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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to Congressional Requesters: 

December 2010: 

Border Security: 

Enhanced DHS Oversight and Assessment of Interagency Coordination Is 
Needed for the Northern Border: 

GAO-11-97: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-11-97, a report to congressional requesters. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

The challenges of securing the U.S.-Canadian border involve the 
coordination of multiple partners. The results of the Department of 
Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to integrate border security among 
its components and across federal, state, local, tribal, and Canadian 
partners are unclear. GAO was asked to address the extent to which DHS 
has (1) improved coordination with state, local, tribal, and Canadian 
partners; (2) progressed in addressing past federal coordination 
challenges; and (3) progressed in securing the northern border and 
used coordination efforts to address existing vulnerabilities. GAO 
reviewed interagency agreements, strategies, and operational documents 
that address DHS’s reported northern border vulnerabilities such as 
terrorism. GAO visited four Border Patrol sectors, selected based on 
threat, and interviewed officials from federal, state, local, tribal, 
and Canadian agencies operating within these sectors. While these 
results cannot be generalized, they provided insights on border 
security coordination. 

What GAO Found: 

According to a majority of selected northern border security partners 
GAO interviewed, DHS improved northern border security coordination 
through interagency forums and joint operations. Specifically, 
interagency forums were beneficial in establishing a common 
understanding of security, while joint operations helped to achieve an 
integrated and effective law enforcement response. However, numerous 
partners cited challenges related to the inability to resource the 
increasing number of interagency forums and raised concerns that some 
efforts may be overlapping. While guidance issued by GAO stresses the 
need for a process to ensure that resources are used effectively and 
efficiently, DHS does not oversee the interagency forums established 
by its components. DHS oversight could help prevent possible 
duplication of efforts and conserve resources. 

DHS component officials reported that federal agency coordination to 
secure the northern border was improved, but partners in all four 
sectors GAO visited cited ongoing challenges sharing information and 
resources for daily border security related to operations and 
investigations. DHS has established and updated interagency 
agreements, but oversight by management at the component and local 
level has not ensured consistent compliance with provisions of these 
agreements, such as those related to information sharing, in areas GAO 
visited. As a result, according to DHS officials, field agents have 
been left to resolve coordination challenges. Ongoing DHS-level 
oversight and attention to enforcing accountability of established 
agreements could help address long-standing coordination challenges 
between DHS components, and further the DHS strategic vision for a 
coordinated homeland security enterprise. 

Border Patrol—a component of DHS’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection—
reported that 32 of the nearly 4,000 northern border miles in fiscal 
year 2010 had reached an acceptable level of security and that there 
is a high reliance on law enforcement support from outside the border 
zone. However, the extent of partner law enforcement resources 
available to address border security vulnerabilities is not reflected 
in Border Patrol’s processes for assessing border security and 
resource requirements. GAO previously reported that federal agencies 
should identify resources among collaborating agencies to deliver 
results more efficiently and that DHS had not fully responded to a 
legislative requirement to link initiatives-—including partnerships—-
to existing border vulnerabilities to inform federal resource 
allocation decisions. Development of policy and guidance to integrate 
available partner resources in northern border security assessments 
and resource planning documents could provide the agency and Congress 
with more complete information necessary to make resource allocation 
decisions in mitigating existing border vulnerabilities. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO is recommending that DHS enhance oversight to ensure efficient use 
of interagency forums and compliance with interagency agreements; and 
develop guidance to integrate partner resources to mitigate northern 
border vulnerabilities. DHS concurred with our recommendations. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-97] or key 
components. For more information, contact Rich Stana at (202) 512-8777 
or stanar@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Scope and Methodology: 

Background: 

DHS Used Interagency Forums and Joint Operations to Improve Border 
Security Coordination, but DHS Oversight Could Address Emerging 
Challenges: 

Additional DHS Action Could Help Address Challenges Hindering Northern 
Border Coordination among Its Components and with Other Federal 
Agencies: 

DHS Reported Limited Progress in Securing the Northern Border, but 
Assessing Partner Contributions Could Inform Decisions in Addressing 
Remaining Vulnerabilities: 

Conclusion: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Officials Operating within the Four Sectors Included in 
this Review: 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

Appendix III: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Related GAO Products: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Department of Homeland Security Components with a Primary 
Mission to Secure the Northern Border: 

Table 2: DHS-Sponsored Interagency Forums That Coordinate Northern 
Border Security Information, Resources, and Operations among U.S. 
Federal, Canadian, and Other Law Enforcement Partners: 

Table 3: Joint Operations Highlighted by Northern Border Partners to 
Coordinate Northern Border Security Efforts: 

Table 4: Number of Offices Interviewed for Information on Interagency 
Forums, by Sector: 

Table 5: Number of Offices Interviewed for Information on Joint 
Operations, by Sector: 

Table 6: Number of Offices Interviewed for Information on the 
Challenges of Interagency Forums, by Sector: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Description of Northern Border Patrol Sectors in Our Review: 

Figure 2: Federal and Tribal Lands along the Canadian Border, by 
Administering Agency: 

Abbreviations: 

BEST: Border Enforcement Security Task Force: 

CBP: Customs and Border Protection: 

CBSA: Canada Border Services Agency: 

DEA: Drug Enforcement Administration: 

DHS: Department of Homeland Security: 

DOD: Department of Defense: 

DOI: Department of the Interior: 

DOJ: Department of Justice: 

FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation: 

HIDTA: High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area: 

IBET: Integrated Border Enforcement Team: 

ICE: Immigration and Customs Enforcement: 

MOA: memorandum of agreement: 

MOU: memorandum of understanding: 

OIG: Office of Inspector General: 

ORBBP: Operational Requirements Based Budget Process: 

QHSR: Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report: 

RCMP: Royal Canadian Mounted Police: 

USCG: U.S. Coast Guard: 

USDA: U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: Washington, DC 20548: 

December 17, 2010: 

Congressional Requesters: 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been challenged in its 
efforts to address the threat of illegal activity on the northern 
border, where the extent of illegal activity is unknown, but the risk 
of terrorist activity is high. The United States and Canada share the 
longest common nonmilitarized border between two countries, spanning 
nearly 4,000 miles of land and maritime border from Washington state 
to Maine. The terrain, which ranges from densely forested lands on the 
west and east coasts to open plains in the middle of the country, is 
composed of both urban and sparsely populated lands with limited 
federal, state, and local law enforcement presence along the border. 
Historically, the United States has focused attention and resources 
primarily on the U.S. border with Mexico, which continues to 
experience significantly higher levels of drug trafficking and illegal 
immigration than the U.S.-Canadian border.[Footnote 1] However, DHS 
reports that the terrorist threat on the northern border is higher, 
given the large expanse of area with limited law enforcement coverage. 
There is also a great deal of trade and travel across this border, and 
while legal trade is predominant, DHS reports networks of illicit 
criminal activity and smuggling of drugs, currency, people, and 
weapons between the two countries. DHS reported spending nearly $3 
billion in its efforts to interdict and investigate illegal northern 
border activity in fiscal year 2010, annually making approximately 
6,000 arrests and interdicting approximately 40,000 pounds of illegal 
drugs at and between the northern border ports of entry.[Footnote 2] 

Securing the northern border is the primary responsibility of various 
components within DHS, in collaboration with other federal, state, 
local, tribal, and Canadian law enforcement agencies.[Footnote 3] 
Within DHS, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the frontline 
agency responsible for interdiction of persons and contraband crossing 
the border illegally, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
(ICE) is responsible for investigating the source of cross-border 
crimes and dismantling illegal operations. Other federal, state, 
local, tribal, and Canadian law enforcement agencies also have 
responsibilities to detect, interdict, and investigate different types 
of illegal activity within certain geographic boundaries. For example, 
the U.S. Forest Service, within the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
(USDA), has responsibility for the protection of natural resources and 
persons on Forest Service lands, including about 400 miles adjacent to 
the northern border. Similarly, the Drug Enforcement Administration 
(DEA), within the Department of Justice (DOJ), conducts investigations 
of priority drug trafficking organizations, domestic and foreign, that 
can include drug smuggling across the border or ports of entry. 

DHS has established partnerships with other federal, state, local, 
tribal, and Canadian law enforcement agencies to secure the northern 
border, and taken action to improve coordination among its components 
and across its partners. To facilitate partnerships and coordination, 
DHS has established various mechanisms--such as interagency forums and 
agreements--to improve information sharing necessary to achieve a 
common understanding of the border security threats and to leverage 
resources for achieving an integrated law enforcement response. 
However, it is unclear the extent to which these efforts are 
addressing border security gaps, and in November 2008 we reported that 
DHS had not linked its initiatives to the border vulnerabilities it 
had identified or informed Congress about additional resources needed 
to secure the northern border.[Footnote 4] DHS and GAO have also 
reported long-standing coordination challenges between CBP's Office of 
Border Patrol (Border Patrol) and ICE, ICE and DEA, and Border Patrol 
and Forest Service that may impede achieving border security goals. 
[Footnote 5] This report responds to your request to review how DHS 
has coordinated law enforcement resources across law enforcement 
partners to improve northern border security and made progress in 
addressing past coordination challenges. Specifically, we answered the 
following questions: 

* According to selected northern border security partners, to what 
extent has DHS improved federal coordination of border security 
intelligence and enforcement operations with state, local, tribal, and 
Canadian law enforcement partners? 

