Department of Homeland Security

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Individuals and Households Program (IHP) has no assurance of applicants’ eligibility for Small Business Administration (SBA) Dependent Other Needs Assistance (ONA) payments. According to OMB Circular A-123, Appendix C, when documentation or...

ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is effectively contributing to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) counterterrorism efforts by leveraging its authorities, experience, skills, and staffing. However, existing agreements and guidance on HSI’s...

The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) complied with Federal procurement requirements for its noncompetitive procurement of the Whitefish contract. However, the contract costs may not have complied with Federal cost principles that costs must be reasonable to be eligible for Federal awards...

DHS generally met deadlines for responding to simple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, it did not do so for most complex requests. A significant increase in requests received, coupled with resource constraints, limited DHS’ ability to meet production timelines under FOIA, creating a...

o U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) does not comprehensively plan and conduct its covert testing, use test results to address vulnerability, or widely share lessons learned. CBP’s two covert testing groups do not use risk assessments or intelligence to plan and conduct covert tests at ports...

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not follow its written policy when conducting disciplinary reviews of Senior Executive Employees (SES) employees, which risks creating an appearance that SES employees receive more favorable treatment than non-SES employees. We reviewed the...

We contracted this audit with Cotton & Company LLP, which found that FEMA did not ensure Monroe County, Florida (the County) established and implemented policies, procedures, and practices to ensure it accounted for and expended Public Assistance program grant funds awarded to disaster areas in...

We contracted this audit with Cotton & Company LLP, which found that FEMA did not ensure the Florida Department of Emergency Management (FDEM) monitored the Polk County School Board (PCSB) to ensure it established and implemented policies, procedures, and practices to account for and expend PA grant...

We contracted this audit with Cotton & Company LLP, which found that FEMA did not ensure Lee County, Florida (the County) established and implemented policies, procedures, and practices to ensure it accounted for and expended PA program grant funds awarded to disaster areas in accordance with...

We identified debris removal contract performance issues and concerns. In the report, we discuss our observations regarding the use of pre-disaster debris removal contracts in Florida following Hurricane Irma. We also emphasize how FEMA can benefit from implementing effective controls to track...