, natural disasters, and cyberattacks, equally well as external threats. DHS ’ second character should besides be carefully calibrated to focus where the department is best put proportional to other agencies, such as at the borders and ports of entrance, and to enable effective information sharing with the other relevant federal players. Choosing to focus DHS ’ s prevention efforts where it can make alone contributions does not compromise U.S. security but rather helps ensure that the federal reply is well coordinated and not duplicative. It besides helps ensure that DHS capacity is aligned to where DHS has the most to contribute .
Preventing in action
DHS ’ mho role in countering terrorism and domestic extremism has never been clear or without controversy. DHS should narrow the scope of its prevention activities to focus its efforts where DHS has sole or singular responsibilities such as in true shield and vet of travelers and goods that cross U.S. borders, countering disinformation, and funding research into evidence-based approaches to preventing extremism. To avoid duplicating the leading character of the FBI and NCTC, DHS should reduce its fact-finding activities and narrow the concentrate of its counterterrorism intelligence analysis, as described more amply below .
Enforcing: An role that supports broader department goals
As discussed above, broad interpretation of DHS authorities by erstwhile department officials has led to questionable activities and occasions of mistreat or violations, peculiarly in the immigration space. 75 One exemplar of these broad authorities occurred when the Trump administration deployed DHS officials to respond to protests in Portland, Oregon, where the presidency stretched legal authorities to justify activities that harmed the public that DHS is supposed to serve. A recent report by DHS ’ s Office of the Inspector General found that while DHS “ had the legal authority ” to deploy in Portland, “ not all officers were by rights trained ” and used inconsistent uniforms, devices, and operational tactics. 76 This history of violations and persistent doubts about DHS ’ mho capacity to carry out a humane enforcement mission demands a serious recalibration of DHS enforcement activities moving forward. future enforcement activities need to be balanced within broader department goals of safety and service and focused entirely where DHS is the lead actor rather than in areas in which other union agencies—such as, for example, the DOJ—play a lead character .
Enforcing in action
While the department must continue its efforts to enforce U.S. laws where applicable, those activities conducted at DHS should be chiefly in service to the overall safety and services deputation of the representation. A restrict law and immigration enforcement character would focus DHS enforcement activities merely on areas where they assist the patronize and services model and where other federal agencies and bureaucracies do not have a leading role to play. Border Patrol agents, for example, would be focused on addressing border issues rather than being deployed in places such vitamin a Portland as Federal Protective Service ( FPS ) personnel. Likewise, the confluence 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 safety here, even as it continues to ensure a dependable border. Department leadership should work to clearly set limits on enforcement activities and constrain them appropriately to ensure past mistakes and abuses are not repeated and work with Congress to codify these restrictions .
Law enforcement, detention, and investigatory functions under a redefined DHS
At present, DHS is the nation ’ randomness largest police enforcement agency, with approximately 80,000 law enforcement agents and officers. 77 so far many of the enforcement functions that the department pursues overlap with, are duplicative of, or would be better suited being integrated into the work of other government entities. With the premise that DHS should recalibrate toward a guard and services model, and that DHS should focus on the things that it is best capable of doing, this report distinguishes between two types of jurisprudence enforcement functions : law enforcement functions that enable a safety and services model to operate and those for which police enforcement is the primary focus. CAP concludes that DHS components that are chiefly or entirely focused on enforcing federal laws do not belong in a reimagined DHS and should be transferred to other federal departments .
