Inspector general finds litany of failures within Homeland Security under Biden-Harris

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The Center Square

Under the Biden-Harris administration, a litany of failures have been identified at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Multiple Office of Inspector General audits found a range of failures at DHS and

Multiple Office of Inspector General audits identified a range of failures at DHS and its subagencies, from vetting, to screening to releasing foreign nationals the OIG has said increases national security threats. Its secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, was impeached in February by House Republicans for dereliction of duty, including the failures the OIG identified.

 

 

Congress established DHS through the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to consolidate federal agency resources to better protect Americans from terrorist threats and disasters after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Homeland Security Act “requires DHS to provide situational awareness and a common operating picture for the entire federal government,” and for state, local, and tribal governments, related to terrorist acts, natural disasters, or man-made disasters.

“Recent incidents and disasters highlighted the need for situational awareness throughout the Homeland Security Enterprise,” the OIG says, which is why it audited DHS to determine if it was sharing “actionable information on emerging threats with its external partners.”

The OIG found that it wasn’t and DHS partners “did not always use DHS technology to obtain emerging threat information.”

This is after members of Congress called on DHS to issue a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin, which it hasn’t done since May 2023. The NTAS was “designed to communicate information about terrorist threats by providing timely, detailed information to the American public.” When asked why it still hasn’t issued one, DHS did not respond.

Congress has allocated billions of dollars for DHS technology to enable agents to identify and share emerging threat information and maintain “real-time situational awareness.” The audit found that DHS partners “did not always use this technology to obtain threat information,” were not always aware of technology modernization or training efforts, DHS didn’t conduct outreach to support partners and didn’t “always share information with partners in a timely manner. As a result, “DHS cannot always effectively share emerging threat information with partners, which may limit … response to emerging threats against the homeland,” the report found.

 

This was the latest among many DHS issues the OIG identified.