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Open Recommendations (141 total)

Federal Contracting: Senior Leaders Should Use Leading Companies' Key Practices to Improve Performance

GAO-21-491
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure the DHS Chief Procurement Officer collaborates with end users to develop performance metrics for procurement organizations. (Recommendation 4)
Open
DHS did not concur with this recommendation. However, in January 2022, DHS also stated the office of the Chief Procurement Officer would consider whether end-user feedback would enhance its performance metrics in a meaningful way. As of August 2023, DHS has not provided an update on this effort.

Department of Homeland Security: Reporting on Border Security Metrics Could Be Improved

GAO-24-106277
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Under Secretary for the Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans should take steps to engage with components to more fully report the metrics as defined by the 2017 NDAA in its Border Security Metrics Report. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

FEMA Workforce: Additional Actions Needed to Help Prevent and Respond to Discrimination and Harassment

GAO-23-105243
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should update mandatory antiharassment training consistent with EEOC's Promising Practices for Preventing Harassment, to ensure it includes:

  1. Examples that are tailored to the DHS-specific workplace and workforce;
  2. Explanations of the information that may be requested during an investigation, including: the name or a description of the alleged harasser(s), alleged victim(s), and any witnesses; the date(s) of the alleged harassment; the location(s) of the alleged harassment; and a description of the alleged harassment; and
  3. An opportunity for employees to ask questions about the training, harassment policy, complaint system, and related rules and expectations, either during the training or by providing component-specific points of contact. (Recommendation 2)
Open
DHS concurred with this recommendation. In July 2023, officials said that they have a contract to deliver updated training and anticipate delivering the training by September 30, 2024.

Department of Homeland Security: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Joint Task Forces

GAO-24-106855
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure the Office of the Military Advisor, as it finalizes performance measures for Joint Task Force-East, establishes targets for those measures, as required. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Cloud Security: Selected Agencies Need to Fully Implement Key Practices

GAO-23-105482
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure that the agency fully implements continuous monitoring for its selected IaaS system, to include performing a regular review of the continuous monitoring deliverables from the CSP. (Recommendation 9)
Open
The agency stated that through its role on the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program's Joint Authorization Board, it has performed a regular review of the continuous monitoring deliverables from the cloud service provider. In September 2023, the agency stated that the components and programs leveraging the service provider are responsible for reviewing the board's continuous monitoring reports. However, as of February 2024 we have not received evidence demonstrating that the officials responsible for the selected IaaS system had reviewed these reports. We will continue to monitor the agency's efforts to address our recommendation.

Federal Research: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Public Access to Research Results

GAO-20-81
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should take steps to ensure appropriate agency-funded research data are readily findable and accessible to the public. (Recommendation 5)
Open – Partially Addressed
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) concurred with this recommendation and noted that it was in the process of establishing a portal on its website to increase public access to agency-funded research. In January 2022, DHS provided information demonstrating that a DHS-funded publications repository, hosted by NIH, has been linked to the DHS-funded data repository and is publicly available. According to DHS, metadata collected during posting of articles to the publications repository, including unique digital object identifiers, will be used to connect articles to the data in the data repository. As of April 2022, DHS said it continued to work toward making some additional improvements to this linkage, including reviewing the releasability of certain datasets. In March 2023, DHS provided an update stating that it created a website link on the main public facing DHS webpage that directs to an official DHS landing page that has descriptions and links to the various repositories for publicly funded research and associated data sets. A DHS official said this effort was complete as of December 2022. We requested documentation of this action and will update this recommendation when DHS provides additional information.

Border Security: DHS Should Improve the Quality of Unlawful Border Entry Information and Other Metric Reporting

GAO-19-305
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure the communication of the limitations of the metrics identified through the systematic review in the department's annual Border Security Metrics Report. (Recommendation 2)
Open
In its comment letter, DHS concurred with the recommendation and requested that we consider it implemented because the department had detailed some of the limitations in its fiscal year 2017 Border Security Metrics Report and planned to continue to identify known limitations and the progress made to mitigate previously identified limitations in future reports. In its fiscal year 2019 report, DHS communicated additional data limitations. However, in that report, DHS did not disclose or clearly describe some or all of the limitations for 17 of the 21 metrics we identified in our March 2019 review. In July 2022, DHS officials stated that DHS had identified all known limitations in the 2021 Border Security Metrics Report. However, the officials also said in July 2022 that DHS had not yet implemented a process to systematically review the reliability of the data used in the reports. In July 2023, OIS officials stated that they have ongoing conversations to examine their processes and determine how they can systematically review the reliability of the operational data. As of March 2024, DHS reported that it was in the process of completing its 2023 Border Security Metrics Report. When DHS finalizes the report, we will assess the extent to which it communicated limitations of the metrics it identified by systematically reviewing the reliability of the data used in the report.

