[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
UNRESOLVED INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS AT DHS: OVERSIGHT OF INVESTIGATION
MANAGEMENT IN THE OFFICE OF THE DHS OIG
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION,
EFFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 1, 2012
__________
Serial No. 112-171
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
http://www.house.gov/reform
----------
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland,
JOHN L. MICA, Florida Ranking Minority Member
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JIM JORDAN, Ohio Columbia
JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
TIM WALBERG, Michigan WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
RAUL R. LABRADOR, Idaho DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee PETER WELCH, Vermont
JOE WALSH, Illinois JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida JACKIE SPEIER, California
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania
Lawrence J. Brady, Staff Director
John D. Cuaderes, Deputy Staff Director
Robert Borden, General Counsel
Linda A. Good, Chief Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency and Financial
Management
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania, Chairman
CONNIE MACK, Florida, Vice Chairman EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Ranking
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma Minority Member
JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan JIM COOPER, Tennessee
PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas Columbia
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on August 1, 2012................................... 1
WITNESSES
Mr. Charles K. Edwards, Acting Inspector General, Department of
Homeland Security
Oral Statement............................................... 6
Written Statement............................................ 8
Mr. David V. Aguilar, Acting Commissioner, U.S. Customs and
Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 22
Mr. Daniel H. Ragsdale, Acting Deputy Director, U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security
Oral Statement............................................... 33
Written Statement............................................ 35
UNRESOLVED INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS AT DHS: OVERSIGHT OF INVESTIGATION
MANAGEMENT IN THE OFFICE OF THE DHS OIG
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Wednesday, August 1, 2012,
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency
and Financial Management,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in
Room 2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Todd Russell
Platts [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Platts, Lankford, Farenthold,
Towns, and Connolly.
Staff Present: Ali Ahmad, Majority Communications Advisor;
Molly Boyl, Majority Parliamentarian; John Cuaderes, Majority
Deputy Staff Director; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk;
Mitchell S. Kominsky, Majority Counsel; Mark D. Marin, Majority
Director of Oversight; Tegan Millspaw, Majority Research
Analyst; Cheyenne Steel, Majority Press Assistant; Noelle
Turbitt, Majority Staff Assistant; Jaron Bourke, Minority
Director of Administration; Beverly Britton Fraser, Minority
Counsel; Ashley Etienne, Minority Director of Communications;
and Devon Hill, Minority Staff Assistant.
Mr. Platts. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Government
Organization, Efficiency, and Financial Management will come to
order.
The purpose of today's hearing is to conduct oversight of
the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General
and its management of investigative cases. The Department of
Homeland Security is the third largest department in the
Federal Government and has the crucial mission of ensuring the
United States' safety, security, and that we are resilient
against terrorism and other threats. Because of the importance
of DHS's mission, it is crucial that it have a fully capable
inspector general and staff to provide oversight and
accountability.
Over the past few years, DHS OIG has had thousands of open
investigations that must be properly managed and resolved. Our
hearing today will review the number of open cases at DHS OIG,
as well as its recent decision to transfer cases back to
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border
Protection entities.
As of March 2012, DHS OIG had 2,361 open investigative
cases. In its latest semiannual report, which covered a six
month period between October 2011 and March 2012, DHS OIG
closed only 730 cases. This is 31 percent of DHS's open cases.
Since 2009 the Office of OIG number of cases has not
dropped below 2,000 at any point, while the number of cases
closed has averaged approximately 566 per six month reporting
period.
In April DHS OIG announced that it would transfer cases of
misconduct involving employees at the United States Immigration
and Customs Enforcement and the United States Customs and
Border Protection entities back to these agencies for handling.
In order to make sure that allegations of misconduct were fully
investigated in a timely manner, 377 cases were transferred in
April and another 280 transferred in June.
While transferring OIG's case work may help to ensure
investigations are resolved more quickly, this process
certainly must be overseen with great diligence. Allowing ICE
and CBP to investigate their own misconduct, or staff within
their entities, could create the appearance of a conflict of
interest unless proper internal controls are maintained and
emphasized.
Additionally, these transfers have resulted in a 68 percent
increase in the cases at ICE and CBP's internal affairs
offices. If ICE and CBP do not have sufficient resources to
manage these cases, it could result in wrongdoing going
undetected.
Our hearing today will review how ICE and CBP are managing
these cases. It will also focus on the OIG's relationship with
these component entities and how it can better collaborate to
investigate and manage its cases.
In 2010, DHS OIG wrote, and I would emphasize not the
current IG, but prior personnel wrote that its relationship
with the agency was a longstanding problem due to resistance
and lack of cooperation with OIG investigations.
Today we will learn more about that relationship between
DHS and its OIG and staff, and examine ways to improve
collaboration from now and into the future.
The United States is unique in the important role of
inspectors general. The Inspector General Act of 1978
established IGs to act as independent watchdogs over federal
departments and agencies. Today IGs are on the front lines of
preventing waste, fraud, and abuse across the Federal
Government. Their role directly benefits both Congress, in our
oversight duties, and taxpayers by creating a government that
is more transparent and accountable. In order to do their jobs
well, IGs need to maintain strong accountability and integrity,
while fostering a collaborative relationship with the agencies
they oversee.
DHS OIG has an extremely important task of overseeing an
agency that protects our borders, guards against terrorism, and
ensures the security of our Country here at home. I commend
OIG's efforts in moving forward in a productive manner,
especially in the last year and a half, and working with their
component entities that are represented here today, and
certainly look forward to the testimony of all three of our
witnesses and the insights you can share with this Committee.
With that, I yield to the Ranking Member, the gentleman
from New York, Mr. Towns, for the purpose of an opening
statement.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this hearing today.
Today we will focus on the efficiency of investigations
into employee misconduct at the Department of Homeland Security
components, Customs, Border Protection, and Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, ICE.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for, again, holding this hearing.
The largest law enforcement agency in the Country, over
47,000 law enforcement personnel, are deployed along the U.S.
borders, at ports of entry and overseas, on a continuous basis
to secure our borders.
At ICE, the second largest federal law enforcement agency,
over 20,000 employees enforce federal laws governing border
control, customs, trade, and immigration.
These agencies, along with TSA, form the backbone of our
homeland security enterprise.
I want to first acknowledge those that perform their
missions with integrity and thank them for a job well done.
Unfortunately, we must turn our attention to the few employees
who have disgraced themselves and the agencies that employ them
through acts of personal misconduct, and in many instances
criminality.
Some employees come into contact with sensitive, sometimes
classified, information, and in many cases our national
security interests lie literally in the palms of their hands.
Dishonest employees have leaked sensitive information to drug
cartels, smugglers, and others under investigation. Others have
taken cash bribes or other favors in exchange for allowing
contraband or undocumented aliens to pass through our borders.
More than 140 CBP officers since 2004 have been arrested or
indicted for acts of corruption. Many others are under
investigation as we sit.
Corruption or misconduct occurring at DHS can have greater
national security implications than misconduct occurring at
other federal agencies. For this reason, investigations into
CBR and ICE employees, misconduct and criminality must be dealt
with swiftly and efficiently.
The Office of the Inspector General has the primary
authority within DHS for investigating allegations of
criminality and misconduct among employees. The inspector
general has a staff of 219 investigators and a budget of $150
million to investigate a workforce of over 220,000 employees.
That doesn't seem to be enough.
With the escalation of complaints of employee misconduct
and corruption, and a decreasing IG budget, it is not
surprising that the IG must find innovative ways to move the
investigative process forward. The CBC Office of Internal
Affairs at ICE, the Office of Professional Responsibility, are
playing a critical role in the investigation of these
complaints.