Some law enforcement functions are compatible with a safety and services model at DHS. Components such as the Coast Guard, the TSA, and CBP have minute jurisprudence enforcement roles that are directly tied to base hit and security missions. These law enforcement roles enable the condom and services model to operate. The Coast Guard provides possibly the best exercise, balancing its research and rescue missions with its clear and cut drug and migrant interdict roles. 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 elementary missions. CBP focuses on keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the United States while facilitating true travel and deal. The TSA ’ s Federal Air Marshal Service provides extra passenger base hit on commercial passenger flights. tied the Secret Service, which focuses largely on protecting elected leaders, plays an significant role in ensuring public guard 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 union laws and should not remain in a reimagined DHS. The FPS protects federal facilities, their occupants, and visitors by providing law enforcement and protective security services. ICE, which views itself as “ essential law enforcement partners, ” 79 enforces immigration laws and combats multinational crime, a mission that overlaps with that of the DOJ. Both FPS and ICE perform primarily law enforcement functions that do not enable other safety and services functions within DHS to operate. HSI, within ICE, investigates multinational crime and threats and claims a character in closely all criminal natural process, even those only tangentially related to DHS ’ second mission. While it is beyond the oscilloscope of this report card to detail where every subcomponent within DHS belongs, components that are primarily focused on investigating violations of federal laws should most naturally live within the FBI, the lead agency charged with investigating criminal natural process. Likewise, while CAP has long argued that the state should move aside from a system based on large-scale immigration detention and toward alternatives such as residential district supervision, 80 for the limited immigration detention that would remain, it would be more effective to have this function merged with, for model, the Bureau of Prisons ( BOP ), besides under the DOJ. Had these functions been merged under the BOP when the Obama presidency announced that it would end the use of secret prisons in DOJ facilities, 81 it would have likely meant a alike end to some of the most baffling facilities in the immigration context vitamin a well. 82
CAP recommends that DHS components that are chiefly or entirely focused on enforcing federal laws should be transferred to other federal departments .
Recommendations: How to transform DHS to deliver value for the American people
The Biden administration and Congress have the opportunity to transform DHS into an agency that provides a lot greater rate to the american english people and those who visit or seek safety or opportunity here. The stream administration and Congress will need to work together for longer-term changes to institutionalize reforms. But with share objectives in gaining a more effective representation that can deliver for and to the american people, it can be done. Based on this study, CAP makes the comply recommendations and guidelines for the administration and Congress to transform DHS into the safety and services department CAP proposes .
Recalibrate toward a safety and services model
To better serve Americans ’ condom and security system needs, DHS leadership should articulate a modern model of department activities that increases the stress on connect, communicating, facilitating, welcoming, and helping through a guard and services model and recalibrate its stress on protect, securing, preventing, and enforcing. This recalibration of department activities will better fulfill the unmet needs of Americans and those who live, survey, work, locomotion, and try safety hera. It will besides put the department and its work force in a better position to focus on the needs that only DHS can meet given its flexible authorities and alone capacity to respond to a range of issues that fall between the gaps of responsibilities of other federal departments and agencies .
Rebalancing toward a guard and services exemplar requires bringing DHS ’ s activities into libra and ensuring they are not excessively focused on threat-oriented priorities .
Reform oversight
Without clear and streamlined supervision responsibilities, Congress lacks the ability to act in its allow legislative function to set and guide the department ’ s priorities and activities. Since no partially of Congress authorizes the stallion departmentwide functions, DHS ’ s appropriators have largely become the subcommittees of de facto jurisdiction over the department. Six former secretaries and acting secretaries of DHS recently advocated for consolidation under a single authorizing committee in each chamber, warning that achieving early needed reforms to the department “ is not potential with break up legal power. ” 83 Congressionally driven efforts to improve oversight coordination, such as the Goldwater-Nichols reforms of the Pentagon, 84 significantly improved that department ’ second officiate and enabled better oversight to secure U.S. national interests. late steps announced by Speaker Pelosi ’ s office toward centralizing authority under the House Committee on Homeland Security by the stream Congress are a welcome step but need to be foster developed and have not been taken up by the Senate. 85 Congress and the Biden administration should build on these crucial reforms to far consolidate and centralize supervision responsibilities and function toward passing an annual authorization for the department .
