GAO Says DHS Needs to Improve Interagency Oversight at Canadian Border to Address Threats
The Government Accountability Office has issued a report1 entitled " Border Security: Enhanced DHS Oversight and Assessment of Interagency Coordination Is Needed for the Northern Border," which states that despite interagency forums and agreements, field coordination on daily border security operations is suboptimal, often due to a lack of oversight by management.
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(GAO notes that securing the U.S.-Canada border involves the coordination of multiple agencies, including CBP's Office of Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Forest Service, and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), as well as Canadian law enforcement agencies such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).)
Four Border Sectors Examined Based on Location, Threats
For its report, GAO visited four U.S. Border Patrol sectors on the U.S.-Canadian border − Blaine, Spokane, Detroit, and Swanton − as they comprise a mix of differences regarding geography (western, central, and eastern border areas), threats (terrorism, drug smuggling, and illegal migration), and threat environment (air, marine, land).
Forums Have Improved Coordination, but DHS Oversight Needed to Prevent Overlap
According to a majority of selected northern border security partners GAO interviewed, DHS improved northern border security coordination through interagency forums and joint operations. However, numerous partners cited challenges related to the inability to resource the increasing number of interagency forums and raised concerns that some efforts may be overlapping.
While guidance issued by GAO stresses the need for a process to ensure that resources are used effectively and efficiently, DHS does not oversee the interagency forums established by its components. DHS oversight could help prevent possible duplication of efforts and conserve resources.
Interagency Agreement Enforcement Needed to Improve Information, Resource Coordination
DHS component officials reported that federal agency coordination to secure the northern border was improved, but partners in all four sectors GAO visited cited ongoing challenges sharing information and resources for daily border security related to operations and investigations.
DHS has established and updated interagency agreements, but oversight by management at the component and local level has not ensured consistent compliance with provisions of these agreements, such as those related to information sharing, in areas GAO visited. As a result, according to DHS officials, field agents have been left to resolve coordination challenges.
Ongoing DHS-level oversight and attention to enforcing accountability of established agreements could help address long-standing coordination challenges between DHS components, and further the DHS strategic vision for a coordinated homeland security enterprise.
DHS Needs to Develop Policy, Guidance for Partners to Mitigate Vulnerabilities
CBP's Office of Border Patrol reported that 32 of the nearly 4,000 northern border miles in fiscal year 2010 had reached an acceptable level of security and that there is a high reliance on law enforcement support from outside the border zone. However, the extent of partner law enforcement resources available to address border security vulnerabilities is not reflected in Border Patrol’s processes for assessing border security and resource requirements.
GAO previously reported that federal agencies should identify resources among collaborating agencies to deliver results more efficiently and that DHS had not fully responded to a legislative requirement to link initiatives—including partnerships—to existing border vulnerabilities to inform federal resource allocation decisions.
GAO states that development of policy and guidance to integrate available partner resources in northern border security assessments and resource planning documents could provide the agency and Congress with more complete information necessary to make resource allocation decisions in mitigating existing border vulnerabilities.
1The report was issued to Congressional requestors that include the Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
(GAO-11-97, dated December 2010)