We have to remember that DHS was only created in 2002, when
Congress joined together previously independent agencies that
may not have had a history of cooperating with one another to
resolve cases. But today cooperation between OIG, ICE, and CBP
is extremely important to securing our border personnel against
corruption.
Fortunately, under its current leadership, there is more
DHS interagency cooperation than ever before. That recent
positive development addresses a historic weakness present at
the creation of DHS. I look forward to the testimony of our
witnesses and hope we can find stronger pathways forward to
such an important mission, because working together is very
important, and without it we will not be able to achieve our
goals.
On that note, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Platts. I thank the Ranking Member.
Before I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, I just want
to echo very well stated important statement by the Ranking
Member, that while we are here to talk about investigations of
cases of wrongdoing, that we make sure we herald the great work
of the 99 percent plus of the officers, agents, staff of DHS,
all the entities who do great work, courageous work, are truly
on the front lines of protecting this Nation and, Mr. Towns, I
thank you for that reminder that I intended to include and did
not reference. Well stated.
We are grateful to each of you and your staffs and your
offices who are out there on the front line.
With that, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
Connolly, for an opening statement.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
holding this hearing. I want to commend you personally for your
longstanding commitment to holding fair and substantive
oversight hearings that not only highlight deficiencies in
government programs, but, importantly, do so in a productive
manner, as you just, in fact, stated, that allows members to
work in a bipartisan fashion to implement corrective actions.
We are going to miss you around here.
Today's hearing is focused on the DHS OIG's performance
adjudicating cases and coordinating investigative efforts with
the U.S. Immigrations, Customs and Enforcement Office of
Professional Responsibility, and the U.S. Customs Border
Protection's Office of Internal Affairs.
However, I believe this hearing actually highlights a far
more serious fundamental management challenge that can
contribute to impeding our efforts across the Federal
Government to prevent and detect waste, fraud, and abuse, while
promoting departmental efficiency, economy, and effectiveness:
longstanding vacancies in key agency leadership positions.
The U.S. Senate's inability to efficiently confirm
presidential nominees has resulted in a dysfunctional oversight
system that increases the threat of fraud and abuse going
undetected, while, really, raising a question of the Senate's
constitutional responsibility to provide advice and consent in
a timely fashion. Unfortunately, it has become common for
months to pass before non-controversial nominees are given an
up or down vote.
A disgraceful, yet increasingly common experience is that
of Michael Horowitz, his nomination to be inspector general for
the Department of Justice. That was announced on July 29th,
2011, but did not receive a vote in the Senate until March 29th
of this year, at which point he was approved unanimously.
Most concerning is that IG vacancies appear most prevalent
among IG positions for the Federal Government's largest and
most complex agencies, such as the Department of State, which
has been without a permanent IG for 1,658 days; the Department
of Defense, which has been without a permanent IG for 220 days;
and the agency that is the focus of today's hearing, DHS, we
are lucky to have an acting IG, but it has been without a
permanent IG for 250 days.
Fortunately, there appears to be bipartisan recognition
that OIGs require a permanent Senate confirmed leadership to be
most effective and to best serve the American people.
Senator Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, stated recently
that ``even the best acting inspector general's lack the
standing to make lasting changes needed to improve his or her
office.'' I concur in that sentiment and hope even now that we
can move forward to ensure federal IGS are adequately staffed,
funded, and empowered to reduce wasteful spending, increase
agency efficiency, and ultimately improve the lives of the
people we serve.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Platts. I thank the gentleman. You make very important
relevant points here about the importance of the confirmation
process and giving the Department a fully confirmed IG, and
hopefully that will happen sooner than later. Not because we
are not grateful for the current work of the acting, but the
points that the gentleman made in giving that additional
standing and presence of a Senate confirmed IG.
We are going to keep the record open for seven days for any
members who want to submit opening statements or other
materials, and we will now move to our testimony from our
witnesses.
We are honored to have three very distinguished public
servants with us: Mr. Charles Edwards, Acting Inspector General
at the Department of Homeland Security; Mr. David Aguilar,
Acting Commissioner of the United States Customs and Border
Protection; and Mr. Daniel Ragsdale, Acting Deputy Director at
United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pursuant to our Committee rules, if I could ask the three
of you to stand and raise your right hand to be sworn in.
Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are
about to give this Committee will be the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth?
[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Mr. Platts. Let the record reflect all witnesses answered
in the affirmative.
You will see a light system in front of you. The timer is
set for five minutes, but if you need to go over that, that is
understandable. We appreciate your written testimonies you have
given us; I call it my homework in preparation for the hearing
and allow me to have a better understanding and better exchange
with you here today. But we are glad to have you here in person
and share your oral testimony, so it is at five, but if you
need to go over, don't worry about that.
We are glad to have you. Mr. Edwards, if you would like to
begin.
WITNESS STATEMENTS
STATEMENT OF CHARLES K. EDWARDS
Mr. Edwards. Good morning, Chairman Platts, Ranking member
Towns, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee. Thank you
for inviting me to testify today about the critical
investigative work of DHS OIG.
OIG has 219 criminal investigators deployed at 33 offices
around the Country, with a concentration of resources in the
southwest. While OIG has a primary focus on employee
corruption, it also has jurisdiction for allegations involving
DHS contractors and financial assistance beneficiaries,
including disaster assistance recipients.
Both the personnel and organizational independence of OIG
investigators, free to carry out their work without
interference by agency officials, is essential to maintaining
public trust in the DHS workforce. Resulting complex corruption
investigations is challenging and time-consuming. OIG makes
every attempt to expedite these investigations, but some of the
more complex investigations take time to obtain the necessary
evidence of corrupt activity and identify any additional
employee involvement.
OIG recognizes the importance of ensuring that corrupt CBP
officers and border patrol agencies who are willing to
compromise homeland security for personal gain are quickly
removed from any position that would allow harm to the Country,
so we work closely with the components to balance homeland
security needs, while investigating thoroughly to expose all
wrongdoers, not just a single employee against whom allegations
have been made.
Generally, once a matter has been presented to the U.S.
Attorney's Office and accepted for prosecution, the majority of
investigative activity is complete. However, OIG still
classifies the case as open until all judicial activity is
done, which may take years.
Although case complexity and time to prosecute may extend
some cases for several years, over 70 percent of OIG's criminal
investigation cases have been open less than 24 months.
In August 2011, the CBP commissioner and I signed an
agreement to enhance joint efforts against border corruption
within the ranks of CBP workforce. Cooperative efforts between
OIG and CBP IA have provided OIG with additional assets to meet
the challenge of CBP's significant and ongoing expansion. Our
agreement established and integrated DHS's approach to
participation with other agencies investigating border
corruption, recognizing both OIG's obligation to work
independently of DHS's components and the need for
collaboration and information sharing among law enforcement
entities.
A key component of our investigative strategy is to
leverage limited resources and share intelligence with law
enforcement at all levels. DHS OIG has agents participating in
border corruption task forces in many parts of the Country.
These cooperative relationships ensure that different law
enforcement agencies are not pursuing the same targets, which
compromises law enforcement agents' safety and is a duplication
of effort.
With respect to information sharing, the OIG and FBI have a
mutual responsibility under the attorney general guidelines to
promptly notify one another upon initiation of any criminal
investigation. OIG timely meets this responsibility.
