Title: Our Priority Recommendations for the Department of Homeland
Security 

Description: Every year, GAO sends letters to federal agencies
highlighting our recommendations from past reports that we think should
be prioritized because they would have an immediate high impact on the
most pressing challenges facing their agencies and programs. This year,
for the Department of Homeland Security, our priority recommendations
include those that would improve national security and better prepare
for and protect against disasters. We find out more about our
recommendations from GAO's Chris Currie.

Related GAO Work: GAO-23-106483, Priority Open Recommendations:
Department of Homeland Security

Released: July 2023

[Music]

[Chris Currie:] DHS is facing a huge challenge at the border right now,
and they're also facing a huge challenge with responding to COVID-19 and
other disasters.

[Holly Hobbs:] Hi, and welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report. Your source for
fact based nonpartisan news and information from the U.S. Government
Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. Every year, GAO sends
letters to federal agencies highlighting our recommendations from past
reports that we think should be prioritized because they would have an
immediate, high impact on the most pressing challenges facing their
agencies and programs. This year, for the Department of Homeland
Security, our priority recommendations include those that would improve
national security, and better prepare for and protect against disasters.
Today, we'll find out more from Chris Currie, an expert on the
Department of Homeland Security's management. Thanks for joining us,
Chris.

[Chris Currie:] Thank you.

[Holly Hobbs:] So, Chris, we have 42 priority recommendations for DHS
and they sort of fall into categories that touch on the department's
different and critical mission areas. Maybe we could start with topics
that touch on domestic extremism and crime. So countering violent
extremism was a topic of some of our recommendations. Can you talk a
little bit about that?

[Chris Currie:] Yeah, sure. This is an area that's really emerged for
DHS in recent years. I mean, violent extremism is not a new thing, but
the threat and the construct of domestic violent extremism, and the
increase in the threat, has really been a growing thing for not just
DHS, but the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. So it's a major
threat. And just to illustrate this, according to the FBI, domestic
terrorism cases grew by about 357% between 2013 and 2021. So this just
shows you in their eyes and in terms of investigations how much this is
increasing. Some of our priority recommendations for DHS have to do with
developing its strategy around combating violent extremism. And one
piece of that is better defining the terminology for these types of
events so they can better hone and refine their own policies. As you can
imagine, there's some question and discussion about what exactly a
domestic violent extremist event is or the violent extremist
organization. And so just having consistent terminology is a key piece
of knowing how to combat it.

[Holly Hobbs:] What about domestic intelligence and information sharing?
How does that fit into our recommendations for DHS?

[Chris Currie:] Recently, several of our priority recommendations in
this area relate to work that we've done around the Capitol attack. In
the weeks preceding January 6, 2021, DHS was among several federal,
state and local entities responsible for identifying and sharing
information and coordinating security measures at the Capitol. So one
thing we found is that DHS didn't process and share all the
threat-related information that it could have and in the way it should
have with relevant agencies. So we recommended that DHS better do this,
and make sure the personnel are following the right practices and
procedures--so those who need the information before these types of
events can get it. 

[Holly Hobbs:] Cybersecurity also continues to be an area of concern
across the federal government. What are our recommendations there?

[Chris Currie:] This issue has been on GAO's High Risk List since the
90s. And while there's been a huge amount of progress on cyber at DHS,
there's just so much more work that's needed in this area. And that's
even after all the emphasis that's been put on this government-wide. I
think that one thing that's important to talk about is that DHS has
probably the most difficult cyber mission in all of government because
of three things. One, they have to secure their own systems. And two,
they have to secure other federal agencies systems. And then three, they
have to help the private sector and state and local governments secure
their own systems as well. So it's a huge, broad challenge. Just to give
you an example, one of our priority recommendations is, how to help
assess if private and state sector partners are implementing the
cybersecurity framework. So when I say sector partners, I mean those in
state and local governments or the pipeline industry or the banking
industry. All the sectors that make up our modern society. DHS has a
role of helping to coordinate with them and make sure they are securing
their networks because all of these things are tied together. And so
making sure that all the networks are secure is pretty critical to
overall cybersecurity.

[Holly Hobbs:] Chemical and nuclear security is also an area where we've
done quite a lot of work and have priority recommendations. Can you
describe the issues there and the actions we think DHS should
prioritize?