* To what extent has DHS made progress in addressing past coordination 
challenges between Border Patrol and ICE, and across DEA and Forest 
Service in different locations across the northern border, according 
to selected northern border security partners? 

* What progress has DHS made in securing the northern border, and to 
what extent has DHS used its partnerships and coordination efforts to 
address DHS's reported border security vulnerabilities? 

Scope and Methodology: 

In conducting our work, we interviewed headquarters officials at DHS, 
DOJ, the Department of the Interior (DOI), and USDA; analyzed DHS 
documentation; and conducted site visits to four northern border 
locations. We selected Border Patrol's Blaine, Spokane, Detroit, and 
Swanton sectors to visit as they comprise a mix of differences along 
the northern border regarding geography (western, central, and eastern 
border areas), threats (terrorism, drug smuggling, and illegal 
migration), and threat environment (air, marine, land) as shown in 
figure 1.[Footnote 6] We conducted interviews with federal, state, 
local, tribal, and Canadian officials relevant to these Border Patrol 
sectors. Although other northern border partners do not divide their 
geographic areas of responsibility by sectors, for the purposes of 
this report, we refer to the northern border partners--such as ICE and 
DEA--whose area of responsibility overlaps with these sectors as 
officials operating within these Border Patrol sectors. While we 
cannot generalize our work from these visits to all locations along 
the northern border, the information we obtained provides examples of 
the way in which DHS and other federal agencies coordinate their 
efforts with these northern border partners. 

Figure 1: Description of Northern Border Patrol Sectors in Our Review: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map of the U.S.-Canadian border] 

Blaine Sector: 
Environment: 89 miles of urban and rural land border and 163 miles of 
coastal border; 
Potential threat: Known presence of terrorist organizations. 

Spokane Sector: 
Environment: 304 miles of mostly rural land border and 4 miles of 
water border; 
Potential threat: Air incursions by criminal organizations including 
those smuggling drugs and people. 

Detroit Sector: 
Environment: 863 miles of water border; 
Potential threat: Criminal organizations including terrorists, and 
those that smuggle drugs and people via recreational vessels. 

Swanton Sector: 
Environment: 92 miles of water border and 203 miles of diverse land 
border—from open farmland to forested mountains including the 28,000 
acre Akwesasne Mohawk Indian Territory which is divided in half by the 
border; 
Potential threat: Criminal organizations including terrorists and 
those involved with smuggling drugs and people. 

Source: GAO analysis of Border Partrol’s data; and Art Explosion (clip 
art). 

[End of figure] 

To address the first objective, we reviewed documents that included 
relevant legislation affecting the northern border,[Footnote 7] a past 
report to Congress in response to legislated requirements,[Footnote 8] 
and agency strategies, including the DHS Quadrennial Homeland Security 
Review,[Footnote 9] and CBP's Northern Border Strategy.[Footnote 10] 
We interviewed DHS headquarters officials with knowledge of DHS 
coordination efforts and also interviewed federal, state, local, 
tribal, and Canadian officials in the four sectors we visited to 
obtain their perspective on DHS coordination efforts focusing on their 
participation in interagency forums and joint operations.[Footnote 11] 
For a complete list of northern border partners we interviewed in each 
sector, see appendix I. Based on these documents and discussions, we 
focused on two interagency forums--the Integrated Border Enforcement 
Team (IBET) and the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST)--and 
joint operations such as the Shiprider Program. Our assessment of 
these interagency forums and joint operations are nongeneralizeable as 
they do not include an exhaustive list of U.S. and Canadian 
initiatives to coordinate the security of the border. However, they 
were highlighted by the officials we interviewed as interagency forums 
that helped to coordinate information sharing, interdiction, and 
investigations across nations and levels of government along with 
joint operations that coordinated a federal law enforcement response 
between the partners in the air, land, and marine border environments. 
In addition to these discussions within each sector, we reviewed 
documents at the sector level relevant to northern border coordination 
including meeting minutes from interagency meetings and after-action 
reports for joint operations. We compared DHS coordination efforts to 
best practices and federal guidelines for interagency coordination to 
determine whether DHS's efforts are consistent with such practices. 
[Footnote 12] 

To address the second objective, we reviewed agreements established 
between DHS components, between DHS and DOJ, and between DHS and USDA 
to coordinate interdiction and investigation activities, and 
interviewed officials from these agencies at headquarters and in the 
field. Specifically, we reviewed agreements assigning responsibilities 
for interdiction and investigation between Border Patrol and ICE, 
Border Patrol and Forest Service, and ICE and DEA. We reviewed 
documents and reports documenting coordination challenges between 
these agencies, including those prepared by DHS and us, and subsequent 
corrective action cited by the departments. As part of our interviews 
with officials in the four sectors we visited, we examined the extent 
to which DHS and its partners stated that agreements were working to 
overcome coordination challenges between agencies and were enhancing 
the sharing of information and resources to secure the border. See 
appendix I for a list of offices interviewed in the four sectors. We 
also used work from our companion review of border coordination on 
federal lands, to assess Border Patrol coordination with DOI and the 
USDA in the Spokane Sector.[Footnote 13] 

To address the third objective, we analyzed Border Patrol's 2007 
through 2010 Operational Requirements Based Budget Process (ORBBP) 
documents that include each sector's assessment of the border security 
threat, operational assessment of border security, and resource 
requirements needed to further secure border miles within each sector. 
[Footnote 14] We reviewed these documents to determine the number of 
border miles that Border Patrol reported were under effective control, 
the number of miles reported as needing outside law enforcement 
support, and the extent that use of partner resources were being used 
to address gaps in Border Patrol resources. We reviewed guidance 
headquarters provided to sectors for development of the ORBBP, as well 
as direction and performance indicators provided in CBP's Northern 
Border Strategy.[Footnote 15] We also interviewed Border Patrol 
officials in the field who are responsible for preparing the ORBBP and 
headquarters officials responsible for reviewing these documents. 

We conducted this performance audit from December 2009 through 
December 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government 
auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform 
the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a 
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 
objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a 
reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit 
objectives. 

Background: 

CBP has reported many threats on and vulnerabilities of the northern 
border related to illegal cross-border activity. Overall, according to 
CBP, a transportation infrastructure exists across much of the 
northern border that facilitates ease of access to, and egress from, 
the border area. CBP also reports that the maritime border on the 
Great Lakes and rivers is vulnerable to use of small vessels as a 
conduit for potential exploitation by terrorists, alien smuggling, 
trafficking of illicit drugs and other contraband and criminal 
activity. Also, the northern border's waterways can freeze during the 
winter and can easily be crossed on foot or by vehicle or snowmobile. 
The northern air border is also vulnerable to low-flying aircraft 
that, for example, smuggle drugs by entering U.S. airspace from 
Canada. Additionally, CBP reports that further northern border threats 
result from the fact that the northern border is exploited by well-
organized smuggling operations, which can potentially support the 
movement of terrorists and their weapons. 

Federal, State, Local, Tribal, and Canadian Law Enforcement Partners 
on the Northern Border: 

Northern border security is the primary responsibility of three DHS 
components--CBP, ICE, and the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)--which reported 
spending more than $2.9 billion in efforts to secure the northern 
border in 2010. Table 1 shows the roles and responsibilities of DHS 
components regarding northern border security. 

Table 1: Department of Homeland Security Components with a Primary 
Mission to Secure the Northern Border: 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components: CBP; 
Role and responsibility on the northern border: As the lead federal 
component agency in charge of securing U.S. borders, CBP comprises 
various offices with roles in northern border security including the 
Office of Border Patrol (Border Patrol), which is responsible for 
detecting, interdicting, and apprehending those who attempt to 
illegally enter or smuggle any person or contraband across U.S. 
borders between the ports of entry[A]; 
Fiscal year 2010 northern border budget (dollars in millions): $1,190. 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components: ICE; 
Role and responsibility on the northern border: As the largest 
investigative arm within DHS, ICE comprises numerous offices including 
Homeland Security Investigations, which is responsible for 
investigating cross-border illegal activity and criminal organizations 
that transport persons and goods across the border illegally; 
Fiscal year 2010 northern border budget (dollars in millions): $716. 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components: USCG; 
Role and responsibility on the northern border: USCG executes its 
maritime security mission on and over the major waterways, including 
the Great Lakes, using marine and air assets; 
Fiscal year 2010 northern border budget (dollars in millions): $995. 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components: 
Total; Fiscal year 2010 northern border budget (dollars in millions): 
$2,901. 