By fiscal year 2011, OIG's policy to open allegations of
employee corruption or compromise of border or transportation
security, combined with the expanding workforce, led to a 95
percent increase over fiscal year 2004 of complaints involving
CBP employees. The growth of OIG's cadre of criminal
investigators did not match the growth in complaints. The
increased volume led to increased case openings and the DHS OIG
investigative staff was taxed beyond its capacity.
As a part of my commitment to ensuring that allegations of
employee corruption are fully investigated, ICE Director Morton
and I agreed, in April 2012, that OIG would transfer 370 cases
involving CBP and ICE employees to ICE for completion. As a
part of OIG oversight of the component internal affairs
elements, OIG is requiring periodic reports from CBP on the
status of the transferred investigations until each is closed.
To date, ICE OPR has reported that it transferred about one-
third of the cases it received to CBP IA and has closed 60
cases.
Also, in June 2012, OIG transmitted 287 completed
investigations involving unknown subjects to the relevant DHS
component for appropriate action. Because the cases were
completed, OIG is requiring no follow-up.
We appreciate the Subcommittee's attention and interest in
OIG's criminal investigative work. We will continue to pursue
collaboration with all our law enforcement partners to ensure
employee corruption does not jeopardize homeland security.
Chairman Platts, this concludes my prepared remarks. I
would be happy to answer any questions that you or the members
may have. Thank you, sir.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Edwards follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. I appreciate your
testimony.
Commissioner Aguilar, before you begin, I just want to
recognize, as I referenced, appreciate the service of all three
of you, but knowing, as we have talked, of your now over 34
years of service, I want to especially thank you for your
service and leadership to our Nation and all of our citizens,
and that dedication especially in such an important role with
border protection.
Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DAVID V. AGUILAR
Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Platts, Ranking
Member Towns, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for the invitation to speak about the ongoing
collaboration, the great collaboration, I believe, between U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, DHS's Office of Inspector
General, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Our efforts
to combat corruption and maintain integrity within our ranks
are critically important to CBP and to the public that we
serve.
I would like to begin by recognizing the commitment, the
bravery, vigilance, honor, and the character demonstrated by
the overwhelming majority of CBP agents and officers who put
their lives on the line every day to protect our Nation.
CBP has more than 60,000 employees, including over 47,000
uniformed agents and officers who carry out CBP's critical
mission of securing our Nation's borders, while expediting
lawful trade and travel. We recognize that public service is a
public trust. That public service is a public trust is at the
forefront of our interest.
At the center of CBP's core values is integrity, and it is
of the utmost importance that all of our employees are guided
by the highest ethical and moral principles. Tragically,
embarrassingly, a small number within our ranks have disgraced,
dishonored the proud men and women who serve honorably and with
distinction each day to protect our Nation.
Although the number of CBP employees who have betrayed the
trust of the American public and their peers is a fraction of
one percent of our workforce, we continue to focus our efforts
on rooting out this unacceptable and deplorable behavior. One
act of corruption is one too many. It is unacceptable.
CBP prides itself on being a family. However, when one
member of this family strays into criminality, he or she cannot
go unchecked and without consequence. Our most valuable, and we
recognize, sometimes vulnerable, resource has been and will
continue to be our employees. They are key to our success in
protecting this Nation. And it must be emphasized that no act
of corruption within our agency can or will be tolerated.
Collaboration amongst us seated at the table here is key to
combating corruption and other forms of serious misconduct. We
rely on our partnerships with the Office of Inspector General,
with ICE, with FBI to work towards this common goal.
In December of 2010, CBP and ICE executed a Memorandum of
understanding that established protocols for agents with CBP's
Office of Internal Affairs and ICE's Office of Professional
Responsibility to collaborate in the investigation of CBP
employee-related misconduct and corruption. CBP and ICE are
jointly working currently over 300 cases, many of which are a
result of a transfer that Mr. Edwards just talked about, that
came about as a result of our May 2012 agreement.
To date, ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility and
CBP's Office of Internal Affairs have closed over 60 of these
cases.
In August of 2011, CBP entered into a similar MOU with the
DHS OIG and deployed 14 CBP internal affairs agents to OIG
offices across the United States. This had never happened
before. Today, CBP internal affairs agents are working side-by-
side with DHS OIG agents on approximately 90 CBP employee-
related investigations of alleged corruption and misconduct.
Collaboration with our DHS partners has greatly enhanced
our effectiveness and has given CBP leadership unprecedented
insight into the threat that potentially corrupt employees may
pose to the homeland, giving us the opportunity to make
adjustments, to look at our processes, and instill new
workforce policies in order to avoid any kind of corruption.
Consistent with ICE and OIG efforts to pursue criminal
investigations, CBP is also striving to more effectively use
administrative authorities that rest within our capabilities to
mitigate the threat caused by CBP employees accused of
corruption during the course of an investigation. This may
include reassignment to administrative duties, administrative
leave, indefinite suspension, suspension of law enforcement
authorities, or other appropriate actions. This forward-leaning
approach provides CBP with the flexibility to address the
threat posed by employee corruption and misconduct in a manner
that reduces the impact on the agency, our mission, and the
responsibilities to the American public.
Chairman Platts, Ranking Member Towns, members of the
Subcommittee, again, we thank you for the opportunity to
testify today. Integrity is the great cornerstone of everything
that we do at CBP on a daily basis in protecting this Nation. I
look forward to addressing any questions that you might have of
us.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Aguilar follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Commissioner.
Mr. Ragsdale?
STATEMENT OF DANIEL H. RAGSDALE
Mr. Ragsdale. Good morning. Thank you. Chairman Platts,
Ranking Member Towns, and distinguished members of the
Subcommittee, on behalf of Secretary Napolitano and Director
Morton, thank you for the opportunity to appear today and
discuss the ways in which ICE upholds DHS's standards for
integrity and professionalism.
With more than 20,000 employees in 72 offices around the
world, ICE is the second largest federal investigative agency.
ICE promotes homeland security and public safety through
criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border
control, customs, trade, and immigration. While the vast number
of ICE and DHS employees perform their law enforcement and
other duties with honor every day, isolated acts of employee
misconduct do sometimes occur.
As noted in my written testimony, ICE's Office of
Professional Responsibility is a robust program with over 500
employees and 252 special agents trained to investigate border
crime and misconduct offenses. ICE's Office of Professional
Responsibility works closely with our partners in DHS and CBP
to ensure that a vigorous process exists to ensure the
integrity of our shared mission.
To build on the partnership between DHS IG, ICE, and CBP,
two MOUs were executed to ensure close collaboration among the
agencies. In December 2010, ICE and CBP entered into a
Memorandum of understanding that assigned CBP internal affairs
personnel to ICE OPR to assist in investigations of CBP
employee criminal misconduct. In August 2011, the IG and CBP
executed a similar memorandum of understanding. I can candidly
say that we did not always have this level of collaboration.
However, I am proud to report that the MOUs have reinforced
ICE's commitment to providing complete and timely awareness in
cases involving criminal misconduct by DHS employees.
One example of the collaboration with our partners was
found in the investigation of former CBP officer Devon Samuels
in Atlanta. This individual used his position of trust to
bypass TSA security measures to smuggle drugs, money, and guns
for a Jamaican drug trafficking organization. ICE partnered in
this effort with CBP's internal affairs and the DHS IG and
federal, local, and international private partners. The
investigation led to 17 arrests and the seizure of 15 guns, a
kilogram of cocaine, more than 300 pounds of marijuana, a
quarter of a million units of ecstacy, and a quarter of a
million dollars in U.S. currency. Samuels ended up being
sentenced to eight years in jail.
