Department of Homeland Security

We determined that before July 12, 2018, migrant parents did not consistently have the opportunity to reunify with their children before removal. Although DHS and ICE have claimed that parents removed without their children chose to leave them behind, there was no policy or standard process...

We determined DHS law enforcement components did not consistently collect DNA from arrestees as required. Of the five DHS law enforcement components we reviewed that are subject to these DNA collection requirements, only Secret Service consistently collected DNA from arrestees. U.S. Immigration and...

DHS OIG's 37th Semiannual Report to Congress summarizes the work and accomplishments of the Department of Homeland Security Office of InspectorGeneral from October 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

DHS did not comply with Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) in fiscal year 2020 because it did not achieve and report an improper payment rate of less than 10 percent for 2 of 12 programs reported in its FY 2020 Agency Financial Report. DHS complied with Executive Order 13520 by...

We determined that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Border Patrol headquarters officials were only aware of a few of the 83 CBP employees’ cases of social media misconduct. CBP and Border Patrol senior officials only responded to one of those cases, upon direction from DHS. In contrast...

During our unannounced inspection of Pulaski County Jail, we identified violations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention standards that threatened the health, safety, and rights of detainees. In addressing COVID-19, Pulaski did not consistently enforce precautions including use...

Under 40 U.S.C. § 1315, DHS had the legal authority to designate and deploy DHS law enforcement officers from CBP, ICE and United States Secret Service to help the Federal Protective Service protect Federal facilities in Portland, Oregon. However, DHS was unprepared to effectively execute cross...

We identified violations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention standards that threatened the health, safety, and rights of detainees. La Palma Correctional Center (LPCC) complied with the ICE detention standard regarding classification. However, detainee reports and grievances...

We determined that a key issue preventing CBP from transferring detainees out of its facilities within 72 hours was insufficient Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Enforcement and Removal Operations’ (ERO) bed space. ICE ERO also could not increase capacity quickly enough to keep pace with...

We determined that the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) process for recovering disallowed grant funds could be improved. First, FEMA justified allowing most of the costs we questioned for noncompliance with procurement regulations without addressing the procurement deficiencies. Second...