Source: GAO analysis of DHS data. 

[A] In addition to Border Patrol, CBP also consists of the Office of 
Field Operations that is responsible for preventing terrorists, 
terrorist weapons, inadmissible aliens, smugglers, narcotics, and 
other contraband from entering the United States while facilitating 
legitimate trade and travel, at the nation's air, land, and sea ports 
of entry; and the Office of Air and Marine that is responsible for 
operating integrated air and marine forces to detect, interdict, and 
prevent acts of terrorism and the unlawful movement of people, illegal 
drugs, and other contraband toward or across U.S. borders. 

[End of table] 

CBP and ICE have several partners that are also involved in northern 
border security efforts. These partners include other U.S. federal 
agencies such as DOJ's DEA, which has responsibility for drug 
enforcement, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which has 
responsibility for combating terrorism. The Department of Defense 
(DOD), while not a partner, also provides support as requested, such 
as personnel and technology for temporary joint operations. Partners 
also include Canadian law enforcement agencies such as the Royal 
Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)--which is responsible for national law 
enforcement, including border security--and the Canada Border Services 
Agency (CBSA), which is responsible for border security and public 
safety at the ports of entry. 

CBP and ICE also partner with federal, state, local, and tribal 
entities that have law enforcement jurisdiction for federal, public, 
private, or tribal lands that are adjacent to the border. As shown in 
figure 2, federal lands comprise about 1,016 miles, or approximately 
25 percent, of the nearly 4,000 northern border miles (excluding the 
Alaska-Canada border), and are primarily administered by the National 
Park Service and Forest Service. Law enforcement personnel from 
sovereign Indian nations located on about 4 percent of the northern 
border also conduct law enforcement operations related to border 
security. In addition, DOI's Bureau of Indian Affairs may enforce 
federal laws on Indian lands, with the consent of tribes and in 
accordance with tribal laws. Moreover, numerous state and local law 
enforcement entities interdict and investigate criminal activity on 
public and private lands adjacent to about 75 percent of the northern 
border. Although these agencies are not responsible for preventing the 
illegal entry of aliens into the United States, they do employ law 
enforcement officers and investigators to protect the public and 
natural resources on their lands. 

Figure 2: Federal and Tribal Lands along the Canadian Border, by 
Administering Agency: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated map of the U.S.-Canadian border] 

Canadian border: Total = nearly 4,000 miles. 

Private or state owned: 2,84 miles (75%); 
Total federal and tribal lands: 1,016 miles (25%). 

Breakdown of 1,016 miles (25%) of federal and tribal lands: 
Forest Service: 10%; 
National Park Service: 9%; 
Bureau of Indian Affairs: 4%; 
Bureau of Land Management: 2%; 
Fish and Wildlife Service: less than 1%. 

Source: GAO analysis of Department of the Interior and Forest Service 
data. 

[End of figure] 

Overlap exists in mission and operational boundaries among agencies at 
the border that require coordination and collaboration for efficient 
and effective law enforcement. One reason for overlap is Border 
Patrol's multilayered strategy for securing the border, which provides 
for several layers of agents who operate not only at the border, but 
also on public and private lands up to 100 miles from the border. As a 
result, officials from other federal, state, local, and tribal law 
enforcement agencies may patrol in the same geographic area and pursue 
the same persons or criminal organizations who violate laws 
underpinning each agency's respective mission. Another reason for 
overlap is that agencies have separate responsibility for 
investigating crimes that are conducted by the same criminals or 
organizations. 

DHS Vision for Integrated Homeland Security: 

Federal legislation and DHS policy have stressed the need for 
coordination between DHS components and across other federal agencies 
and partners to most efficiently and effectively secure the homeland 
and its borders. The 9/11 Commission had determined that limited 
coordination had contributed to border security vulnerabilities. 
[Footnote 16] In addition, coordination challenges were also addressed 
in several GAO and DHS reports. For example, in both 2004 and 2010, we 
reported that Border Patrol, USDA, and DOI were challenged to 
coordinate border security efforts on northern federal lands.[Footnote 
17] We also reported in early 2009 that there were significant 
challenges to coordination of drug law enforcement efforts between ICE 
and DEA.[Footnote 18] In addition, the DHS Inspector General issued 
reports on coordination challenges between Border Patrol and ICE in 
2005 and 2007, citing the shortfalls in information sharing and 
operational coordination that have led to competition, interference, 
and operational inflexibility.[Footnote 19] 

The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act required 
the Secretary of Homeland Security to report to Congress on ongoing 
initiatives to improve security along the northern border as well as 
recommendations to address vulnerabilities along the northern border. 
[Footnote 20] As DHS reported in response to this requirement, the 
agency has taken action to establish or support interagency forums and 
joint operations among agencies to strengthen information sharing and 
coordinate efforts to secure the border. DHS reiterated its commitment 
to share information across agencies in its 2008 Information Sharing 
Strategy, which provides full recognition and integration of federal 
agencies, tribal nations, and others in the DHS information-sharing 
environment and in development of relevant technologies.[Footnote 21] 
Also, in its 2008 Report to Congress on the status of northern border 
security, DHS listed interagency forums and joint operations that it 
established or supports for coordinating efforts among federal, state, 
local, tribal, and Canadian partners.[Footnote 22] DHS, along with its 
federal partners, also issued updates and addendums to long-standing 
memorandums of agreement (MOA) or understanding (MOU) between its 
components and across federal agencies on respective roles and 
responsibilities to enhance coordination. 

Most recently, DHS outlined its vision for coordination among agencies 
and partners for a united homeland security enterprise in its 
Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report (QHSR), submitted to 
Congress in February 2010.[Footnote 23] Cited as a strategic framework 
for homeland security, the QHSR is to guide the activities of 
participants in homeland security toward a common end. In this regard, 
it emphasizes a need for joint actions and efforts across previously 
discrete elements of government and society including federal, state, 
local, tribal, and international entities, among others, to achieve 
core homeland security mission areas, including securing and managing 
the borders by effectively controlling U.S. air, land, and sea 
domains, and safeguarding lawful trade and travel, and disrupting and 
dismantling transnational criminal organizations. The efforts 
supporting the QHSR include a review to identify mission overlap among 
components. In accordance with the QHSR vision, DHS is also developing 
a northern border strategic plan to clarify roles and responsibilities 
among all law enforcement partners. According to DHS officials, the 
strategic plan is in its final stages of review but time frames for 
completion have not been solidified. 

DHS Border Security Goals and Assessments: 

DHS has established performance goals and measures for border control. 
The CBP performance measure for effective border control is defined as 
the number of border miles where Border Patrol has reasonable 
assurance that illegal entries are detected, identified, and 
classified, and Border Patrol has the ability to respond and bring 
these incidents to a satisfactory law enforcement resolution. DHS 
reports this performance goal and measure for border security to the 
public and to Congress in the DHS Annual Performance Report. 

DHS Used Interagency Forums and Joint Operations to Improve Border 
Security Coordination, but DHS Oversight Could Address Emerging 
Challenges: 

DHS used interagency forums and joint operations to improve federal 
coordination of northern border security efforts with law enforcement 
partners from state, local, and tribal governments, and Canada 
according to officials we interviewed across four northern border 
sectors. However, numerous partners cited challenges related to the 
inability to resource the increasing number of interagency forums in 
their area and raised concerns that some efforts were overlapping. DHS 
oversight of interagency forums established by its components across 
locations may help address these challenges and ensure continued 
benefit of DHS efforts to increase the national capacity of its 
partners to secure the northern border. 

Interagency Forums Improved Binational Coordination of Northern Border 
Intelligence Information, Resources, and Operations: 

Interagency forums improved coordination of border intelligence 
information, resources, and operations between U.S. federal agencies 
and their law enforcement partners in Canada, according to the 
majority of the representatives of these entities we interviewed 
across four northern border sectors. The 9/11 Commission had 
determined that limited coordination had contributed to border 
security vulnerabilities, and emphasized the importance of 
establishing or supporting interagency forums to strengthen 
information sharing and coordinate efforts to secure the border. Two 
DHS components, CBP and ICE, responsible for border security 
interdiction and investigations, respectively, played key roles in the 
establishment of the two interagency forums within our review--the 
IBET and BEST--and along with USCG and Canada's RCMP and CBSA are key 
participants in both forums. Information about these interagency 
forums is presented in table 2. 