Likewise, in an ICE-OPR-led case with support from the FBI,
former ICE special agent Jovana Deas was criminally convicted
for abusing her position of trust to share information from law
enforcement databases with members of a drug trafficking
organization. Following this ICE-led investigation, she was
arrested, pled this February to a 21 count indictment, and
resigned her position. She was recently sentenced to two and a
half years in jail.
While not every case involves the kind of allegations I
just described, we regard every example of employee misconduct
as potentially undermining our critical mission, and we take
every matter that comes to our attention seriously.
As you know, as part of our continuing commitment to
effective law enforcement, in May 2012, the DHS IG transferred
approximately 370 cases to ICE regarding criminal and
administrative misconduct allegations. ICE and CBP promptly
began working to determine the next investigative steps needed
in each case. Since we received the cases, ICE has transferred
155 non-criminal cases to CBP for administrative action and
returned 4 to the IG. 195 cases remain open with ICE OPR, with
assistance from CBP IA.
Further, I am proud to note, as the commissioner said, our
partnership with CBP has already been effective in closing over
60 cases. As we strive toward swift resolution of these cases,
regardless of the outcome, we look forward to resolving the
remaining cases as efficiently as possible.
We are heavily invested in addressing all issues of
misconduct to ensure that ICE upholds public trust and conducts
its mission with integrity and professionalism. I am proud of
the honesty of the overwhelming majority of ICE employees and
assure you that the rare cases of employee misconduct are dealt
with swiftly and fairly.
Thank you again for the opportunity to address you today,
and I welcome any questions you may have. Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Ragsdale follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Ragsdale.
I will yield myself five minutes for the purpose of
questioning to kick things off.
General Edwards, I will start with you in the sense of just
the overall big picture and the number of cases, as referenced
in my testimony, the number of open cases that remain, now over
2,000 for several years.
In your written testimony, as well as here today, in
talking about the demands on your workforce and a significant
increase in the number of open cases in recent years, and there
is a chart that shows the number of open cases kind of spiking
up here; whereas, the number of closed cases is pretty level.
Is it fair to say that one aspect of the number of open cases
is related to the huge ramp up in border protection officers,
customs, so we have many more personnel up there, and with more
personnel comes greater risk, especially with the type of enemy
that we are dealing with here, the drug cartels and terrorist
organizations, what we are guarding against, that, first, the
amount of increase in that workload is directly due to the
increase in the size of these component entities?
Mr. Edwards. Thank you, Chairman. Let me start by saying
that the vast majority of CBP employees are not having this
corruption issue. Our border patrol has increased over 38
percent in the last several years and OIG has remained
relatively flat. OIG is fully supportive of the President's
budget; however, we have been asking for resources over the
last several years.
As of July 15, we have 1,591 open cases. We have done a
number of things internally, and also a number of things, based
on Secretary Napolitano's leadership, both Director Morton and
Commissioner Aguilar and myself met to force multiply and get
more resources to address the cases. Out of the 1,591, there
are 661 employee corruption and there is about, non-employees,
473; and a majority of them, 457 of them, are unnamed subjects.
We have done a number of things internally. One is when we
have tried to vet this turnout the unnamed subjects to a
potential lead and then we still kept holding on to it. What we
have done now is when we cannot get any further with that, they
close that. That was the 287 that we transferred to ICE on the
second round. We have a holding it and trying to come up with
some more information, but it is not getting us anywhere. So
that was holding us.
The other thing is also, the way we categorize our cases,
we have open and closed. When you look at the number of cases
that are open, a lot of these cases, well over 70 percent of
these cases are open less than two years. But what we found
was, or what we are finding is that a number of these cases we
have done the investigative work and we are waiting for the
U.S. attorneys for some judicial action. So now we are have
categorized our system to better capture that.
So these are some of the internal things we are doing, and
also working with our partners, the commissioner and John
Morton, we are able to force multiple and work the cases. So
there is no backlog; we have this under control.
Mr. Platts. Let me come back to that, about the backlog. So
internally you have requested additional funds for more
investigation related personnel, but that has not been
included, ultimately, in the decision, what is submitted up
here as far as the President's budget?
Mr. Edwards. Right. Every year since 2009 I have been
requesting 50 investigators.
Mr. Platts. Yes. As far as not having a backlog, with over
1500 still open and, again, recognizing the limitation of your
resources, there is only so many investigators you can assign
to pursue these cases, what would constitute a backlog? If it
is over 2,000 or at what point do you have a backlog that each
of these cases--because I don't think, of the ones that are
open, are all 1,500-plus actively being worked?
Mr. Edwards. Yes, sir.
Mr. Platts. So none are sitting, waiting for attention?
Mr. Edwards. No, sir.
Mr. Platts. Okay.
Mr. Edwards. What has happened, as you indicated earlier,
out of the 2,061 open cases, our average caseload for an agent
was well over 12 cases per agent. These are some of the most
complex. If it is a FEMA disaster relief fraud case, an agent
can hold up to 22 to 25 cases. But every one of these cases
were worked, but it was just the volume of it was too much for
them to handle. And then we were also holding on these unnamed
subjects. So working this partnership, we were able to transfer
some of these. But there has not been any case that has been in
a backlog or pending or not being investigated.
Mr. Platts. Okay.
Mr. Ragsdale, of the 270 or 280 or so cases that were
transferred back most recently that were the ones that were
unnamed and ICE kind of ran the distance on them, couldn't find
anything, transferred back, where do those stand now with ICE?
Are they still being looked at to see if you can identify other
leads or are they being closed out? What is the status?
Mr. Ragsdale. Well, that is exactly right. We are obviously
looking at every case to make sure that there is no
investigative steps that are outstanding, but as the inspector
general said, at least in the IG's view, those cases should be
closed, so we will obviously do just a quick independent look
to see if there is any logical next steps that could be gleaned
from our vantage point and, if not, then they will be closed.
Mr. Platts. Quick final question. I am way over my time
before I go to the Ranking Member. To all three of you, are you
aware of any cases that because of the volume and the increase,
without the increase in staffing to account for the increase in
volume, that statute of limitation on a possible criminal
charge has run because of just the inability to get all the way
through that case in a timely fashion?
Mr. Edwards. No, sir. It is the agents' responsibility and
the manager at the local office to make sure that they work
with the U.S. Attorney's Office to make sure that the statute
of limitations does not run out. If there is a potential for
that to happen, we all, working with our components, we always
start working the HR piece of it so the administrative action
can take place. We haven't gotten anywhere where the statute of
limitation has run out.
Mr. Platts. So when you talk about open cases with the U.S.
Attorney's Office and kind of waiting, it is not to the point
where you are waiting and, while you are waiting, a statute is
running? You are tracking that so that, if you are getting
close, it gets a higher attention, trying to make sure that
charges are properly filed and the statute is told?
Mr. Edwards. Absolutely, sir. Another thing we have done
internally with our case management system is an agent is
supposed to submit a memorandum of activity when he meets with
the U.S. Attorney's Office to get an update of the case, to see
where it is. That information needs to be uploaded into our
case management system and his or her immediate supervisor
should also be approving that. We also have the ability at
headquarters in DHS OIG now to randomly go and select, and we
also have alerts in place so we are aware of this and make sure
that we take active steps.
But also one point, sir, is while we are working, because
many times the U.S. attorney would require us to get multiple
transactions to prove an intent, but just in case the U.S.
attorney does not accept it, we get the components involved
early on so the HR piece of it can start so we are not waiting
to the tail end to do that part of it.
