Summary
The legal staff of key Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components--Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)--perform important immigration enforcement, inspection, and service functions. This report addresses the actions ICE, USCIS, and CBP legal offices are taking to identify attorney needs, determine where those attorneys should be deployed, and address staffing shortfalls. To conduct its work, GAO interviewed component senior legal office officials in headquarters and regional offices and reviewed available documentation on staffing.
GAO's prior work on strategic workforce planning states that staffing decisions should be based on valid and reliable data. However, ICE and USCIS's legal offices do not currently have such data available, though efforts are under way to obtain the data. Moreover, GAO's standards for internal controls in the federal government call for clear documentation, but none of the three legal offices have fully documented the processes, procedures, and data they use in their workforce planning decisions. ICE legal officials acknowledged that while an approach is in place for identifying attorney staffing needs, more data are needed to improve their attorney staffing decisions to help ensure that a sufficient number of attorneys are available to handle rising caseloads. ICE's legal office has relied primarily on its professional judgment to set a staffing ratio between attorneys and immigration judges. It also uses a workload system that tracks, for instance, the number of cases prepared. But attorney time, and other metrics, are not tracked. The legal office is working to incorporate these and other data into its existing system by December 2007. ICE's legal office has not yet fully documented its plans for enhancing its workload system by discussing how it intends to measure its progress or report the results of its efforts. Without such documentation, the office may not be able to effectively monitor its progress in meeting its goals related to this effort. Nor has the office documented its overall attorney workforce planning process, making it difficult for the office to validate its staffing decisions. USCIS officials acknowledged that its attorney workforce planning approach is based on estimates of workload data, such as the number of legal actions filed against USCIS, and that it is not possible to reliably determine attorney needs or anticipate shortfalls based on these estimates. Officials stated that DHS has not been in a position to support a request for additional attorneys for USCIS, because USCIS lacks sufficiently reliable data. These officials said that they coordinate with other USCIS offices to acquire additional legal resources. Efforts to implement a comprehensive workload system are to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2007, but the legal office has not yet documented its (1) plans for implementing this system describing goals, milestones, and other elements or (2) attorney workforce planning process. Thus, the office may not have reasonable assurance that its personnel are implementing workforce planning efforts as intended. CBP legal officials reported implementing a successful approach for assessing staffing needs by analyzing workload statistics, soliciting feedback from CBP program offices on their legal needs, and estimating the time attorneys need to complete their work. Using this method, the Chief Counsel said that the legal office has not experienced staffing shortfalls and has met rising workloads by obtaining funding to hire additional attorneys. However, CBP's legal office lacks documentation of its attorney staffing process, making it difficult to review and validate the success of its approach.
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 strengthen the workforce planning efforts needed to achieve the legal offices' goals with respect to ICE's Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security should direct the General Counsel to document an implementation plan for measuring progress in making enhancements to the General Counsel Electronic Management System and to report on the results of efforts to enhance the system.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Implemented
Comments: Prior to sending our draft report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment, we reviewed documents related to planned enhancements the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office (ICE) of the Principal Legal Advisor had underway related to its General Counsel Electronic Management System (GEMS). At that time, these documents did not contain information on how ICE planned to measure its progress in making enhancements to GEMS or how ICE planned to report on the results of its efforts to enhance the system. After we provided our draft report to DHS for comment, ICE's legal office drafted a task order to contract with a software developer to assist in making enhancements to GEMS. As part of this task order, the legal office included a listing of key milestones for system enhancements. The legal office also included documentation in this task order that clearly articulates how, when, and to whom a status report on the results of efforts to enhance the system should be communicated. These actions address the intent of the recommendation and will assist ICE's legal office in effectively monitoring its progress in meeting its goals related to this effort and in obtaining reasonable assurance that its enhancements are being implemented as intended.