Table 2: DHS-Sponsored Interagency Forums That Coordinate Northern 
Border Security Information, Resources, and Operations among U.S. 
Federal, Canadian, and Other Law Enforcement Partners: 

Interagency forums: Integrated Border Enforcement Team (IBET); 
Purpose and structure: Permanent binational forums established through 
a charter that outlines partners' responsibilities for sharing border 
security information and coordinating cross-border law enforcement and 
antiterrorism efforts between the ports of entry. Although IBET 
members are not required to be colocated, they make up various teams 
and committees that meet on a quarterly or monthly basis or as often 
as necessary to exchange pertinent information and, at times, 
facilitate joint operations that bring together federal, state, local, 
and Canadian resources; 
Number: There have been 15 IBET regions with 24 individual IBET units 
established across the northern border since 1996; 
Partners involved: Core agencies: Canada's RCMP and CBSA, CBP's Border 
Patrol, ICE, USCG; Other stakeholders involved: federal, state, local, 
tribal, and Canadian law enforcement agencies including, but not 
limited to, Canadian provincial police, and the St. Regis Mohawk 
Tribal Police. 

Interagency forums: Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST); 
Purpose and structure: Permanent binational forums developed and 
facilitated by ICE to enhance border security, investigate 
transnational smuggling organizations, and combat violence related to 
smuggling occurring at the nation's borders through coordinated, 
colocated efforts; 
Number: Three BESTs have been established on the northern border since 
2008; 
Partners involved: DHS components include ICE, Intelligence and 
Analysis, CBP, and USCG. Also included are DEA, CBSA, and the RCMP, 
along with other key federal, state, and local law enforcement 
agencies including, but not limited to, the FBI, and the Ontario 
Provincial Police. 

Source: DHS and RCMP. 

[End of table] 

DHS is working to establish a means to quantify and report on the 
benefits achieved through its investment in interagency forums, but in 
the meantime officials from 17 offices that participate in interagency 
forums across the four sectors we visited commented that interagency 
forums had improved coordination among the participants.[Footnote 24] 
These officials provided examples that highlighted benefits in three 
key areas: (1) facilitating the sharing of border security 
intelligence information, (2) facilitating the sharing of resources 
such as equipment and personnel; and in some cases, (3) serving as a 
tool for deconfliction--or a means to inform partners of special 
border security operations that were planned to be conducted in 
geographic areas of responsibility common to multiple law enforcement 
agencies. 

Information Sharing. The IBET or the BEST facilitated exchange of 
timely and actionable threat information between U.S. and Canadian 
partners leading to improved interdiction and investigation 
capabilities, according to officials from 17 of the 18 offices we 
interviewed.[Footnote 25] For example, IBET participation helped to 
build trust between the core partners, which resulted in collaborative 
efforts to secure the border, according to Canadian CBSA officials 
from Windsor and Montreal--north of the Detroit and Swanton sectors 
respectively. In addition, IBET membership further strengthened U.S. 
and Canadian relationships as participants interacted more frequently 
through meetings and the colocation of personnel, which in turn 
facilitated the exchange of information according to ICE and Border 
Patrol officials operating within the Swanton and Detroit sectors, 
respectively. As a result, we were told IBET partners can more easily 
and quickly obtain information, such as border entry and exit data and 
surveillance images that would normally take several weeks to obtain. 
For example, Canada's CBSA forwarded intelligence on a Canadian 
national who was smuggling drugs from Canada to the United States to 
the BEST, according to ICE officials operating within the Blaine 
sector, at which time BEST partners--Border Patrol and ICE--were able 
to conduct surveillance and apprehend the individual, seizing over 500 
pounds of marijuana that was backpacked across the border, and gain 
further intelligence about other criminal activity. 

Sharing of Resources. The IBET or BEST helped partners leverage 
personnel, technology, and other resources for operations to interdict 
or investigate cross-border illegal activity, according to officials 
in 17 of the 18 offices we interviewed.[Footnote 26] For example, 
colocation of BEST members provides U.S. and Canadian officials ready 
access to the knowledge and skills of participating agencies, 
according to ICE officials operating within the Detroit sector. 
Another example of a benefit is the pooling of resources. The IBET 
operating within the Spokane sector maintains a centralized resource 
list that participants can view and request use of partners' available 
technology, equipment, and vehicles, according to ICE and Border 
Patrol officials. Radio communications are also facilitated among 
participants of the IBET and BEST attended by officials from the 
Blaine sector, in that all participants have access to a bank of 10 
hand-held radios on the same frequency, according to an ICE official 
operating within the Blaine sector. Officials cited examples of how 
sharing personnel and resources helped secure the border. In one 
example, U.S. and Canadian IBET partners were conducting joint 
operations to monitor over 133 kilometers of unguarded roads in the 
Swanton sector that were exploited by criminal organizations smuggling 
humans, drugs, and other contraband, according to RCMP officials north 
of the Swanton sector. The operation employed Canadian personnel from 
RCMP and Border Patrol to patrol the roads using resources such as 
motion sensor and video equipment to expand surveillance coverage. 
U.S. and Canadian IBET partners also shared sensor hits and video 
footage from both sides of the border. As a result of the shared 
information and resources, partners were able to determine if illegal 
activities were going north or south of the border and had increased 
awareness to detect and interdict cross-border crime. 

Deconfliction. The IBET or BEST were also used in conjunction with 
other interagency forums to deconflict operations planned by various 
agencies that operate in geographic areas of responsibility common to 
multiple law enforcement agencies, according to officials in all 
offices we interviewed.[Footnote 27] For example, the colocation of 
BEST members raised awareness of operations and activities at the 
border due to the daily and ongoing information being shared between 
members, according to ICE participants in the Blaine and Detroit 
sectors. IBET participants from the Spokane sector also had daily 
telephone conversations to discuss their operations, and subgroups 
within the IBET met once a week to share information and intelligence 
and discuss operations to prevent unknowingly interrupting each other, 
according to a Border Patrol participant.[Footnote 28] 

Joint Operations Improved Binational Coordination to Provide an 
Integrated Law Enforcement Response: 

DHS components also used joint operations as a means to integrate 
federal border security efforts with northern border partners from 
state and local governments, tribal nations, and Canada. The 9/11 
Commission stressed the importance of extensive collaboration with 
international partners as well as increasing interaction between 
federal, state, and local law enforcement through joint efforts that 
would combine intelligence, manpower, and operations to address 
national security vulnerabilities. Individually, partners had 
insufficient authority, staff, or assets to conduct certain types of 
operations, according to Border Patrol officials in the Detroit 
sector, and joint operations allowed partners to leverage these 
resources to address existing border security vulnerabilities. For 
example, to address vulnerabilities related to different law 
enforcement authority across the border, the United States and Canada 
established binational agreements that allowed USCG and RCMP law 
enforcement personnel under the Shiprider Program to conduct joint 
vessel patrols in the Blaine and Detroit sectors that leveraged both 
U.S. and Canadian authority across the maritime border. To address 
vulnerabilities related to insufficient staff and resources, DHS 
issued 3-year grants to tribal nations and state and local governments 
under Operation Stonegarden to augment Border Patrol personnel and 
resources for patrolling the land border, which benefited all four 
sectors we visited. DHS components also developed joint operations for 
conducting time-limited surge operations for interdiction or 
investigations in the air, maritime, or land border environments, 
including Operations Channel Watch, Outlook, and Frozen Timber. 

DHS tracked the resulting benefits of these joint operations in their 
after-action reports as reflected in table 3, and all officials from 
20 offices who participated in one or more of these operations across 
the four sectors we visited agreed that joint operations made 
important contributions to border security.[Footnote 29] These 
contributions included an enhanced ability under Operation Outlook to 
detect cross-border illegal activity and to inform future asset 
deployments in Spokane sector, a show of force under Operation Channel 
Watch to deter illegal cross-border activity in Detroit sector, and 
across all operations the arrest of smugglers and other criminals 
crossing the border, or seizures of narcotics, cigarettes, currency, 
and other contraband. 

Table 3: Joint Operations Highlighted by Northern Border Partners to 
Coordinate Northern Border Security Efforts: 

Joint operation: Shiprider Program; 
Purpose: Binational operation launched in 2005 and conducted under 
agreement between the United States and Canada that allows law 
enforcement personnel from both countries to conduct joint vessel 
patrols to prevent, detect, and investigate criminal offenses in 
shared waterways[A]; 
Benefits: Coordinated response leveraging equipment and personnel with 
partners to address marine threats in shared waterways. During the 2-
month pilot operation on the St. Lawrence River in 2007, the Shiprider 
program resulted in the boarding of over 187 vessels, and seizure of 
214 pounds of marijuana, over 1 million contraband cigarettes, 6 
vessels, and C$38,000 intended to fund smuggling activities. Gathered 
intelligence for shore based investigations; 
Partners involved: DHS primary component is USCG. Canadian primary 
component is RCMP. 