Mr. Platts. Okay.
And Commissioner Aguilar, Mr. Ragsdale, as far as your
knowledge of any cases where the statute has run, are you
familiar with any?
Mr. Ragsdale. From the ICE OPR perspective, we have not
seen any cases where the statute of limitations has run in the
criminal context. And as the IG said, the administrative
context does not have an applicable statute of limitations, so,
from our perspective, we have not seen any cases that have
become stale because of the statute.
Mr. Aguilar. My response would be the same. We count on the
case management and our two partnerships.
Mr. Platts. Okay. Thank you.
I yield to the Ranking Member for the purpose of questions.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just ask all of you how have the MOUs improved the
working relationship and information sharing between your
organizations. Has it helped? Right down the line. Mr. Edwards?
Right down. Yes.
Mr. Edwards. Thank you, sir. Absolutely. There is
absolutely no turf battles between OIG, CBP, or ICE or the
Bureau. Sitting up at the component head level, we have
excellent working relationship. We need to put that in writing
and make sure that the agents at the field office level work
well together; we just have to have a process in place. And
getting this MOU to work together, because if you look at it,
it is a DHS problem and we have to address this together.
If you don't have the resources, you have to use the force
multiplier. And having this MOU signed with CBP really has
enabled CBP agents to work under our supervision, but also have
given the commissioner meaningful information that he was
looking for, because getting rid of an employee is not just the
immediate solution. For example, if you have a weed, just
pulling out the weed isn't going to help; you need to get to
the root of the problem. And working jointly with us and
sharing that information with the commissioner has been very
fruitful.
Mr. Towns. So duplication is not a problem?
Mr. Edwards. Well, there is no duplication, sir, because we
are trying to avoid that. That is why we are working together,
we are working the same case. There is well over 90 cases, as
the commissioner talked about, that we are working together.
They are not working independently or we are not working
independently; we are working jointly together under our
authority. So, one, the IG's independence is never sacrificed.
We are transparent. At the same time, the commissioner gets
meaningful information on where the cases are.
Mr. Aguilar. Congressman, I would answer your question in
the following manner. The current relationship that we have
between our three organizations is unprecedented. The level of
transparency, both on the quantity, the type of issues that we
are facing, the cases that we are facing, and the qualitative
efforts ongoing between us we have never seen before.
As to the duplicity duplication effort, because of the
relationship that we have, it provides for de-confliction at
the lowest level and at the earliest time in any one of these
cases. So it gives me, it gives us in CBP an insight that we
have never had before, gives us the ability to act as quickly
as possible in support of removing any possibility of integrity
lapses, ethical lapses and things of that nature. So I am very
happy to report that we are at a level that is tremendous. I
think all of us would agree that we have some challenges ahead
of us, but with the processes in place, we have good processes
in place to continue chipping away at the things that may
challenge us in the future.
Mr. Towns. It is encouraging.
Yes?
Mr. Ragsdale. And I would just add that what the MOUs do is
balance very nicely some competing interests. If either the IG
or ICE OPR has a criminal case open on an employee, we
certainly want to balance the integrity of that investigation
to make sure that it is secure in itself. Having said that,
there has to be transparency to CBP and ICE managers to make
sure that the extent that employee's ability to damage border
security is limited. So we see a very nice balance in these
MOUs that balance those competing interests.
And certainly from the ICE perspective, as we know that
employee corruption does not exist in a vacuum, and as we look
at transnational border crime, ICE homeland security
investigations often has paralleled investigations that may in
fact be an umbrella of a criminal strategy of which the
employee misconduct was only one piece. So we are seeing a very
good level of coordination among us, as well as sort of a very
integrated strategy to make sure that the employee misconduct
is not allowed to sort of damage border security.
Mr. Towns. Let me put this properly out. Have you evaluated
overall trends or patterns of corruption that could lead to
problems? Have you looked at that in any way, the overall
pattern? I guess to you, Mr. Edwards. The overall pattern in
terms of the trends that have led to corruption that you could
point to something specific.
Mr. Edwards. Well, if you look at the CBP or the border
corruption, the drug cartels have the resources, the money, and
they have the technology, and they want to infiltrate DHS
employees. Not only just getting to one corrupt employee, and
corrupting the employee could be for--the employee could be
going through financial difficulties, gambling debts, or sexual
infidelity, and the drug cartels know this, so they target this
one employee.
So just by getting rid of that one employee is not a
deterrent, because you need to make sure these law enforcement
officers, there is a process in place, and if there is
corruption, the penalty is you are going to be, hopefully,
serving time. So just getting rid of the employee is not going
to be helpful.
Also, like I indicated earlier, we need to get to the root
of the problem and see what is causing that and get rid of
that. So as we are looking at--but at the same time it is just
a small percentage of the entire CBP workforce, so I don't want
to say that the entire CBP is a problem; there is just a very
small number, and these small numbers are getting influenced by
the drug cartels.
Mr. Towns. Do you think any kind of special training would
make a difference?
Mr. Aguilar. Congressman, you have asked some very, very
important questions here, and, if I might, and this goes to one
of the questions that the Chairman asked. The successes that we
have had in hardening the borders to the degree that we have
and making them as safe as they are today, which, by the way,
they are safer today than they have been in decades, has caused
some of the situations that we are looking at. The Chairman's
question as to the escalation, in my years of service, it used
to be that what we used to worry about the most was the dopers,
the alien smugglers, the coyotes basically walking around us,
getting around us because there was just not enough of us in
physical presence, in technological capability, investigators
and things of that nature.
As a Country, we have ramped up our capability tremendously
over the last eight, nine years, especially over the last two
to three years. What that has caused now is because they can no
longer go around us, below us, over us because we are in the
water, we are in the air, we are actually have tunnel detection
and thing of that nature, now they come at us, directly towards
our employees, trying to corrupt us. So that is one of the
reasons. So our success is part of the issue here, so we need
to recognize that.
And then every time that we take a look for developing
trends, we look at the stats, we look at the numbers, we look
at activities and things of that nature. Some quick stats that
we have looked at: of the 141 cases, the average time in
service of the officers that have fallen by the wayside is
about 9.2, 9.3 years in service. We took a look at the time
frame of the so-called hiring surge, between 2006 and 2009; a
total of 21 employees hired during that time surge are part of
that 141. Very small compared to the over 9,000 border patrol
that we hired. So we take a look at those trends all the time.
One of the most important things that we do, which goes to
the latter part of your question, as to training or anything
else that we take a look at, is we now take a look and de-
construct at every opportunity every one of these corruption
cases, looking to whether it was a failure of the individual to
go corrupt and, if so, was there a failure on the part of
leadership on procedural processes that we need to take a look
and make adjustments in order to tighten up a process, or is it
an organizational process that we need to take a look at. So we
are constantly looking for those trends and for ways to address
it.
One of the things that we often do is focus on what I would
call the obvious. When we take the actions that we take on
investigating allegations, we need to do that and we need to do
better and we need to do more. That is what I refer to as the
reactive portion of our responsibility. Again, I reiterate, do
better and do more, as we are doing today.
But more importantly to me, from an organizational
standpoint, is taking a look at what we can do preemptively,
what we can do proactively to constantly be persistent in
trying to prevent integrity lapses or corruption situations, do
more of the reactive and then do a heck of a lot more in the
area of sustaining a culture that is just not accepting of any
lapses in integrity and corruption.
Mr. Towns. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Mr. Platts. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Towns. Mr. Ragsdale?
