IMMIGRATION NEWSNo Right to Counsel The AG has... Department of Homeland Security -- Political by Design Update on Morale at Homeland Security Stephan Barr's Federal Diary column in the Washington Post has a nice summary of the report on morale at the Department of Homeland Security. "Are you rewarded for creativity? Are promotions and pay raises related to job performance?" It is to laugh! Power Corrupts. Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely It a shameful fact that the enormous power given to low-level officers in many parts of the US Immigration system leads to abuses. The most recent case involves a CIS officer who forced a young woman to give him sexual favors by threatening to prevent her from getting a green card, and possibly arresting and deporting members of her family as well. The Times quotes testimony in Congress from Michael Maxwell, former director of the agency’s internal investigations, saying that internal corruption was “rampant,” and that employees faced constant temptations to commit crime. He reported that, as of 2006, more than 3,000 backlogged complaints of employee misconduct had gone uninvestigated for lack of staff, including 528 involving criminal allegations. This is not new or surprising. It is the reasons the founders of our country wanted to create a nation of laws, not men. That is, they wanted to use laws to protect the people against the natural failings which all of us display when we are given unlimited power over others. It is not a question of a few bad apples, as irresponsible higher-ups like to claim. It is a systemic problem. The Stanford Prison Experiment showed that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were not only unsurprising, but completely predictable. Another reason to watch what you eat I'm sure you will be as impressed as I was by the creativity of our law enforcement officers: FBI decided it could find terrorists by using the massive amounts of data they have about all of us to pick out those who threaten to blow themselves up in crowds of innocent people. There are still some known unknowns: was the FBI really looking specifically for Iranians by looking at purchases of falafel -- not an Iranian food? Are unpatriotic hippies really hiding terrorists by their eating habits? In spite of the millions spent on airport security, in spite of the hours we've all spent in lines, It's remarkable what people can manage to get away with. Here's one more article on the sophistication of our airport security systems. GAO Report: Spending on the Border and Ignoring the Airports The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that half of illegal aliens in the US entered through legal points of entry: the massive build-up of resources along the Mexican border is taking resources away from the kind of entry most likely to be used by future terrorists: regular inspections at the airport and at border inspection points. The audit found that 1 in 10 of the people who should not be admitted were in fact admitted. Not surprisingly, Auditors also found officers with morale problems, fatigue, lack of backup and safety concerns. See also the Albuquerque Tribune and the GAO's own censored summary. The Military Industrial' Homeland-Security 'Complex' Andrew Cockburn of the Washington Post leads off a nice summary of the history of bureaucratic money-raising through fear with a couple of Homeland Security's important priorities: new uniforms and pet rocks (OK, so they contain sensors, but is this really the techonolgy that will make the difference between Osama's new recruits getting into the US and not getting in?). Cockburn reminds us of the immutable laws of using fear to generate business: 1) The "threat," as portrayed to the public, always increases in direct proportion to the amount of money lavished on confronting it, and 2) every extra dollar appropriated for this purpose brings a progressively less effective counter to the threat, thus requiring that even more money be spent. Meanwhile, reality -- the scope and shape of whatever threat is being pressed into service -- is usually at sharp variance with the official picture, which leads to: 3) The "other side" can usually be maneuvered to react in a way that justifies further efforts on our part. The GAO estimates that the current militarization of the border -- the Secure Borders Initiative -- could cost $30 billion, partly because its budget lacked specificity. Some of us wonder whether our government is really trying to protect us from terrorists or what. The latest cause for doubt involves around five Austrians per year. They would like to come to the US on exchange visas to spend a year helping at Holocaust museums and other organizations commemorating the Holocaust. Doesn't it seem like a good idea for young people from a country that -- willingly or not -- participated in that horror? Apparently the DHS does not agree, though they will not admit that there is any sort of trend toward denial. Now imagine trying to get an exchange visa for -- say, an Arab or Muslim organization... The exchange visitor visas were created specifically to allow foreigners to visit, get to know how wonderful our country is, and then to return home to spread the love. I think we need more, not less exchanges. Maybe the Museum of Tolerance could host some Iranians? Would attacking Iran create more goodwill? It's always useful to get a global perspective on immigration. The New York Times has a fascinating interactive graphic on global migration -- which countries host the most immigrants as a percentage of their populations, remittances as a percentage of GDP per person, and so on. The crazy and politicized waste of taxpayer dollars (and filing fees paid by employers and family members) is documented in a collection of articles in the Washington Post. One of the consequences of hiring only political types for a gigantic agency that needs lots of planning and management and manages to come up with few successes is that they can't even fill their positions. 138 of the top 575 positions at DHS are empty. The biggest voids are in intelligence, legal and policy sections. Wasn't DHS created exactly for the purpose of making sure that we had good intelligence after the disaster of 9/11 and the fiasco of the Iraq War? One theory is that the Bush Administration's love of privatization has led to a heavy use of contractors, whatever the cost -- who can offer higher salaries, and steal away experienced managers, leaving DHS with empty desks in leadership positions and higher costs. Sigh. It's going to be interesting to see what happens to the Department of Homeland Security when the current administration is not longer in charge. As the Bush administration was battling al Qaeda by moving thousands of bureaucrats to new boxes in the organization chart, they made a great effort to break the hold of labor unions and rules ensuring fair treatment. But even more than this, at the top, they placed only party loyalists in top positions, ignoring the capable and experienced among the senior Immigration bureaucrats (don't laugh: there are in fact a fair number). I hope that some of them are still around when the time comes, so we can move toward a DHS that can operate efficiently and fairly. For comparison, consider these agencies:
These numbers are from 2004; since then, DHS has continued to generate patronage for Bushies. --- Immigration in the US still includes the Department of Justice as well as the DHS, and the system of Immigration Judges falls under the control of Justice. Well, it's not just the US Attorneys who have become political patronage jobs, Immigration Judges have too. See also here. What a shame. The sytem is already arbitrary. It seems too good to be true: the Department of Homeland Security is moving its headquarters into an abandoned insane asylum, St. Elizabeths. DHS almost moved into Walter Reed Veterans Hospital - but don't imagine that was because conditions there were below DHS standards. It was just that Walter Reed wasn't going to close fast enough. Readers should discount rumors about particular management staff being assigned the padded cells, and the use of left-over electro-shock equipment, and the use of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for training purposes. Bush Administration attacks on defenders of human rights and due process of law gives some Americans the impression that our administration is a strong defender of US security. In fact Vice President Cheney's son in law Philip Perry has fought against any attempt to improve management at the Dept. of Homeland Security and reduce corruption. If you wonder why the millions of dollars we've been throwing at Homeland Security has not improved morale there, much less the security of the homeland, this sort of abuse helps to explain it. Oh yeah: Perry is also the guy who made sure the chemical industry would not be burdened with any pesky regulations that would make their factories safe from terrorist attacks. I believe that most employees at Homeland Security are sincere, honest and hardworking. There are some notable exceptions. However, their ability to run an honest bureaucracy is undercut by those in leadership who want to use the federal government as a feeding trough. The federal government has just released results of a survey of employees in 36 departments regarding what they like and dislike about their jobs. Guess which agency ranked dead last? Here's how the Department of Homeland Security ranked on a few questions:
Basically, no change from the 2004 survey. There have been several studies over the year recommending various possible approaches to improve the situation. Feel safer? Has this administration saved us from many terrorist attacks? That is one of their arguments, which they back with claims of many cases won. Those of us who work in the field know that there is something wrong with their numbers. Every once in awhile, with no fanfare or press attention, DHS figures are audited. Each time they turn out to be as fake as a $5 green card. Here are some examples of cases Homeland Security classified as terrorism:
None of these people had any links to terrorists, yet their cases are counted as anti-terrorism prosecutions. We’re not talking about an occasional slip-up:
When it comes to reported convictions for terrorist-related activities, it gets worse:
In other words, if the FBI, DOJ or DHS report something about terrorism, you can safely assume that it is not true. These are the folks who can put any of us behind bars without having to show any evidence to anyone. After all, a "citizen, no less than an alien, can be an enemy combatant" (as Administration attorney David Salmons said to the 4th Circuit in the case of Ali al-Marri). Feel safer now? Home Security Michael Chertoff gave his State of the Union Security speech on December. 14. 2006. The review by Bruce Reed of Slate is worth reading. As Reed summarizes, Secretary Chertoff outlined a five-part mission: 1: Look out for "dangerous people." 2: Look out for "dangerous things." 3: Resist an attack if we fail to stop dangerous people with dangerous things. 4: Respond to disaster if we fail to prevent an attack by dangerous people with dangerous things. 5: "Unify the department into a seamless whole, one in which people are both parts of proud components with real legacies, but also working together to build a visionary new 21st century government organization." In other words, look out for dangerous departments who are supposed to protect us from dangerous people with dangerous things. Don't you feel safer now? 2006/12/16. Everybody complains about the performance of employees in the Department of Homeland Security. We all support efforts to improve the dismal morale that characterizes the organization. That's why I was happy to read about the efforts of Marta Brito Perez, Chief Human Capital Officer ( I guess "HR" is inappropriate in an administration whose views of resources are "different"). Then, near the end of the article, I was sad to read that her real assignment was "redrafting department rules that were intended to limit the number of issues that unions could negotiate, and to scale back other labor rights." Great. That'll boost morale. Just like how they treated David Still - District Director in San Francisco until recently - a very professional, diligent and decent man, the sort of professional DHS needs to cultivate if it wants to improve. There's a follow-up interview with Brito Perez, where she touts her performance pay scheme. I hope she has some other management ideas, as Congress may cut the funding for it. Here's the latest news on this. Apparently reports on continuing rock-bottom morale aren't changing the minds at the top of the Department. They're staying the course. People will wait on lists for years for the chance to get a job at the Post Office. Thousands apply when there are openings at city agencies. How about the Department of Homeland Security? Guess. Interested in how this monster of an agency is organized? Here's their organization chart. Links for news about Homeland Security
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