Joint operation: Operation Channel Watch; 
Purpose: Binational joint training and surge operation launched in 
2007 and conducted annually for vessel and aircraft patrols and 
inspections along the Great Lakes. The duration of the exercise varies 
from year to year; in 2009, the Operation lasted 7 days. In 2010, the 
operation was expanded to exercises conducted on six different 
weekends during the summer; 
Benefits: Coordinated response leveraging funds, equipment, and 
personnel with partners to address marine threats on the Great Lakes. 
The 2009 operation involved 16 partners and resulted in 350 vessel 
boardings, 13 warnings, 29 violations, and 3 arrests or detentions; 
Partners involved: DHS components include USCG, CBP's Border Patrol, 
and ICE. DOJ component is DEA. State and local law enforcement 
agencies include among others the Michigan State Police. Canadian 
components include among others RCMP. 

Joint operation: Operation Outlook; 

Purpose: Border Patrol led series of interdiction operations in the 
Blaine and Spokane sectors between 2005 and 2008 targeting the 
identification and interdiction of illicit cross-border traffic; 
Benefits: Facilitated increased information sharing and a better 
understanding of partner capabilities. In 2007, the operation in the 
Blaine sector resulted in the interdiction of eight illegal aliens 
attempting to cross into the United States by boat and the seizure of 
approximately 80 pounds of the illicit drug Ecstasy; 
Partners involved: DHS components include Border Patrol and ICE. 
Others involved included DOD and state and local law enforcement 
entities. 

Joint operation: Operation Frozen Timber; 
Purpose: ICE led investigation involving DHS, DOI, and USDA components 
to address drug smuggling in the national forests and parklands along 
the United States-Canada border; 
Benefits: Facilitated relationships between partners and promoted 
information sharing. In 2004, the operation resulted in the seizure of 
approximately 8,000 pounds of marijuana, 800 pounds of cocaine, 3 
aircraft, and $1.5 million in U.S. currency; 
Partners involved: DHS components include CBP's Office of Border 
Patrol and ICE. DOI component is the National Park Service. USDA 
component is the U.S. Forest Service. 

Joint operation: Operation Stonegarden; 
Purpose: Federal grants provided to state, local, and tribal partners 
to fund overtime pay and equipment used to augment Border Patrol 
operations on the northern and southern borders; 
Benefits: Facilitated relationships and the coordination of 
information sharing and resources. For example, in the Blaine and 
Spokane sectors, between October 2009 and July 2010, roughly 1,396 
days were dedicated to Stonegarden, which led to 287 arrests and 5,535 
vehicle stops[B]; 
Partners involved: DHS components include CBP's Border Patrol. State 
and local law enforcement include New York State Police and Whatcom 
County Sheriff's Office. Tribal law enforcement from the Akwesasne 
Indian Reservation. 

Source: DHS and RCMP. 

[A] Shiprider operations are currently being deployed on a short-term 
basis as partners await the Canadian ratification of the long-term, 
bilateral agreement that will make the operation permanent. 

[B] Data provided by DHS on Operation Stonegarden are generated from 
state and local law enforcement agencies, and DHS has not validated 
the results of these data. 

[End of table] 

Officials in 5 of the 20 offices raised concerns that, while surge 
operations provided short-term benefits, they may not provide an 
ongoing deterrent effect or address long-standing border security 
vulnerabilities. For example, Border Patrol officials in the Spokane 
sector said that while Operation Frozen Timber was a successful joint 
operation that resulted in significant arrests and drug seizures, it 
was not an ongoing effort, and in their opinion, should be expanded to 
a more comprehensive concept of operations to combat and deter cross- 
border smuggling by air. Likewise, ICE officials operating within the 
Detroit sector stated that Operation Channel Watch demonstrated a show 
of force on the Great Lakes, but it was not clear whether conducting 
this joint operation six weekends a year would deter sophisticated 
criminal organizations.[Footnote 30] Despite these concerns, after- 
action reports showed that these time-limited joint operations had 
provided some lasting benefits. Operation Outlook, for example, 
resulted in information about the continuous and significant threat of 
cross-border smuggling in the air environment in the Spokane sector, 
and pointed out weaknesses that could be corrected in the placement 
and use of air and ground assets. 

DHS Oversight of Interagency Forum Missions and Locations Could Help 
Ensure Efficient Coordination of Partner Resources: 

Most northern border partners we interviewed across the four sectors 
cited challenges to resourcing the increasing number of interagency 
forums being established in their geographic area of responsibility. 
An interagency working group convened in 2009 to study the interaction 
between the IBET and BEST also raised concerns that the increasing 
demand to participate in interagency forums created difficulties in 
gathering the resources necessary to participate in the IBET or 
BEST.[Footnote 31] Overall, officials in 21 of the 30 Canadian, U.S. 
federal, state, and local offices across the four sectors we visited 
said that it was difficult to resource the IBET and BEST, in addition 
to other interagency forums in their geographic area.[Footnote 32] 

* A CBSA official north of the Swanton sector stated that the office 
must balance resources among the three IBET offices within its area of 
responsibility and that it could not afford to staff a BEST office 
with current resources if one were to open in the area. 

* ICE officials operating within the Swanton sector stated that there 
are two IBETs in their area of responsibility, and while they only 
have resources to staff the closest one to their office, they would 
like to staff the IBET further away as it is close to a port of entry 
and has more law enforcement partners that can further the ICE mission. 

* Local law enforcement in the Swanton sector, Rouses Point Police 
Department, reported that the high level of commitment required by 
forums such as the IBET make it difficult for resource-strapped 
smaller law enforcement agencies such as their own to participate. 

Officials from seven of the nine remaining offices without these 
concerns included Border Patrol in the Blaine, Detroit, and Swanton 
sectors and ICE operating within the Blaine sector, who said they had 
sufficient resources, and local law enforcement in the Detroit sector 
who said they would not assign staff to a forum unless it was the most 
efficient use of the officer's time. In addition, an FBI official 
operating within the Spokane sector and an official from the Michigan 
State Police said that while the number of forums has increased since 
9/11, only those that provide the most value through focused meetings 
and attract the most participants will continue to exist. 

Of the officials within the 13 offices operating within the Blaine and 
Detroit sectors who were named as key members of the IBET or BEST, 
more than half cited concerns about mission overlap between the IBET 
and BEST that could result in duplication of effort,[Footnote 33] a 
concern also expressed by the DHS Inspector General in a 2007 report, 
[Footnote 34] and members of the IBET/BEST Working Group.[Footnote 35] 
ICE headquarters officials stated that although there are not distinct 
geographic boundaries of operation for the IBET and BEST, ICE is 
addressing concerns of overlapping operations by developing a 
strategic plan to lay out the concept of operations, administrative 
policies and procedures, and the goals of the BEST. At the time of our 
review, ICE had not yet established a time frame for completion of 
these efforts as they are in early stages of drafting the plan. In the 
meantime, however, officials in 7 of the 13 offices in these forums 
located in the Blaine and Detroit sectors were concerned that some 
BEST activities to investigate and interdict cross-border illegal 
activity at the ports of entry duplicated IBET efforts to conduct 
these same activities between the ports of entry. 

* Border Patrol officials in the Blaine sector said that despite good 
working relationships between the IBET and BEST, concerns remain about 
overlapping cases because of the ability for cases at the ports of 
entry to expand into areas between the ports of entry. Likewise, ICE 
officials operating within the Blaine sector agreed that BEST 
investigative activity between the ports of entry would be duplicative 
of the IBET mission, but disagreed that such overlap had occurred. 

* RCMP officials north of the Detroit sector reported that there is a 
perception of duplication because the BEST in Detroit is expanding its 
scope to include investigations between the ports of entry, which is 
the domain of the IBET. ICE officials operating within the Detroit 
sector said they disagreed with the assumption that a geographic 
dividing line could be drawn in conducting investigations. Border 
Patrol and DEA officials operating within the Detroit sector said that 
the reason for establishing the BEST in their area was unclear. In 
addition, Border Patrol officials stated that the IBET serves as their 
primary forum for targeting cross-border crime. However, ICE said that 
while the BEST in Detroit is a new effort, started in 2009, it 
provided them with better support to meet the needs of their mission. 
This support was provided through partnerships and colocation with 
federal and state and local law enforcement that are not core members 
of the IBET including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and 
Explosives and the local police department. 

