Federal Reports

Final Management Letter: Evaluation of SEC’s FY 2020 Compliance With the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of Public and Indian Housing’s (PIH) Office of Field Operations’ (OFO) oversight of public housing agencies’ (PHA) compliance with implementing HUD’s smoke-free policy. We initiated the audit in accordance with our strategic plan and our vision to support HUD’s efforts to achieve quality and safer housing. Our objective was to determine whether OFO ensured that the PHAs complied with the implementing guidance of HUD’s smoke-free policy requirements in public housing programs.HUD’s OFO generally confirmed that the PHAs complied with the implementing guidance of HUD’s smoke-free policy requirements in public housing programs by July 30, 2018, as required. OFO: (1) provided technical assistance to PHAs before the implementation deadline to help ensure their compliance and (2) obtained self-reporting from a majority of more than 3,000 PHAs that they had obtained their board’s approval for implementing the policy and had amended their tenants’ leases as required. Further, all 28 PHAs that we reviewed in our limited sampling had complied with the implementation guidance of HUD’s smoke-free policy requirements.This report contains no recommendations.

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 CBP’s apprehensions, and available bed space was not always appropriate for the aliens in need of placement. Consequently, CBP’s Border Patrol faced rapidly increasing numbers of detainees – especially single adults – who remained in its holding facilities intended for short-term custody. Despite worsening conditions, Border Patrol generally did not exercise its authority to release single adults from its custody, for fear they would “lose control of the border.” Border Patrol sectors created ad-hoc solutions to manage the rising detainee populations in its facilities, because, despite its dependence on ICE ERO to accept detainees, Border Patrol’s response plans did not account for ICE ERO’s detention limitations. Longstanding fragmentation in immigration enforcement operations between CBP and ICE ERO further exacerbated these challenges. DHS was aware of a potential land migration surge and the challenges it would pose. DHS had both a multi-component task force in place at the border and a plan for land migration surges, but used neither during the 2019 surge. Instead, DHS created and dissolved various interagency groups at its headquarters. In May 2019, DHS created a headquarters coordination group to advise leadership and help manage future emergencies, like a migrant surge. However, if the Department does not develop a DHS-wide framework for surges and address day-to-day fragmentation, CBP and ICE ERO will face the same challenges in future surges. We made six recommendations for ICE, CBP and DHS that will improve the Department’s response to migrant surges, including planning for surge detention capacity; standardizing alien processing paperwork; creating an inventory of best practices and surge infrastructure; and identifying thresholds for DHS intervention in future surges. DHS concurred with all recommendations.