Recommendation: To strengthen the workforce planning efforts needed to achieve the legal offices' goals with respect to ICE's Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security should direct the General Counsel to develop documentation that clearly defines its methodology for conducting workforce planning efforts, the personnel responsible for conducting such efforts to enhance accountability, and its rationale for making staffing decisions, including any factors it considered in making those decisions.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: In fiscal year 2007, we reviewed and reported on actions that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) legal office took to identify attorney needs, determine where those attorneys should be deployed, and address staff shortfalls. We reported, among other things, that ICE's legal office had not documented its methodology or the role of its staff responsible for determining its attorney needs, identifying and addressing related shortfalls, or deploying attorneys where they are needed. Officials in ICE's legal office reported taking action to develop such documentation and to enhance their workforce planning efforts. Specifically, the legal office said it has contracted for assistance in tailoring software to, among other things, manage its workforce in implementing strategic planning initiatives and to design and implement related documentation. ICE's legal office reported that the contractor completed its work on May 30, 2008 and that it is working with ICE's Office of the Chief Information Officer to finalize the application by undergoing the Software Lifecycle Management Process from design review and documentation to deployment. ICE's legal office expects to complete this effort by the third quarter of fiscal year 2009. To fully address this recommendation, ICE's legal office needs to complete its current efforts including documentation of its methodology and the role of its staff responsible for determining its attorney needs, identifying and addressing related shortfalls, or deploying attorneys where they are needed.
Recommendation: To strengthen the workforce planning efforts needed to achieve the legal offices' goals with respect to USCIS's Office of Chief Counsel, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security should direct the General Counsel to document the office's plans for implementing a workforce data management system that clearly explains the goals of such an effort, major milestones, work tasks and products and the associated schedules and resources for achieving them, as well as performance measures and reporting mechanisms associated with the effort.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: Not Implemented
Comments: In fiscal year 2007, we reviewed and reported on actions that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's (USCIS) legal office took to identify attorney needs, determine where those attorneys should be deployed, and address staff shortfalls. We reported, among other things, that USCIS's legal office had not documented its plans for implementing a workforce data management system. As a result, we recommended that USCIS document its plans for implementing this system to clearly explain the goals of such an effort, major milestones, work tasks and products, and the associated schedules and resources for achieving them, as well as performance measures and reporting mechanisms associated with the effort. On September 14, 2007, USCIS reported that it had fully implemented the office's workforce data management system and that while it did not develop any specific formal planning documentation during the implementation of this data management system, it will document plans to address any significant revisions to the system in the future.
Recommendation: To strengthen the workforce planning efforts needed to achieve the legal offices' goals with respect to USCIS's Office of Chief Counsel, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security should direct the General Counsel to develop documentation that clearly describes its approach and the personnel responsible for conducting workforce planning efforts related to (1) using workforce data and other information related to time attorneys spend completing their work activities to develop needs assessments and deploy staffing resources where they are needed most, and (2) identifying and addressing staffing shortfalls to enhance accountability over staffing decisions.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: In fiscal year 2007, we reviewed and reported on actions that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service's (USCIS) legal office took to identify attorney needs, determine where those attorneys should be deployed, and address staff shortfalls. We reported, among other things, that USCIS's legal office had not documented policies and procedures that identify the staff responsible for managing staff shortfalls and for assessing its attorney needs, deploying its attorneys, and identifying shortfalls. We also reported that the legal office had not documented its approach for these staffing processes. Thus, we recommended that USCIS's legal office develop documentation that clearly describes its approach and the personnel responsible for conducting workforce planning efforts related to(1)using workforce data and other information related to time attorneys spend completing their work activities to develop needs assessments and deploy staffing resources where they are needed most, and (2)identifying and addressing staffing shortfalls to enhance accountability over staffing decisions. USCIS