Seek congressional support to resource DHS effectively
This study makes the subject that DHS should be more active in the areas where it is the most effective player within the union bureaucracy and less sol where its efforts are duplicative of other agencies. The current administration should evaluate how much of this realignment can be done within existing statutory functions and what requires congressional aid and legislation. then, the Biden administration and Congress should work together to realign DHS ’ randomness resources to support these strategic priorities and ensure they are carried out systematically with annual authorization legislation .
Increase resources for effective department management
To effectively manage the bureaucracy and oversee the recalibration of the department mission, the Biden government should work with Congress to increase resources to the DHS secretary and move away from the hyperdecentralization that characterizes its current structure. The current government should work with the new secretary to empower the secretary ’ randomness office and staff to better cope, delegate, and oversee responsibilities across the bureaucracy. The Biden government should besides work with Congress to importantly increase resources in future appropriations toward the secretary ’ s front office to be more commensurate with the bureaucracy ’ south size and oscilloscope, ideally through reallocations within the existing budget .
Make protecting civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy a core mission at DHS
As the department expands what it means to keep the nation dependable, DHS should reimagine its role in protecting personal information and privacy. As CAP has previously argued, Congress and the government can do more to empower the current DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties ( CRCL ). These steps include clarifying the CRCL ’ s statutory authority to ensure that it is involved in the policymaking march from the beginning, rather than being asked to respond or investigate once policy is already set ; that its recommendations receive seasonably responses from the means ; and more. 86 In addition, this survey recommends a wide policy function for DHS in protecting personal information and privacy. At a minimal, this would mean elevating the CRCL officer—even while remaining operationally independent to oversee complaints related to civil rights and civil liberties—to an assistant secretary level, with a seat at the management table, to be able to more directly charm agencywide decision-making. The CRCL military officer should lead and oversee the relevant offices within DHS which include the CRCL, the Privacy Office, the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and the Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman. A more ambitious approach would involve making the protection of personal information and privacy a core DHS mission, assigning DHS the lead federal agency for protecting the privacy of U.S. persons ’ information .
Launch a workforce initiative to inspire new leadership opportunities
Renewing the DHS work force besides is critical to the department ’ s long-run success. Efforts are afoot to improve departmentwide work force satisfaction, measured through annual index scores such as the inclusion and employee employment indexes. however, the DHS secretary should launch an inaugural specifically to study the department ’ randomness recruitment, retention, and training efforts to further identify areas of achiever and for improvement. This enterprise would be function of efforts to develop a grapevine of leaders, encourage creativity and initiation, and drive a cultural shift within the department toward its modern service-oriented framework. The inaugural should consider what changes might be needed in homo capital and launch programs to realign the future work force consequently. For example, CBP could greatly benefit from specialize prepare of its Border Patrol agents to initiate a cultural switch of its work force and prepare them to handle asylum-seekers at the boundary line humanely and fairly .
Refocus DHS where it is best positioned to lead rather than follow
At the like clock time, DHS should step back from roles where it is neither needed nor good suited. In each of the cases outlined below, there is another federal means or function charged with a like or identical mission that is better equipped to fulfill it or the current tasks do not fit today ’ second needs .
Right-sizing and refocusing the counterterrorism missions
The master mandate and goal of DHS was to counter terrorism and fatherland threats—but closely 20 years late, it is clock time to refocus DHS ’ second role in counterterrorism activities. DHS should reduce its counterterrorism fact-finding and intelligence psychoanalysis activities, as described below, and focus its efforts where it has singular responsibilities and authorities : managing the surround, countering disinformation, countering crimson whiten domination, and investing in evidence-based prevention approaches .
Reducing DHS’s role in international crime fighting
There has been a long-standing bureaucratic battle between the DOJ and DHS over which federal agency has the lead on countering multinational organized crime ( TOC ). While DHS can contribute to efforts to thwart organized crime and bring condemnable actors to judge, the DOJ should continue to serve as the lead federal means for TOC. DHS should reduce its TOC efforts and transfer fact-finding leads and other TOC activities to the DOJ .
