Homeland Insecurity

One of the main reasons Congress goaded the administration into setting up a Department of Homeland Security was to consolidate agencies responsible for controlling the flow of people and goods across U.S. borders. But bureaucratic infighting and political squabbles have put these agencies in a state of disarray and left them without permanent leadership.

Of three key Homeland Security agencies responsible for U.S. border security--the Bureaus of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)--none currently has a permanent chief. In the case of CBP, the commissioner left recently and the White House has not yet named a replacement. In the case of ICE, home to some of the Federal government's most skilled plainclothes investigators, confirmation of President Bush's nominee was delayed after congressional Democrats questioned her qualifications. Congress is also moving slowly on the nomination of a new chief for CIS.

Two of these agencies, CBP and ICE, have also been involved in a series of debilitating financial and bureaucratic turf fights which have sapped morale and, in some cases, allegedly come close to hampering day-to-day operations. Investigators working for ICE, for instance, have complained for months about a financial crisis, allegedly the product of a feud between former chiefs of ICE and CBP, which curbed the ability of ICE officials to make even inexpensive out-of-town trips. Meanwhile, offices within the CBP bureau are tussling with each other over who is going to control the bureau's substantial fleet of patrol boats and planes--some of which were recently transferred to CBP from ICE as part of an ongoing effort by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to restructure his department's assets to make them work together more effectively.

When he took over the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year from predecessor Tom Ridge, Chertoff announced he would review how the various pieces of his department--which combined more than 20 agencies from such diverse cabinet departments as Justice, Treasury and Transportation--fit together. Chertoff's aides acknowledge that this review remains a work in progress and that the department's problems are not going to sort themselves out overnight.

"It takes time," says Brian Doyle, a Homeland Security spokesman. "Do we wish we can do it faster and better? You bet. We also want to do it the way we think it should be done." Doyle acknowledged that political and bureaucratic obstacles are not making the Homeland jigsaw puzzle easy to reassemble, but maintained nonetheless that Chertoff's effort to reorganize the department is "moving ahead fairly well."

One of the most obvious problems is a leadership vacuum at the top of all three key border-control units. At CBP, a huge agency that includes paramilitary Border Patrol officers as well as all uniformed customs and immigration inspectors at land, air and sea border posts, the highly regarded commissioner, former federal judge and Drug Enforcement Agency chief Robert Bonner, recently resigned. The White House has not yet named a replacement. At CIS, which is responsible for processing applications for U.S. citizenship and residence permits--including the famous immigration "green cards"--director Eduardo Aguirre left earlier this year to become U.S. ambassador to Spain. The successor nominated by president Bush, lawyer and former White House official Emilio T. Gonzalez, has yet to be confirmed by Congress, though there is a remote possibility his nomination could reach the Senate floor before the end of the year.