Departments with Fancy Names

Department of Homeland Security takes actions to address a small portion of the estimated overstay population due to, among other things, competing priorities; however, these efforts could be enhanced by improved planning and performance management.

Oh please! After spending years in the Citizenship and Immigration literature, why not start with the most responsible? You see when a person applies for a business or education visa they must have sponsors. Plain and simple – someone has to be responsible in case of the worst – the person they’ve sponsored has gone amiss.

Since fiscal year 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the principle DHS component responsible for overstay enforcement, has allocated about 3 percent of its investigative work hours to overstay investigations and its Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), which prioritizes and investigates possible overstays, has arrested approximately 8,100 overstays.

ICE is considering assigning some responsibility for noncriminal overstay enforcement to its Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) directorate, which has responsibility for apprehending and removing illegal aliens from the United States.

However, ERO does not plan to assume this responsibility until ICE assesses the funding and resources doing so would require. ICE has not established a time frame for completing this assessment. By developing such a time frame and utilizing the assessment findings, as appropriate, ICE could strengthen its planning efforts and be better positioned to hold staff accountable for completing the assessment.

In addition, CTCEU does not have mechanisms to assess program performance in accordance with leading performance management practices. By establishing such mechanisms, CTCEU could better ensure that managers have information to assist in making decisions for strengthening overstay enforcement efforts and assessing performance against CTCEU’s goals. So why then are we always being told that the infrastructure is in place?

Does anyone remember the asinine attempts the Obama Administration originally gave about border security? We’re ready…we’ve got a huge contract with Boeing to develop motion sensors, immediately in line with biometric cameras and it all worked in the dark? Then in perhaps the most embarrassing moment to date, some sub-committee went to inspect how all of this new state of the art equipment performed.

Nothing showed up on the interior monitors insofar as it was deciphered that the outdoor cameras were defective because of wind?

Then the notion hit us! Have you ever seen so many acronyms in such a short space? ICE, CTCEU, and

What a scam!

ERO, are all divisions of the same entity, DHS. Let’s ask: “How many people are employed by division?” Our point is that when up against something that may be rigorous, rather than dig in and do something, it appears as though the entire process is delayed for the newly sanctioned and wonderfully named “Division.” This is what paragraph four is stating.

This is no way to run and operation. Moreover, this type of decentralizing is what causes mistakes, errors, and misinformation. How else could Secretary Janet Napolitano and President Barack Obama make ludicrous statements about the conditions along the border that are so ridiculous as to cause public scorn and sheer stupidity that makes them look clueless.

Departments with fancy names is what the U.S. government has come to; regardless of whether it works or is in there for “straw-cover” it all is a matter of smoke and mirrors and departments with fancy names.