[Chris Currie:] Sure. So in the last question, I was talking about the
sectors that DHS works with throughout the country. I mean, the chemical
sector is just one, for example, sector. DHS works with thousands of
chemical facilities throughout the country to help secure them. And of
course, one of the issues recently that has come up is not so much
physical attacks to these facilities, but cyberattacks to their systems.
Those could often be as detrimental or damaging as someone actually
trying to break into these facilities and steal chemicals or use them.
So DHS evaluates these facilities' cybersecurity efforts through
inspections that include, you know, on site reviews of policies and
procedures. They interview officials. They basically verify that
facilities are doing what they agreed to do in terms of security
measures. And one of our recommendations is about helping DHS have the
workforce it needs and the personnel it needs to do these cybersecurity
workforce reviews.

[Holly Hobbs:] In terms of border security and related activities, DHS
is not only responsible for immigration, but also caring for those in
custody. And we've made some priority recommendations about this, right?

[Chris Currie:] Yeah, we have. And since the department was created in
2003, we have reported on and recommended many, many things related to
border security issues. There's been a lot of focus on this over the
years. And in the care and custody issue, one recommendation, for
example, recently talked about DHS better identifying information about
family members apprehended together, and how the components of DHS
process family members and communicate information to each other. We
also recommended in addition to that, the DHS evaluate options for
developing a unique way or identifier to share across components. So all
the data systems are linked up and they understand and know how to track
family members. That's just one area across many, many areas in the
border security space.

[Holly Hobbs:] I think most of us think of DHS in terms of national
security and the border, but it's also responsible for federal emergency
and disaster preparedness and response efforts. Can you tell us a little
bit about the priority recommendations we've made for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, FEMA?

[Chris Currie:] Yeah, I'm glad you asked that, because I'm not sure most
people realize that by far DHS spends the most money on disaster
preparedness, response and recovery. And FEMA by far manages most of the
department's dollars. So just as an example, FEMA has obligated over
$112 billion--that's Billion--in recent years in responding to COVID-19.
So that just gives you a sense of the scale. But our recommendations in
this space are pretty wide. For example, we have a number related to
FEMA ensuring it has the right workforce, and they're trained
appropriately to respond to so many different types and the increasing
number of disasters. There's an open recommendation, that's a priority
for us, related to FEMA and other federal agencies, streamlining
recovery programs that state and locals use after a disaster. And then,
there's also recommendations about how we can better control fraud in
these programs since there is so much money being spent.

{MUSIC}

[Holly Hobbs:] So Chris just told us about some of our priority
recommendations for DHS that would have an immediate impact on things
like national security, immigration, and how FEMA responds to
emergencies. So Chris, we send a letter to the Department of Homeland
Security with our priority recommendations every year. What's the
benefit of that? 

[Chris Currie:] The benefits are pretty simple for both sides. The
benefit for us is that we look across all of our open recommendations
for a department, and we see what's the highest priority. So for
example, DHS has about 490 open GAO recommendations. This is pretty
consistent over time. They've ranged anywhere from 400 to almost 500
open recommendations. That's not uncommon for a department that large to
have that many. But with so many issues, I think it's hard for both GAO
and for DHS to agree on and prioritize those that are most important. So
what we do is we look across the mission areas and we determine those in
each area we think are important. The other thing that I wanted to
mention about DHS is I don't think there's another department that has
such a broad and diverse mission, that's all so challenging. So just
take two issues, for example. I mean, they're facing a huge challenge at
the border right now, and they're also facing, for example, a huge
challenge with responding to COVID-19 and other disasters. So how do you
prioritize resources and challenges to address if you don't have some
sort of sense of how to narrow those down across all of our open
recommendations? So that's the benefit for both sides.

[Holly Hobbs:] And last question, Chris, what's the bottom line of this
letter to DHS?

[Chris Currie:] DHS really does appreciate the work that we do, and they
take our work seriously. But between GAO, the IGs, and other entities,
there is so much oversight work that's done on a large department like
DHS. It's just really hard to kind of wade through all of that and
figure out the most important issues that decision makers and leaders
need to zone in on. And it's a way for our Comptroller General of our
agency to directly communicate the most important things through a
letter directly to the cabinet secretary. And because of that, it gets a
lot more attention.

[Holly Hobbs:] That was Chris Currie talking about GAO's priority
recommendations for the Department of Homeland Security. Thanks for your
time, Chris.

[Chris Currie:] Thank you.

[Holly Hobbs:] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To
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