Mr. Ragsdale. The only thing I would add is I think one of
the things that we have seen is we look at border crime and
sort of transnational criminal organizations. One of the
reasons why we are particularly effective at locating what is,
thankfully, a very small number of employees is the folks in
ICE OPR come from homeland security investigations, where they
are trained or ready to investigate border crimes.
So we see a technique here to exploit employees, as the
commissioner said, because of the hardening and security that
exists on the border now. So as we look at sort of drug
trafficking organizations', nailing smuggling organizations'
ability to move both contraband and people across the border,
we see this as a technique and we see these robust misconduct
investigations in the larger strategy to combat transnational
crime.
Mr. Towns. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your generosity.
Mr. Platts. You are welcome.
I now yield to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Farenthold.
Mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much. I would like to first
start and ask Mr. Edwards kind of a Texas based question, but
it also has huge national implications. The DHS OIG is under
grand jury investigation for falsifying documents out of the
McAllen Office. Can you give us an update, understanding that
there is obviously litigation involved, as to what is happening
there and what has happened to the personnel in that office?
Mr. Edwards. There is a criminal investigation by the
Department of Justice and I am not at liberty to comment on
that, sir. I would be glad to come by and talk to you in a
private setting.
Mr. Farenthold. Can you tell us what has happened to the
agents there? The Center for Investigative Reports has said, I
think, 11 of them are on administrative leave and others are
being transferred. Can you tell me if that report is accurate?
Mr. Edwards. There are 8 people on administrative leave.
Mr. Farenthold. Well, my concern is you have to be very
worried when the watchdog organization is having some problems.
Do we have an issue where there is such a pressure to get cases
turned out that we are doing sloppy work or there is something
encouraging employees to take shortcuts?
Mr. Edwards. Without getting into specifics of that
investigation, sir, I want to point out that there is not an
overload, there are not too many cases that an agent has to
work. I have and we have put effective processes in place to
ensure that the integrity of our cases are maintained. We have
policies and procedures both from an agent perspective and also
from a case management and a review process that there is
integrity in the work that we do.
Mr. Farenthold. Well, with the number of investigations
going on, not just within your organization, but within the
government in general, you see the length of time it is taking
getting longer and longer, and in a lot of instances employees
under investigation are on administrative leave, and we are
basically paying them to sit at home. So obviously the delay is
costing the taxpayers some money.
Can you talk a little bit about the decision-making
process, about what the OIG determines they are going to
investigate versus what they refer back to the various internal
affairs or professional responsibility departments of other
agencies? What are the guidelines there or the general
principles that are in place?
Mr. Edwards. According to the IG Act and Homeland Security
Act and our internal management directive, all employee
corruption criminal investigation comes to the OIG and OIG
opens these allegations and works these cases not by
themselves; we work jointly with many of our partners. For
instance, in the 1,591 cases I talked about that are open, we
have about 18 cases we are working with the BCTF even though we
haven't signed a MOU there; we are working with the FBI on 142
cases; and we are working on a number of cases internally with
ICE OPR and with ICE HSI and with CBP IA. So we open the case
and if there are cases that we are not going to work them, we
transfer them over to ICE OPR. But we still have very strict
and stringent internal controls and reporting process to report
back to us.
Mr. Farenthold. Now, does that leave you the resources? I
always envision the way it should work is the Office of
Inspector General is a big picture organization that is looking
for waste, fraud, and abuse almost on an institutional basis,
while the internal affairs is more towards an individual agent
or officer. Do you have the resources to do investigations of
the big picture? Is there enough resources for you or people in
your office to be looking at the forest, instead of just
focusing on the trees?
Mr. Edwards. Absolutely, sir. That is why we have taken a
number of internal steps to better and streamline our processes
internally, and also working with our partners within DHS, but
at the same time looking at the big picture, that is what our
audit function does; they look at systemic issues, they look at
programmatic issues, and that is also what our inspections
division does. So apart from looking at a specific individual
and allegation that an investigation looks, the overarching for
audit function and there is not just at CBP or TSA or ICE, we
look at DHS as a whole, and our audit function does a number of
reports on that.
Mr. Farenthold. Thank you very much. I see my time has
expired.
Mr. Platts. I thank the gentleman.
I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Virginia,
Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. I thank you.
Mr. Ragsdale, your title is Acting Deputy Director?
Mr. Ragsdale. It is.
Mr. Connolly. Why are you Acting?
Mr. Ragsdale. I am a member of the Senior Executive
Service. I am permanently in a different job at ICE, but I have
been Acting since June, early June.
Mr. Connolly. But why isn't there a permanent deputy
director?
Mr. Ragsdale. The last permanent deputy director just left
the post and we are looking to see when the job will be filled
permanently.
Mr. Connolly. Mr. Aguilar, your title is Acting
Commissioner.
Mr. Aguilar. Yes, sir.
Mr. Connolly. Why are you Acting?
Mr. Aguilar. My answer is very simple, sir: the
commissioner that was nominated was not confirmed.
Mr. Connolly. By the U.S. Senate.
Mr. Aguilar. By the U.S. Senate back in the December, and
the Secretary asked me to step in; I did back in January.
Mr. Connolly. And, Mr. Edwards, you are an Acting Inspector
General. Why are you Acting?
Mr. Edwards. Well, having a permanent inspector general is
desirable, but I can tell you, even as Acting, I have not taken
this job as Acting for a day; I have ensured and made sure that
I act very independent. The secretary, deputy and all of the
component heads treat me as being very----
Mr. Connolly. No, Mr. Edwards, absolutely true. By all
accounts, all three of you have sterling reputations and are
doing a great job in service to your Country and to the
respective agencies. I am asking a different question, though.
Why don't we have a permanent, an inspector general, as opposed
to an acting inspector general?
Mr. Edwards. There is no nominee yet, sir.
Mr. Connolly. There is no nominee. Had there been one?
Mr. Edwards. There was one, yes.
Mr. Connolly. And what happened to that?
Mr. Edwards. The Senate did not confirm.
Mr. Connolly. Senate did not confirm.
Mr. Edwards. Let me take back. The Senate had a
confirmation hearing and they did not vote on it.
Mr. Connolly. Did not vote on it. They must be very busy
over there, that distracts them from their advise and consent
role.
I just want to ask each of you to comment on the
relationship you have with the intelligence sections of your
respective agencies. How would you characterize the
relationship between, for example, DHS, Mr. Edwards, OIG
investigators and the intelligence sections, various
intelligence sections of DHS?
Mr. Edwards. Sir, I just want to go back. You asked me the
question about the nominee. One last point I wanted to add to
that question.
Mr. Connolly. Sure.
Mr. Edwards. The nominee to the press reporting withdrew
herself. That is the latest on that.
Mr. Connolly. Sometimes, though, somebody--I mean, I can't
judge the merits of the case, but a reasonable human being at
some point is unwilling to put their life entirely on hold for
months and months and months and years and years and years, and
may very well decide to get on with their life and withdraw
their nomination because it is just more than a mortal can
bear.
Mr. Edwards. Answering your question about working with
intelligence within DHS, I am also part of the intelligence IG
form, so we do a number of inspections on the intelligence
portion of DHS, but I am also among the 15 or so IC committee
members, I am an active member of that as well.
Mr. Connolly. But I guess I am asking a little different
question, and I welcome Mr. Aguilar and Mr. Ragsdale to also
comment on this. In theory, if I am doing highly classified
intelligence work that needs to be carefully guarded in terms
of what we are trying to do and the mission is very important,
I may not want some pain in the neck IG staffer coming into my
shop and mucking around and perhaps, like an elephant in a
china shop, stepping on very fragile glass that we worked so
carefully to protect or create or whatever, and my cooperation
might just be culturally wanting, for reasons I think are good.
