Summary
Officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigate violations of immigration laws and identify aliens who are removable from the United States. ICE officers exercise discretion to achieve its operational goals of removing any aliens subject to removal while prioritizing those who pose a threat to national security or public safety and safeguarding aliens' rights in the removal process. The General Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine how ICE ensures that discretion is used in the most fair, reasoned, and efficient manner possible. GAO reviewed (1) when and how ICE officers and attorneys exercise discretion and what internal controls ICE has designed to (2) guide decision making and (3) oversee and monitor officers' decisions. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed ICE manuals, memorandums, and removal data, interviewed ICE officials, and visited 21 of 75 ICE field offices.
ICE officers exercise discretion throughout the alien apprehension and removal process, but primarily during the initial phases of the process when deciding to initiate removals, apprehend aliens, issue removal documents, and detain aliens. Officers GAO interviewed at ICE field offices said that ICE policies and procedures limit their discretion when encountering the targets of their investigations--typically criminal or fugitive aliens, but that they can exercise more discretion for other aliens they encounter. Officers also said that they consider humanitarian circumstances, such as sole caregiver responsibilities or medical reasons, when making these decisions. Attorneys, who generally enter later in the process, and officers told GAO that once removal proceedings have begun, discretion is limited to specific circumstances, such as if the alien is awaiting approval of lawful permanent resident status. Consistent with internal control standards, ICE has begun to update and enhance training curricula to better support officer decision making. However, ICE has not taken steps to ensure that written guidance designed to promote the appropriate exercise of discretion during alien apprehension and removal is comprehensive and up to date and has not established time frames for updating guidance. For example, field operational manuals have not been updated to provide information about the appropriate exercise of discretion in light of a recent expansion of ICE worksite enforcement and fugitive operations, in which officers are more likely to encounter aliens with humanitarian issues or who are not targets of investigations. Also, ICE does not have a mechanism to ensure the timely dissemination of legal developments to help ensure that officers make decisions in line with the most recent interpretations of immigration law. As a result, ICE officers are at risk of taking actions that do not support operational objectives and making removal decisions that do not reflect the most recent legal developments. Consistent with internal control standards, ICE relies on supervisory reviews to ensure that officers exercise appropriate discretion and has instituted an inspection program designed to ensure that field offices comply with established policies and procedures. However, ICE lacks other controls to help monitor performance across the 75 field offices responsible for making apprehension and removal decisions. A comprehensive mechanism for reviewing officers' decision making could provide ICE with meaningful information to analyze trends to identify areas that may need corrective action and to identify best practices. ICE officials acknowledged they do not collect the data necessary for such a mechanism and said doing so may be costly. Without assessing costs and alternatives, ICE is not in a position to select an approach that will help identify best practices and areas needing corrective action.
Recommendations
Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change
from "In process" to "Implemented" or "Not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director:
Team:
Phone:
Richard M. Stana
Government Accountability Office: Homeland Security and Justice
(202) 512-8816
Recommendations for Executive Action
Recommendation: To enhance ICE's ability to inform and monitor its officers' use of discretion in alien apprehensions and removals, the Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the Assistant Secretary of ICE to develop time frames for updating existing policies, guidelines, and procedures for alien apprehension and removals and include in the updates factors that should be considered when officers make apprehension, charging, and detention determinations for aliens with humanitarian issues.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: In fiscal Year 2008, we reviewed and reported on how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ensures that officer discretion is used in the most fair, reasoned, and efficient manner possible to (1) achieve its operational goals of removing aliens subject to removal that pose a threat to national security and public safety and (2) safeguard aliens' rights in the removal process. ICE officers can exercise discretion at multiple points in the alien removal process and typically rely on formal guidance provided in field operational manuals, in addition to other sources of information, when exercising discretion. We reported, however, that there was a lack of comprehensive and up to date guidance at the locations we visited, which puts ICE officers at risk of taking actions that do not support the agency's operational objectives. Officials in ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operations, the Office of Investigations, and the newly established Office of Policy and Communications reported taking action to address gaps in guidance. Specifically, as of August 2008, ICE had awarded a contract for a policy archaeology project that will enable ICE to collect all existing guidance and develop a comprehensive inventory. Officials expect this process will enable them to identify and address gaps and outdated policy documents. ICE officials indicated that the contract's statement of work and management implementation plan provide specific milestones thereby establishing a time frame for updating ICE's policies. Additionally, the Office of Policy and Communications recently drafted a directive that addresses issues of discretion which, according to ICE officials, will address the remainder of this recommendation. This directive is currently under review and officials anticipate it will be approved and distributed across ICE before the end of fiscal year 2008.
Recommendation: To enhance ICE's ability to inform and monitor its officers' use of discretion in alien apprehensions and removals, the Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the Assistant Secretary of ICE to develop a mechanism to help ensure that officers are consistently provided with updates regarding legal developments necessary for making alien apprehension and removal decisions.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Implemented
Comments: In fiscal year 2008, we found that United States Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) did not provide officers who were responsible for apprehending, charging, and detaining removable aliens at ICE field offices with comprehensive guidance and consistent legal updates that could help inform their decisions. ICE, by providing officers with this information, would better enable its officers to make correct removal disposition decisions and better ensure that removal cases are not incorrectly terminated. In August 2008, ICE officials reported that they took two actions in response to our recommendation. First, ICE implemented new internal training programs and created a new position within ICE's legal department that is responsible for coordinating training in field offices and with other local ICE operational components. Second, ICE developed and produced an online document providing officers with monthly legal updates. This document is posted on the ICE intranet and employees are notified when it is updated. As a result, ICE demonstrated that officers are being provided regular opportunities to learn about changes in law and policy that can impact alien apprehension and removal decisions.
Recommendation: To enhance ICE's ability to inform and monitor its officers' use of discretion in alien apprehensions and removals, the Secretary of Homeland Security should direct the Assistant Secretary of ICE to evaluate the costs and alternatives of developing a reporting mechanism by which ICE senior managers can analyze trends in the use of discretion to help identify areas that may require management actions--such as changes to guidance, procedures, and training.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: In fiscal Year 2008, we reviewed and reported on how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ensures that officer discretion is used in the most fair, reasoned, and efficient manner possible to (1) achieve its operational goals of removing aliens subject to removal that pose a threat to national security and public safety and (2) safeguard aliens' rights in the removal process. We found that ICE has two control mechanisms in place to monitor its removal operations--supervisory review practices and procedures and an inspection program--but lacks a means to analyze information specific to the exercise of discretion across field offices. ICE officials indicated that no actions have been taken to address this recommendation to date. However, they said that ICE's recent elimination of its operating system and its implementation of the ENFORCE system will likely provide some of the capabilities to support a variety of types of analysis that could help inform managers' decisions. Further, they are currently evaluating the options available to them would enable them to develop a reporting mechanism that would give managers the ability to conduct trend analysis in support management actions. Nonetheless, ICE officials said that they hope to address this recommendation by December 2008.