Homeland Security: Joint Requirements Council Needs Leadership Attention to Improve Effectiveness

GAO-23-106125
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should ensure that the Deputy's Management Action Group (DMAG), in coordination with the JRC participates in the Joint Requirements Integration and Management System process, by reviewing and validating all designated documents determined to be DMAG Interest by the JRC. (Recommendation 4)
Open
In providing comments on this report, DHS concurred with this recommendation and stated that it plans to align the JRC within the DHS Management Directorate in fiscal year 2024, after which the JRC interactions with the DMAG would be more focused on informing prioritized investment decision-making. DHS also said it planned to review the current Joint Requirements Integration and Management System lexicon and update related guidance in fall 2024 to better differentiate between documents warranting department-wide review and those special circumstances when DMAG involvement is necessary. In February 2024, DHS stated that planned actions were pending approval of a fiscal year 2024 budget. In March 2024, Congress directed DHS to dissolve the existing JRC and identify alternative methods to improve the management and resourcing of joint requirements across the department. We will continue to monitor the actions DHS plans to take and determine whether these actions meet the intent of the recommendation.

Law Enforcement: Federal Agencies Should Improve Reporting and Review of Less-Lethal Force

GAO-22-104470
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of Homeland Security should develop standards for its component agencies on the types of information that must be reported on each use of force incident. (Recommendation 4)
Open – Partially Addressed
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided documentation of some standards for information that must be reported related to use of force but did not create standards for other kinds of information that should be reported so that component agencies can determine whether the use of force was conducted in accordance with policy. In June 2023, DHS officials stated that the DHS Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans (DHS Policy) led a working group under the Law Enforcement Coordination Council that developed a baseline set of data points and a reporting template for all DHS law enforcement components and offices. These data are to be reported to DHS Policy, which will use the data for inclusion in Federal Bureau of Investigation's use of force data collection and public-facing website, as well as other internal DHS reporting. DHS Policy provided copies of the template, which includes required fields, such as the type of injuries and force used. However, the template and its related requirements do not include standards for what information must be reported by each component for the purpose of determining whether the use of force incident was conducted in accordance with policy. For example, the template does not include required information on the reason for the use of force. Further, on the basis of our review of DHS's 2023 Use of Force Policy, this policy also does not include additional standards for its component agencies on the types of information that must be reported on each use of force incident.In August 2023, DHS officials stated that it is the responsibility of component agencies to develop their own standards for what information must be reported for the purpose of determining whether the use of force incident was conducted in accordance with policy. However, as we reported in December 2021, we found that all four of the DHS agencies in our review had use of force reports that were missing basic information that would be needed to determine if the force was used in accordance with policy, such as who used the force and why. Further, we found that while DHS's policy states that uses of force are to be documented and investigated pursuant to agency policies, the departmental policy does not include standards for agencies on the types of information that must be reported, including whether the circumstances for each use of force must be reported. We continue to believe that developing such department-wide standards on the types of information that should be required in use of force reporting will help ensure that officers develop reports with all of the needed basic information, which will allow management across DHS to help oversee officers' use of force.

Air Cargo Security: TSA Field Testing Should Ensure Screening Systems Meet Detection Standards

GAO-21-105192
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1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Homeland Security The Secretary of DHS should ensure that the Administrator of TSA and the Commissioner of CBP establish a documented process to ensure that relevant officials from both agencies are aware of and have access to applicable data to inform their inbound air cargo risk assessment efforts. (Recommendation 1)
Open
In July 2021, we reported that the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have separate procedures for assessing risk for inbound air cargo and share information to inform their respective risk assessments; however, they do not have a documented process that ensures the full exchange of relevant air cargo risk data. Consequently, we recommended that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should ensure that TSA and CBP establish a documented process to ensure that both agencies are aware of and have access to applicable data to inform inbound air cargo risk assessments efforts. In February 2023, TSA officials informed us they had met with CBP officials in April 2022 and identified CBP air cargo data that may help TSA in its risk assessments. TSA also stated that going forward the two agencies will meet biannually to discuss the sharing of relevant air cargo data. To document this arrangement, TSA and CBP are drafting a Memorandum of Understanding that details the agreed-upon process for sharing relevant air cargo risk assessment data. To fully address this recommendation, TSA and CBP should finalize this Memorandum of Understanding.
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