While DHS headquarters officials report that policies governing DHS's 
coordination efforts are under development, DHS does not currently 
provide guidance or oversight to its components to establish or assess 
the results of interagency forums across northern border locations, 
according to officials from the DHS Office of Strategic Plans. We 
previously reported that federal agencies can enhance and sustain 
their collaborative efforts by, in part, developing mechanisms to 
monitor their results.[Footnote 36] DHS and DOJ have developed 
guidance and provided oversight to help prevent overlap among 
interagency forums established under state and local fusion center 
programs, to leverage fusion centers that already exist, and to reduce 
the downstream burden on state and local partners that have limited 
resources.[Footnote 37] However, DHS officials from the Office of 
Strategic Plans said that coordination policies are still in 
development and that many organizations within DHS share 
responsibility for ensuring that component operations strategically 
align with the Secretary's goals and commitment for efficient 
operation and integration of partner efforts for the homeland security 
mission. These officials stated that headquarters organizations, 
including the Management Directorate, the Office of Policy, and the 
Office of Operations Coordination and Planning, are developing 
processes to provide department-level coordination and oversight of 
those forums; however, DHS has not provided documentation to support 
its plans, thus the scope and the time frames for finalizing this 
effort are unclear. Ongoing DHS oversight of the mission and location 
of interagency forums established by its components could help prevent 
duplication of efforts, and help ensure that DHS is a mindful steward 
in conserving the scarce resources of northern border partners. 
Moreover, this oversight role could provide opportunities for DHS to 
determine whether additional forums are necessary or whether existing 
forums can be modified to address emerging needs. 

Additional DHS Action Could Help Address Challenges Hindering Northern 
Border Coordination among Its Components and with Other Federal 
Agencies: 

Federal agency coordination to secure the northern border was reported 
to have improved by some Border Patrol, ICE, Forest Service, and DEA 
officials operating within the four sectors we visited; however, in 
all sectors officials cited problems with others in sharing 
information and resources for daily operations. DHS attention to 
resolving these long-standing coordination challenges could enhance 
its ability to implement its strategic vision for a coordinated 
homeland security enterprise and improve the federal capacity to 
secure the northern border. 

DHS Action Could Help Address Border Patrol and ICE Coordination 
Challenges: 

Border Patrol officials in three of the four sectors we visited cited 
strong or improved coordination with ICE in sharing information and 
coordinating their border security missions, but ICE officials in all 
but one sector reported that coordination with Border Patrol remained 
challenging. CBP and ICE had developed an MOU between Border Patrol 
and ICE in 2004, updated in 2007, to establish and coordinate roles 
and responsibilities for interdiction and investigation missions on 
the border, and as a mechanism to resolve conflict or disagreements. 
[Footnote 38] The 2007 MOU requires the two agencies to establish a 
seamless, real-time operational partnership, with Border Patrol taking 
the lead on all border-related interdiction activities, and ICE taking 
the lead on investigations. 

Coordination between Border Patrol and ICE was cited as strong or 
greatly improved by Border Patrol officials in two sectors, and ICE 
officials in one sector, who cited different reasons for the 
improvements in coordination. For example, Border Patrol officials in 
the Spokane sector said that there was considerable improvement in 
their relationship with ICE since the MOU was established in 2004, and 
attributed improved coordination to sector leadership, open lines of 
communication, and personal friendships between agents. ICE officials 
operating within the Detroit sector said that their relationship with 
Border Patrol had matured, and they generally worked well to support 
each other's mission. They cited that improved coordination resulted 
from colocation of Border Patrol agents in the BEST and the close 
relationships of sector leaders who supported coordination between the 
components. 

However, coordination to exchange information and integrate missions 
remained challenging according to ICE officials in all four sectors, 
and Border Patrol officials in two sectors, with all citing problems 
with the MOU, among other issues. These officials said that the MOU 
had not been effective in clarifying roles and responsibilities or 
resolving disagreements about the dividing line between interdiction 
and investigation. These disagreements surrounded the interpretation 
and separation of "intelligence-gathering" activities to support 
Border Patrol's interdiction mission and "investigative" activities 
that fall under the purview of ICE, as well as the timing and 
circumstance surrounding when Border Patrol should call ICE for 
investigative support, as shown by the following examples. 

* Border Patrol and ICE officials said that the agencies continue to 
disagree on whether it is appropriate for Border Patrol agents to 
interview persons they apprehend. ICE officials state that Border 
Patrol should call ICE first. However, Border Patrol officials stated 
that post-arrest interviews are within the intelligence-gathering 
provisions of the interagency MOU. 

* Border Patrol and ICE officials continue to disagree on whether 
border surveillance falls under ICE's investigative role. Border 
Patrol officials in the Spokane sector provided an example of ICE 
officials conducting surveillance of the border, which is the 
responsibility of Border Patrol under the MOU; however, ICE officials 
in all four sectors maintained that these intelligence gathering 
activities were an inherent part of the ICE investigative role. 

* Border Patrol and ICE officials said that there is disagreement on 
when Border Patrol is required to call ICE to inspect seized 
contraband. For example, ICE officials operating within the Detroit 
sector interpreted the MOU as requiring Border Patrol to notify ICE of 
the contraband at the arrest site to inform investigations. However, 
Border Patrol officials in the Detroit sector interpreted the MOU as 
allowing agents to transport the contraband to the station for 
identification and calling ICE once established that it could develop 
into an investigation. While Border Patrol officials in the Spokane 
sector stated that evidence gathering is an inherent function of their 
role under the MOU, ICE officials in the Spokane sector viewed this 
practice as inappropriate handling and processing of evidence that 
hindered ICE's investigations. 

Border Patrol officials in three sectors and ICE officials operating 
within two sectors stated that competition for performance statistics 
was another barrier to overcoming coordination challenges as these 
statistics are the basis for DHS resource allocation decisions. 
[Footnote 39] As a result, both Border Patrol and ICE officials said 
that agents sometimes worked outside of their established roles and 
responsibilities to boost performance statistics, and disagreed on 
which component should receive credit for apprehensions, seizures, and 
prosecutions. 

DHS has plans to revise its performance measures and processes for 
resource allocation across components; however, our discussions with 
DHS officials have shown that it will be difficult to ensure these 
revisions do not exacerbate current challenges to collaboration in 
support of the QHSR.[Footnote 40] For example, officials from the DHS 
Office of Strategic Plans said that the department is developing new 
performance measures for border security that may require each 
component to show how their efforts linked with the efforts of others 
to secure the border, and that resources would be distributed across 
the components according to their relative success. 

The coordination challenges between Border Patrol and ICE resulted in 
a lack of information sharing and potential inefficiencies, according 
to Border Patrol and ICE officials operating within three of the 
sectors we visited. Specifically, ICE officials operating within the 
Detroit, Spokane, and Swanton sectors said they are reluctant to share 
intelligence information with Border Patrol because they are concerned 
Border Patrol may adversely affect an ICE investigation. Border Patrol 
officials in the Detroit sector said that because they do not believe 
ICE shares information with them, coordination with ICE is hindered. 
Additionally, these Border Patrol officials stated that, from their 
perspective, the lack of information sharing between the agencies 
resulted in inefficient border security efforts. Similarly, the Border 
Patrol officials in the Blaine sector reported that the lack of 
information sharing resulted in inefficiencies as Border Patrol has 
used its resources to respond to potential cross-border criminals who 
were ICE agents engaged in undercover investigations. 

These coordination problems between Border Patrol and ICE have been 
long-standing and the subject of several studies and reports. We 
reported in 2005 that the effectiveness of ICE's anti-smuggling 
strategy would depend partly on the clarification of ICE and CBP roles 
in anti-smuggling activities.[Footnote 41] In 2006, the Congressional 
Research Service reported, after interviewing agents in Los Angeles 
and San Diego, that ICE and CBP had problems with communications that 
compromised some smuggling investigations.[Footnote 42] In both 2005 
and 2007, the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported on the 
coordination challenges between CBP and ICE, including those 
challenges between Border Patrol and ICE's Homeland Security 
Investigations.[Footnote 43] The 2005 report concluded that shortfalls 
in operational coordination and information sharing had fostered an 
environment of uncertainty and mistrust between CBP and ICE personnel 
in the field, and instead of collegial interaction, field officials 
reported competition, and at times, interference. In its 2007 update, 
the OIG reported improvement, but additional work was necessary to 
address remaining challenges related to improving intelligence and 
information sharing, strengthening performance measures, and 
addressing ongoing relational issues. 

DHS took several actions in response to past findings, but our work 
for this review showed that ongoing coordination challenges continue 
to exist between DHS components. For example, CBP and ICE issued an 
addendum to strengthen the MOU between CBP and ICE, and established an 
ICE-CBP Coordination Council to ensure, among other things, that 
component policies and procedures supported the roles and 
responsibilities outlined in the MOU and were communicated and 
implemented in the field. DHS concurred with its OIG's recommendation 
to establish joint CBP-ICE bodies to oversee the implementation of the 
MOU's provisions but did not establish such an oversight body, stating 
that the establishment of the Coordination Council and other working 
groups would coordinate interagency efforts.[Footnote 44] The 
Coordination Council has since been disbanded, and the DHS officials 
from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the Office of 
Operations Coordination and Planning were unfamiliar with the council 
and could not provide an explanation for why it was discontinued. DHS 
continues to lack an entity to oversee the implementation of the MOU 
because the agency relies on CBP and ICE leaders to hold the field 
accountable for implementation of established agreements. 
Additionally, according to DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis 
officials, components often leave coordination challenges for field 
leadership to resolve without adequate guidance from headquarters. 