Refocusing DHS’s intelligence role
DHS I & A has long focused diffusely, to the detriment of focusing more precisely where it can make singular contributions. I & A should reduce or eliminate its efforts to provide strategic intelligence on counterterrorism trends that are well covered by early departments and agencies. It should invest its singular capacity to analyze and contextualize threats to land, sea, and tune borders and ports of entrance and to deliver news to state of matter, local, tribal, and territorial partners. And while I & A should redouble its efforts to facilitate the communication of terror information between partners, it should not conduct intelligence activities that are beyond the oscilloscope of its authorities. last, I & A should develop intelligence from those partners to contribution with the rest of the IC, within the allow guardrails of civil liberties and privacy protections against stereotypes and biased profiling .
Recalibrating immigration functions to focus on service
deoxyadenosine monophosphate DHS as a hale intensifies focus on safety and service, law enforcement efforts should occur within this context rather than as the primary mission. consistent with this emphasis—and with the approving imagination that CAP previously put away of a more fair, humanist, and feasible immigration system that would rebalance immigration enforcement—ICE is chiefly a law enforcement means, and as such its responsibilities should be transferred out of DHS.87. ] DHS has a key character in CBP ’ s primary function, facilitating safely the transfer of goods and people, with its relate enforcement part supporting that function. DHS besides plays a critical function in adjudicating immigration benefits and promoting naturalization, which are the primary functions of USCIS. With these adjustments, DHS will be able to execute a well-defined mission, which includes delivering immigration and refuge services efficaciously, honoring historic american values as a safety for those seeking sanctuary from repression and injustice while keeping the nation dependable .
Conclusion
The Department of Homeland Security should play an important function in addressing the challenges and threats of today and tomorrow, and it should do so in a way that uphold american ideals and provides prize to those who live, study, work, travel, and seek shelter here. Recalibrating the DHS mission would empower the agency and its work force to play a more effective role in the federal bureaucracy. It would besides enable DHS to further build partnerships between the federal government and counterparts in department of state and local government and the individual sector, if properly managed with safeguards to protect civil liberties and privacy. last, it would ensure that DHS is most efficaciously positioned to solve national challenges .
If policymakers want to improve the solve of DHS, they must start with a focus on today ’ mho fatherland security needs, defining the department ’ second role and identifying what prize it should provide today. Moving toward the guard and services model outlined in this report would allow DHS to calibrate its activities within a modern mission maximally focused on delivering prize to America. It would besides provide a framework through which officials could then turn to reforming the structure of DHS, to determine which elements of the representation indigence to stay within DHS and which may better fit within other parts of the bureaucracy .
About the authors
Mara Rudman is the administrator frailty president for policy at the Center for American Progress .
Rudy deLeon is a senior fellow with the National Security and International Policy team at the Center .
Joel Martinez is the Mexico policy analyst for National Security and International Policy at the Center .
Elisa Massimino is a elder mate with the National Security and International Policy team at at the Center .
Silva Mathema is the acting director of immigration policy at the Center .
Katrina Mulligan is the act frailty president for National Security and International Policy at the Center .
Alexandra Schmitt is a senior policy analyst on the National Security and International Policy team at the Center .
Philip E. Wolgin is the acting vice president of the united states of immigration policy at the Center .
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Acknowledgments
This stick out and report reflect the contributions of many stakeholders, including early and current government officials, policy experts, and civil club members. They lent us their clock and expertness over the past six months to help shape our understand of what the mission and rate proposal of DHS should be in today ’ second world in order to address the needs, challenges, and opportunities facing the state and to develop and refine our recommendations. We are sincerely grateful for their hold .
This report card besides reflects the collective shape of numerous researchers, analysts, and experts across the Center for American Progress. Teams involved in the exploitation, enlist, and editing include National Security and International Policy, Immigration, Art, Editorial, and Video—with significant contributions from Sofia Carratala, Lauren Vicary, Jasmine Hardy, Hai-Lam Phan, and Chester Hawkins .