Maybe you don't, but--I don't mean I, the congressman, but if I
were in that situation, you could see how that mentality might
develop. Is that a problem, in getting cooperation from
intelligence sections in respective agencies? Mr. Ragsdale?
Mr. Ragsdale. Well, from my perspective, we understand our
obligation as a component to respond to the IG. Certainly, the
IG, like ICE employees that have security clearances, in fact,
make sure that those are appropriate at the appropriate levels
to make sure the information flows freely. Again, the inspector
general sits in a unique place in the department, and we have
an obligation to respond. So I know of no problem in that
regard.
If I may also just add to your first question. This job is
not a political appointment; it is not a Senate confirmation
job.
Mr. Aguilar. To your question, sir, specific to
intelligence, I think all of us recognize the importance of
intelligence to any kind of enforcement work that we are
responsible for carrying out. In Customs and Border Protection,
we actually took the affirmative act of not only creating, when
we created our office of intelligence, but we created our
office of intelligence and investigative liaison because of
that recognition. So our head of intelligence has basically, I
am going to say, daily, ongoing contact with our investigative
partners in order to ensure that any kind of intelligence that
is gleaned either by us or by them is instituted in carrying
forth our responsibilities, to include ethics, integrity, and
corruption.
Mr. Connolly. Just a final point. I am over my time, but,
Mr. Edwards, would you concur it really hasn't been much of a
problem, cooperation?
Mr. Edwards. Well, at the highest level the cooperation is
there, at the best level. I don't want to sit here and say that
it is a perfect marriage. That is why we have IGs. IGs will go
and say they are there to help and, really, some people may not
like that part of they are there to help. At the same time, if
there are instances that there is not cooperation, we have a
resolution and de-confliction process. So, overall, it has been
working very well in my tenure at DHS OIG.
Mr. Connolly. Thank you very much.
My time is up, Mr. Chairman. Thank you again for holding
this hearing.
Mr. Platts. I thank the gentleman and thank him for his
participation.
I am going to yield to myself again for a second round, a
couple follow-up questions. One is initially, I guess, more of
a comment.
Inspector General Edwards, you had stated earlier
absolutely no turf battles today, and that is, I think, an
important message to be heard today, which probably two years
or so ago might have been very different, and that is an
important part of this hearing; where are we, where have we
come from, where are we heading, and that is, I think,
critically important.
And then related to that, Commissioner Aguilar, you
referenced, again, the positive interactions and MOUs and the
cooperation and kind of more unprecedented understanding of
cases that you have because of that cooperation. But you also
said yet we have challenges ahead of us. What would you, and
then if I could ask the other two as well, each of you to
identify, what are the greatest challenges, as we go forward,
to maintain and further enhance the cooperation that is ongoing
so that, two years from now, we are not back to where we have
department personnel, IG personnel saying, hey, there is no
real relationship here, there is no cooperation, and that we
don't revert back? So what are those challenges and how do we
guard against going back?
Mr. Aguilar. I think one of the challenges that we have at
this point in time is making sure that we do everything that we
can to institutionalize what we have now come to recognize the
right way of doing business. I lived this two years ago, and
two years ago it was not a good way of doing business. When the
component heads got together, decided to move forward, we
started making some strides immediately. The advancements that
we have made have been tremendous.
There is a recognition on the part of us; more importantly,
I think, there is a recognition on the part of our people on
the ground, the boots on the ground that really do the work. So
it is continuing the relationship; it is building the
institutionalization of these processes to ensure that we do
not step back, regardless who is sitting at these chairs five,
ten years from now.
Mr. Platts. And before the others answer, in reference to
Mr. Connolly's question, identifying all three of you as
Acting, given the direction we are heading with all three of
you as Acting, maybe we don't want permanent. Maybe Acting is
good. Because we seem to be heading in that right direction and
that cooperation. The three of you aren't just here at the
table today together, but are interacting on a regular basis,
and your subordinates. And I think that is an important aspect,
is putting in place the structure so, as you well stated,
whoever will be in these seats in the coming years, if it is
not you, that we still have the same level of cooperation.
General Edwards?
Mr. Edwards. I totally agree with what the commissioner
said. Having these MOUs solidifies that. We have to continue in
that direction; we cannot go back. But also within DHS we know
it is inherently DHS's problem and we are trying to address it.
My hope is that I need to have an MOU with the Bureau.
Mr. Platts. I am sorry, say that again, with the Bureau?
Mr. Edwards. Yes. I have been working for the last several
months meeting with officials from FBI, and I am hopeful. We
have agreement in the majority of areas, and as long as IG
independence and transparency is attained, I am really, really
hopeful that we will have a signed MOU that we all can work
together jointly and get this, because it is a problem that we
all need to address, and everybody's heart is in the right
place and we just need to move forward.
Mr. Platts. Mr. Ragsdale?
Mr. Ragsdale. I would just add, also, as the commissioner
and the inspector general said, what we certainly want to see
is a complete codification of sort of the business practice
that has led to an appropriate level of workload at each of our
various components at the front end. As we all staff the Joint
Intake Center, or as we know it, the JIC, we want to make sure
that at the earliest possible stage the cases are assigned out
for early action.
From the ICE OPR perspective, we complete most cases, or at
least for the year, about 80 percent in about six months, and
we are actually doing a little better so far in fiscal year
2012. We want to make sure that we can continue to do that, and
the way to do that is obviously to have sort of the cases
separated as early as possible.
Mr. Platts. And that goes to, I guess, a follow-up about
the challenges that none of the three of you referenced, and
that is the caseload and that early identification. Is it safe
to say, IG, that the roughly 600 or so, the two turn-backs
combined, that going forward there is probably going to be an
effort to better identify them up front or more quickly to go
back, versus holding them and then turning them back at a
latter date? Is that a fair statement about the approach?
Mr. Edwards. Absolutely. I mean, we have given more
authority to the SACs in the field. For instance, if there is a
SAC and they have 10 agents, and there is an average of about
nine cases a person, and the more allegations that come in,
rather than adding to the inventory, the SAC needs to make a
quick, immediate judgment and assess it, and then look at the
case details and transfer it over to ICE OPR. So, system-wise,
we have put processes in place and also this cooperation that
we are venturing towards and want this to happen. I think this
is a good way of addressing the cases now and in the future.
Mr. Platts. With the caseload that has come back, the
number of cases that have come back, certainly it has increased
significantly the caseload that your entities are handling. Do
you envision, at your level, making requests for additional
staff investigators, as well as the IG has been making at the
department level?
Mr. Ragsdale. One of the things that does make ICE somewhat
unique in this situation is because we have between 6,500 and
7,000 special agents in homeland security investigation, ICE
OPR is able to, internally within ICE, get extra investigative
support sort of internally. In sort of an era of sort of
limited resources, we have to be very careful about sort of
balancing requests for additional personnel, but we do have the
luxury at least for what I would say a built-in surge capacity
at ICE that will let us sort of deal with this both now and
going forward.
Mr. Platts. Okay.
Mr. Aguilar. In the case of CBP, Chairman, we have a total
of about, as of this morning, 199 investigators assigned to
these types of cases. At the present time, I think between both
entities here, we have probably close to 50 officers; of those
officers assigned to either one of these entities on either
side of me. They serve as force enhancers to ICE and to IG. I
believe that we could add some more to ICE and IG from within
the ranks of the ones that we have now. So at the present time
I think we are in good shape.