DHS component field officials, DHS headquarters officials, and the DHS 
OIG acknowledged that there remains a disconnect between headquarters 
policy and field implementation that may require DHS-level oversight 
to correct.[Footnote 45] For example, Border Patrol and ICE officials 
in two of the sectors we visited said that DHS action, as a higher 
authority, could help mitigate different priorities between its 
components, provide a unifying direction, and quickly address 
problems.[Footnote 46] DHS headquarters officials from several offices 
agreed,[Footnote 47] stating that many DHS components do not 
consistently enforce information-sharing practices contained in 
interagency agreements, and that field agents are left to resolve 
coordination challenges without adequate headquarters guidance. 
According to the OIG official we interviewed, DHS oversight of its 
interagency MOUs could help promote the "One-DHS" culture.[Footnote 48] 

Although DHS has relied on component-level management to ensure that 
components coordinate information and operations in the field, the 
long-standing and continuing coordination challenges between ICE and 
Border Patrol highlight the importance of developing a permanent 
solution to oversee and address these challenges. We previously 
reported that federal agencies engaged in collaborative efforts need 
to create the means to monitor and evaluate their efforts to enable 
them to identify areas for improvement.[Footnote 49] DHS oversight of 
MOU implementation, including evaluating the outstanding challenges 
and developing planned corrective actions, could better ensure that 
the MOUs are facilitating coordination as intended, and that 
components are held accountable for adherence to provisions within 
established agreements. 

DHS Action Could Help to Address Coordination Challenges with Other 
Federal Agencies: 

Border Patrol, ICE, Forest Service, and DEA officials reported ongoing 
coordination challenges in the four sectors we visited, despite DHS 
action to improve coordination between these federal agencies that 
have overlapping missions or operational boundaries. Additional DHS 
action to provide oversight and enforce compliance with established 
agreements across federal agencies could help further QHSR priorities 
of unity of effort and integrated operations in conducting 
interdiction and investigation on northern borderlands. 

Forest Service and Border Patrol Remained Challenged in Coordinating 
Interdiction Efforts: 

Border Patrol and Forest Service officials we interviewed in the 
Blaine and Spokane sectors reported efforts to improve coordination 
among these agencies, but that sharing information on border security 
intelligence and operations remained problematic.[Footnote 50] An 
interagency agreement coordinating the missions of these agencies was 
established in a 2006 MOU among DHS, DOI, and USDA. The MOU outlines 
respective roles and responsibilities of each agency when operating on 
federal lands, providing Border Patrol's role to detect and apprehend 
illegal cross-border activity, and Forest Service's role to apprehend 
and investigate persons conducting illegal activities on federal 
lands. The agreement also requires the agencies and their component 
offices--including Border Patrol and Forest Service--to coordinate 
efforts in a number of areas, including sharing information about 
threats and operations.[Footnote 51] 

In the Blaine sector, Forest Service officials reported that 
coordination was lacking due to limited interaction and inattention by 
leadership. Although the interagency agreement establishes that the 
agencies are to prioritize coordination, little coordination was 
taking place and there was not an established relationship between the 
agencies in the Blaine sector, according to the officials we 
interviewed. Border Patrol disagreed and stated that it had assigned a 
Public Lands Liaison to coordinate operations on federal lands, but 
Forest Service officials said that contact had been minimal, due in 
part to turnover. While Forest Service officials were hopeful that 
coordination could occur through the Border Lands Management Task 
Force, they were not receiving information about the location of 
Border Patrol assets or operations on Forest Service lands. 

In the Spokane sector, officials reported that coordination was 
strained by disagreements on roles and responsibilities when operating 
on Forest Service land. For example, Forest Service law enforcement 
officials stated that surveillance, patrol, and investigation of 
potential cross-border criminal activity on federal borderlands are an 
inherent part of Forest Service's mission to safeguard natural 
resources and public safety. However, Border Patrol officials stated 
that Forest Service actions to use sensors and other resources to 
monitor cross-border activity have led to duplication and overlap with 
Border Patrol's mission and operation at the border. While Border 
Patrol and Forest Service issued a local MOU in 2008 that more 
specifically defined roles and responsibilities between the two 
agencies for the Spokane sector Border Patrol and the Northern Region 
Forest Service Office, agency officials in the Spokane sector 
continued to disagree on the division of roles and responsibilities 
when cross-border illegal activity moves past the border and onto 
Forest Service land. Another local-level MOU was issued in 2009 to 
more specifically address roles and responsibilities between the 
agencies on Forest Service lands patrolled by three Border Patrol 
stations, but challenges continue in coordinating border security 
intelligence and operations between these agencies. 

The coordination challenges between Forest Service and Border Patrol 
resulted in a lack of information sharing, inefficiencies, and within 
the Spokane sector an overall breakdown of coordination efforts, 
according to Forest Service officials operating within the Blaine and 
Spokane sectors and Border Patrol officials operating within the 
Spokane sector. According to Forest Service law enforcement officials 
operating within the Blaine sector, Border Patrol does not share 
information in a timely manner due to concerns that Forest Service 
cannot be trusted with certain types of information. Border Patrol 
officials in the Spokane sector cited similar concerns, and said that 
Forest Service leadership is reluctant to share information with 
Border Patrol. However, Forest Service officials operating in the 
Spokane sector disagreed stating that they are willing to share 
information with Border Patrol. Officials from both agencies agreed 
that these challenges may result in inefficiencies and a breakdown of 
coordination, ultimately leading to the risk of a border that is less 
secure. 

DHS action was needed to resolve these coordination challenges between 
the agencies, according to Border Patrol officials in the Spokane 
sector. Within the Spokane sector, Forest Service officials stated 
that DHS headquarters action has not resulted in cooperation or 
substantive change in field locations, and we recently reported that 
action was needed by DHS and USDA to ensure that established 
agreements were proactively implemented to prevent coordination 
challenges.[Footnote 52] Specifically, we recommended that, in part, 
DHS and USDA take the necessary action to ensure that personnel at all 
levels of each agency conduct early and continued consultations to 
implement provisions of the 2006 MOU, including determining agencies' 
information needs for intelligence. Both DHS and USDA agreed with our 
recommendation and, while CBP stated that it would issue a memorandum 
to all Border Patrol sectors emphasizing the importance of its 
partnerships, as of October 2010, additional steps to fully address 
this recommendation have not yet been taken. 

ICE and DEA Officials Remained Challenged to Coordinate Investigations: 

ICE and DEA faced ongoing challenges coordinating northern border 
security investigations, according to ICE and DEA officials in all 
four sectors. Agreements coordinating the investigative missions of 
these agencies include a 1994 MOU between the U.S. Customs Service--a 
DHS legacy agency--and DEA.[Footnote 53] ICE and DEA updated this MOU 
in the June 2009 interagency cooperation agreement to reflect the 
current organization under DHS, and also to harness both agencies' 
expertise and avoid operational conflicts in order to most effectively 
dismantle and disrupt trafficking organizations.[Footnote 54] Although 
the interagency agreement establishes that the agencies are to improve 
information and deconfliction efforts, the MOU had not yet resulted in 
improved coordination between the agencies 1 year after the updated 
agreement was in place, according to ICE officials operating in three 
sectors we visited, and DEA officials operating in all four sectors. 
The coordination challenges between ICE and DEA resulted in a lack of 
information sharing, or potential inefficiencies, resulting in the 
risk of investigations that were delayed or hindered, according to ICE 
and DEA officials operating within the four sectors we visited. 

DEA officials we interviewed in all four sectors attributed the 
coordination challenges with ICE to different interpretations of the 
MOU provisions related to jurisdiction for drug investigations. 
Although DEA has full jurisdiction for domestic and foreign drug 
investigations, as a result of separate interagency agreements DEA 
takes the lead on drug investigations originating between the ports of 
entry while ICE takes the lead on drug investigations originating at 
the ports of entry. These geographic distinctions can be confusing, 
according to a DEA official operating in the Blaine sector. By 
contrast, ICE officials operating in the four sectors we visited did 
not have concerns about differing interpretations of the roles and 
responsibilities laid out in the agreement. Specifically, ICE 
officials in the Spokane sector stated that both agencies are 
investigative so they interpret the roles and responsibilities 
similarly. 