reported that it generally agreed with the recommendation. USCIS's legal office reported taking a number of actions to better address its workforce planning efforts, such as obtaining the services of a consultant to help it identify staffing shortfalls in its offices across the country. The consultant reported the results of its efforts to USCIS's legal office in September 2007. Specifically, the consultant reported that estimating the exact amount of legal assistance and overall resources required by USCIS was not possible for three reasons. First, the consultant reported that the USCIS's legal office's predecessor (that is, legacy Immigration and Naturalization attorneys) did not provide input on the actual number of cases requiring attorney input (baseline data). Second, the consultant reported that USCIS's case management system was in its infancy during the consultant's review and thus, data on requests for legal advice was unknown. Third, the consultant reported that the average time required to address federal litigation and specific legal questions or matters was also unknown. Thus, the consultant concluded that estimating overall resource requirements was impossible. The consultant also reported that each USCIS District Director and his or her Field Operations Director should have immediate access to an attorney. Based on this recommendation, USCIS's legal office decided to hire an additional 30 attorneys and as of April 2008, had extended offers to 27 individuals to fill these positions. USCIS's legal office is also continuing its efforts to enhance its data management system to capture comprehensive workload data, such as the volume of legal advice and training requested as support for future budget requests for additional attorneys and as key inputs for the attorney allocation model. It expects to complete this effort by April 1, 2009. Furthermore, USCIS's legal office is continuing its efforts to develop its attorney allocation model and to document its policies and procedures related to the attorney allocation process. USCIS's legal office reports that it anticipates completing these efforts by June 1, 2009. Thus, to fully address this recommendation, USCIS's legal office needs to complete its current efforts to document its approach and the personnel responsible for conducting its workforce planning efforts.
Recommendation: To strengthen the workforce planning efforts needed to achieve the legal offices' goals with respect to CBP's Office of Chief Counsel, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security should direct the General Counsel to develop documentation that clearly describes its criteria, methodology, analysis, data, and the personnel responsible for workforce planning efforts related to (1) using workforce data and other information related to time attorneys spend completing their work activities to develop needs assessments and deploy staffing resources where they are needed most, and (2) anticipating or addressing staffing shortfalls to enhance accountability over staffing decisions.
Agency Affected: Department of Homeland Security
Status: In process
Comments: In fiscal year 2007, we reviewed and reported on actions that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) legal office took to identify attorney needs, determine where those attorneys should be deployed, and address staff shortfalls. We reported, among other things, that CBP's legal office does not have any written policies and procedures that describe the criteria, methodology, analyses, data, and staff responsible for assessing its attorney needs, determining where to deploy its attorneys, and anticipating and addressing staffing shortfalls before they occur. As a result, we recommended that CBP's legal office develop documentation that clearly describes its criteria, methodology, analysis, data, and the personnel responsible for workforce planning efforts related to (1) using workforce data and other information related to time attorneys spend completing their work activities to develop needs assessments and deploy staffing resources where they are needed most, and (2) anticipating or addressing staffing shortfalls to enhance accountability over staffing decisions. In May 2008, CBP's legal office issued a directive to establish procedures for its attorney allocation process. The directive described the personnel responsible for the office's workforce planning efforts and generally described the overall methodology, data, and criteria to use in such efforts. However, it did not describe the specific workload data statistics to be analyzed from the office's case tracking system, such as the legal training courses conducted by attorneys for Border Patrol agents or the number of times attorneys provide advice to Border Patrol personnel on land use issues. It also did not discuss whether its personnel are to consider estimates of the time it takes attorneys to complete work as part of its analysis in determining whether additional resources are required, where those resources should best be deployed, and to address any potential staffing shortfalls. Finally, the directive did not describe the type of analysis its personnel should conduct such as examining the number of cases opened, the number of cases closed, and case type by attorney and office location in making its recommendations related to workforce planning. To fully address this recommendation, the legal office needs to document the specific workload statistics to be analyzed, whether and how estimates of the time attorneys take to complete their work should be incorporated in workforce planning, and the specific analysis to be conducted.