Mr. Platts. Okay. Thank you.
Inspector General Edwards, you talked about the 140-plus
cases that you are currently working with the FBI, and then
also about working to try to get an MOU with the Bureau. How
would you describe that relationship, where it is today versus
a year ago? You have been in your position about a year and a
half, maybe from when you came in to where it is today, and
where you are trying to get with that MOU?
Mr. Edwards. Right after I signed the MOU with Commissioner
Burson, my next step was to work with the Bureau, so I met with
officials there and talked to them about the IG independence
and also having an agreement with them, because in March of
2010 we didn't sign the BCTF MOU because it didn't take into
account IG independence. So I expressed my desire to work with
them and they seemed very interested and willing to do as well.
But as we have progressed over several months, there are key
issues that they are working, and I am hopeful that we will get
that resolved. I am hopeful before my tenure is up that an MOU
is signed.
But at the same time, at the field level, the 142 cases,
whether it is the Bureau, DEA, ATF, ICE, or CBP IA, at the
field level the agents really work well together, because when
you look down, there are only a few agents; they have to work
together. The relationship is great. Even though we haven't
signed the BCTF MOU, there are a number of places we are
working cases together. It is just in the headquarters level we
need to come to an agreement so we set a precedence in place
that, going forward, we are going to work this way, have a
signed MOU, and I am hopeful of that.
Mr. Platts. Okay. Thank you.
My colleague from Texas talked about the McAllen situation.
I realize you can't go into the details there, but also how it
relates at headquarters with the top two officials at the
Office of Investigations being on leave as well. That is
related to those ongoing investigations and the grand jury that
is currently seated, is that correct? I think the approach of
transparency as those investigations are concluded, then the
more information you will be able to share, what did transpire
at that specific center and then how the Department has
responded to those allegations.
A specific question as the type of investigations, just so
I have a better understanding, criminal versus administrative.
Each of you or if one of you can appropriately explain what is
the difference in level of misconduct and how, when we talk
about in the testimony there is a lot about the number of
investigations, this many that were criminal and being pursued,
but this many that are administrative. Where is that dividing
line between administrative wrongdoing and criminal?
Mr. Edwards. Well, let me start out, sir. When we get an
allegation, either through our DHS OIG hotline or any sources
through the JIC, the Joint Intake Center, when we look at an
allegation, essentially if it is of administrative in nature
and we are not going to work it--we call it box 1, box 2, and
box 3--we will send it to the component level and ask them to
work it administratively----
Mr. Platts. And what would constitute that type of case?
Mr. Edwards. Let's say somebody is cheating on a T&A, time
and attendance. It is more of an administrative nature that the
component needs to deal with. So they will have their internal
affairs component look into that, work it. But if it is
something of administrative in nature but it is at a higher
level, the threshold is higher, than we will ask them to
investigate it administratively and then report back to us what
the closure, what the outcome was.
If it is criminal in nature, then we will take the case and
then looking at the location where we are, suppose we are in
south Texas and it is something to do with ICE HSI, then we
will work jointly with them, because for that particular matter
ICE Homeland Security is better equipped because they are the
subject matter expert, so we will work with them jointly.
So a lot of these cases OIG is not working independently;
they are working jointly with each one of the components or
other law enforcement partners.
We also have--we need to notify the Bureau within 30 days,
the OIG and the Bureau, according to the attorney general
guidelines, when we open a case at the district that this case
is being opened. So when we notify them, many times they will
want to work with us, or they will get the lead and they will
ask us if they want to work with us. So the relationship was
not the best, but it is getting better, and I am hopeful that
just like we are sitting here together and saying that we are
working well, my hope is that the Bureau will be sitting with
us and say we all are working well together.
Mr. Platts. Is it fair to say that line between
administrative case being investigated and a criminal, it is a
judgment call by your investigators that pilfering supplies may
be handled administratively, but if it got to a point where
they are embezzling not just supplies, but large amounts of
equipment or something to get to a level that it would rise to
a criminal? Is that a fair statement, that there is a
subjective determination here?
Mr. Edwards. And based on our experience and cases in the
past, there is a certain amount of judgment call one needs to
make. Also, at the end of the day, is the U.S. attorney going
to accept it?
Mr. Ragsdale. I would add that is exactly right. If the
investigation may not be, clearly on its face, either
administrative or criminal, the special agent would take the
case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for a charging decision, and
recognizing that the Department of Justice, like every other
agency, has limited resources, while the facts may sound both
administratively or in a criminal violation, the resolution
just based on sort of the gravity of them may sort of favor one
or the other.
Mr. Platts. And my follow-up, there is probably a good
number of cases that maybe could be pursued criminally, but
they are at a level where that is not going to happen, but you
still do pursue them with administrative punishment or
repercussions internally?
Mr. Ragsdale. That is exactly right. Just like there is a
range of sort of ability to investigate and sort of prosecute
the conduct, it could either be through, again, a criminal
prosecution or an administrative resolution that could lead to
firing or a suspension.
Mr. Platts. Okay.
Mr. Towns. No further questions, Mr. Chairman, but I want
to thank them because it is very encouraging to know that they
are working together, because I think in government, as you
know, a lot of times we waste resources because we just don't
have a working relationship; we don't talk to each other. So
sometimes we are involved in duplication and, of course, you
seem to have been able to sort of work that through and work it
out.
And sometimes you have agencies that they don't want to
share and they just want to do whatever they are doing and
don't want anybody to--and a lot of times they are not even in
the best position to even follow through or to carry it out. To
come this morning and to hear you are working together and that
your Memorandum of Understanding is something that all of you
respect, I want you to know that I am really encouraged by
that.
However, when I look at the fact that 220,000 employees and
only 219 investigators, I think I get a little nervous when I
look at that. I understand you said that you support the
budget, but sometimes we support when it is not really the
proper thing to do.
But I think that is something that needs to be talked
about, Mr. Chairman, and to see whether or not that is adequate
for the 220,000, only to have 219 investigators. That seems to
me to be inadequate. But here again I think it is something
that needs to be explored and looked at further.
I understand your position, Mr. Edwards. It is very clear
to me that you support the budget. I understand that. I do
understand it, but sometimes we have to go beyond that.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Platts. I thank the gentleman.
I will wrap up with one, again, thanks to each of you for
your testimony here today, your written testimony, but, most
importantly, day in and day out your leadership of your
respective components and the importance of what you are doing
in a broad sense and as you are focused on that more rare bad
apple, and not just holding them accountable, but also because
of the importance of what your department and component agency
missions are.
So when that individual who is, unfortunately, corrupt is
letting products come through that shouldn't, and they may
think it is less of a threat, but it might be weapons; if it is
persons, it might be terrorists, not what they think, just
somebody, an illegal alien, but it may be an enemy of our
Nation. So all the more what you are doing is critically
important.
And, Mr. Towns, just well captured the message that you
conveyed in our interactions, both staff and members, prior to
the hearing and today, is, I think, a very important message
and, most importantly, a most important direction that you are
following, and that is let turf battles be on the football turf
or the soccer turf, not in public service or government, and to
truly work hand in hand with each other; and that is clearly
what you are seeking to do. As the commissioner said, that
doesn't mean there aren't challenges yet to institutionalize
this approach so it is pervasive and continuous. That is
something we all up here, we certainly know the challenge of
working to improve our cooperation.
But I commend you for the approach you are taking and very
much thank you for your dedication to our Nation and our
citizens.
We will keep the record open for seven days for any other
materials. This hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]