ICE officials we interviewed in all four sectors attributed the 
coordination challenges with DEA to separate DEA agreements with 
Border Patrol and Canada's RCMP that, from ICE's perspective, exclude 
ICE from exchanges of intelligence information and operations that 
could benefit ICE investigations.[Footnote 55] According to ICE 
officials, under the DEA agreement with RCMP, ICE is excluded from 
efforts to coordinate international drug smuggling investigations. 
[Footnote 56] Similarly, ICE officials said that per the DEA agreement 
with Border Patrol, Border Patrol provides DEA instead of ICE the 
right of first refusal in referrals of drug seizures. ICE officials 
stated this MOU creates a strain on ICE's relationships with Border 
Patrol and DEA, and also causes confusion that can hinder 
investigations and create inefficiencies. DEA headquarters officials 
disagreed that ICE is excluded as ICE has access to mechanisms DEA 
uses to share information with law enforcement partners, such as the 
Special Operations Division and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement 
Task Force.[Footnote 57] 

ICE and DEA officials operating within three sectors also attributed 
the ongoing coordination challenges between the agencies to 
overlapping missions and competition for leading investigations, as 
both agencies have a mission to disrupt and dismantle criminal 
organizations that smuggle drugs as well as other contraband across 
the border. A DEA official operating within the Swanton sector stated 
that mission overlap creates too much competition for the same work, 
as well as receiving credit for that work. DEA officials operating 
within the Spokane sector agreed, stating that competition is an 
inherent problem when multiple investigative agencies exist because 
their budgets are tied to the seizure and investigation statistics 
they generate. 

Additional DHS action is needed to resolve coordination challenges 
between ICE and DEA, according to ICE officials we interviewed in all 
four sectors and DEA officials in two sectors we visited, and as 
recommended in our previous report.[Footnote 58] DEA officials 
operating within the Spokane sector said that oversight of established 
agreements was necessary to ensure that they are implemented and work 
to facilitate coordination. According to DEA officials in the Spokane 
sector, this oversight should consist of an overarching authoritative 
body--with no ties, affiliations, or bias toward a particular agency 
or political party--tasked with reviewing established MOUs between law 
enforcement entities to determine when coordination is being 
facilitated or hindered. We previously reported that federal agencies 
can enhance and sustain their collaborative efforts by, in part, 
developing mechanisms to monitor their results.[Footnote 59] In 
addition, we recommended in March 2009 that DOJ and DHS take action to 
provide oversight of established interagency agreements.[Footnote 60] 
We also recommended that the agencies develop processes to 
periodically monitor implementation of the agreements and make any 
needed adjustments. DOJ concurred with the recommendations, but DHS 
did not concur to monitor implementation of the agreements, and to-
date this recommendation remains unaddressed.[Footnote 61] DEA and ICE 
signed a revised MOU in June 2009, but according to our work conducted 
in August 2010, the MOU had not yet resulted in resolution of 
coordination challenges in the four sectors we visited. DEA officials 
at headquarters commented that, while the 2009 agreement is entering 
its evaluation period, not enough time has elapsed since the signing 
of the agreement to assess its effectiveness. The challenges we have 
identified with northern border coordination between DHS and its 
federal partners underscore the importance of implementing past 
recommendations to ensure oversight that reinforces accountability 
when establishing a partnership through a written agreement. 

DHS Reported Limited Progress in Securing the Northern Border, but 
Assessing Partner Contributions Could Inform Decisions in Addressing 
Remaining Vulnerabilities: 

DHS reported limited progress in securing the northern border, but 
processes Border Patrol used to assess border security and resource 
requirements did not include the extent that northern border 
partnerships and resources were available or used to address border 
security vulnerabilities. DHS action to develop guidance and policy 
for including partner contributions in these processes could provide 
the agency and Congress with more complete information in making 
funding and resource allocation decisions. 

Despite Limited Progress, Most Northern Border Miles Remained 
Vulnerable to Exploitation and There Is a Reliance on Outside Law 
Enforcement Support: 

Few northern border miles had reached an acceptable level of security 
as of fiscal year end 2010, according to Border Patrol security 
assessments. CBP measures border security between the ports of entry 
by the number of miles under effective control of Border Patrol. 
[Footnote 62] DHS reports these results in its annual performance 
report to Congress and the public, based on border security 
assessments conducted by each Border Patrol sector that are included 
in each sector's ORBBP. Our review of these reports for 2010 showed 
that for the northern border overall, 32 of the nearly 4,000 border 
miles had reached an acceptable level of control, with 9 of these 
miles included in the four sectors we visited. The remaining miles 
were assessed at levels that Border Patrol reported are not acceptable 
end states. These border miles are defined as vulnerable to 
exploitation due to issues related to accessibility and resource 
availability and, as a result, there is a high degree of reliance on 
law enforcement support from outside the border zone. 

CBP also does not have the ability to detect illegal activity across 
most of the northern border. Because most areas of the northern border 
are remote and inaccessible by traditional patrol methods, CBP's 
Northern Border Strategy states that one of the goals of Border Patrol 
is to reach full situational awareness along the northern border. 
[Footnote 63] This strategy defines full situational awareness as an 
area where the probability of detection is high; however, the ability 
to respond is defined by accessibility to the area or availability of 
resources, or both. At this level, CBP states that partnerships with 
other law enforcement agencies play an important role in resolving the 
illegal entries. Our review of sector ORBBP documents for fiscal year 
2010 showed that for the northern border overall, about 1,007 of the 
nearly 4,000 northern border miles had reached this definition of full 
situational awareness, with 398 of these miles included in the four 
sectors we visited.[Footnote 64] CBP reported that the number of miles 
under control is expected to increase as Border Patrol continues to 
put in place additional resources based on risk, threat potential, and 
operational need. 

CBP had planned to implement its northern border strategy and 
reinforce overall security of the northern border over the next 4 
years with a range of initiatives involving increased staffing, 
cutting-edge technology, increased infrastructure, and enhanced 
interagency partnerships. At the time of our review, however, CBP had 
not yet issued an implementation plan because it was unclear how CBP's 
strategy for the northern border may change in response to the 
recently issued QHSR and a departmentwide strategy for the northern 
border, scheduled for issuance later this year. 

Including Partner Contributions in Border Security Assessments Could 
Provide a More Complete Picture of Border Security Risk and Resources: 

Border Patrol's National Strategy states that, in part, reliance on 
border fencing and personnel help secure control over the southern 
border, while on the northern border, partnerships and the sharing of 
intelligence are critical to success.[Footnote 65] While CBP's 
Northern Border Strategy states that these partnerships are crucial to 
securing the northern border, our review of the 2010 ORBBPs for the 
Blaine, Spokane, Detroit, and Swanton sectors showed that these 
sectors had identified various levels of additional personnel, 
technology, and infrastructure necessary to increase border control, 
but did not identify the extent that partnerships and their resources 
were available to address border vulnerabilities. 

* Under Operation Stonegarden, DHS provided approximately $11.2 
million in 3-year grants to northern border state, local, or tribal 
governments to augment Border Patrol staff and resources on the border 
in fiscal year 2010. However, the extent that these additional staff 
and resources addressed border security vulnerabilities in the four 
sectors we visited was not reflected in the ORBBPs. 

* The IBET for the Spokane sector maintained a centralized listing of 
resources available among its partners, including cameras, satellite 
phones, and ground sensors, that Border Patrol also requested in its 
ORBBP. However, Border Patrol did not reflect the availability of 
these partner resources to address border security vulnerabilities in 
the sector.[Footnote 66] 

One reason why partner contributions are not identified and assessed 
is because Border Patrol guidance does not require partner resources 
to be incorporated into Border Patrol security assessments, or in 
documents that inform the resource planning process. The ORBBPs state 
the importance of partnerships to border security, and list federal, 
state, local, and international partners in the sector. However, 
partner resources that were available to address border security gaps 
in each sector were not identified despite DHS investment in these 
efforts. We previously reported that federal agencies must identify 
ways to deliver results more efficiently and in a way that is 
consistent with multiple demands and limited resources.[Footnote 67] 
To do this, we reported that agencies should, in part, identify the 
personnel, technology, and infrastructure resources available among 
the collaborating agencies to help identify opportunities to address 
different levels of resources by leveraging across partners, thus 
obtaining benefits that would not be available if they were working 
separately. 

CBP officials acknowledged the need to link partnership results to 
border security goals, but said that the methodologies for border 
security assessments and resource requirements documented in the ORBBP 
were designed to be Border Patrol-centric. As such, the processes in 
place reflect the extent that Border Patrol, exclusive of its 
partners, had sufficient resources to detect, apprehend, and achieve 
an effective law enforcement resolution. One reason these officials 
said that partner contributions are excluded is that the ORBBP is used 
as a basis for sector budget requests. Therefore, including partner 
resources could disadvantage individual sectors, the Office of Border 
Patrol, and CBP in the DHS resource allocation process. However, 
Border Patrol may still benefit from identifying partner resources 
separately from their budget requests so they have a better 
understanding of the resources available to them to help secure the 
border. 

Another reason cited by officials for excluding partner resources is 
that these partners are not under the control of Border Patrol, and 
therefore cannot be relied upon to sustain the border security 
mission. As such, Border Patrol requires a set of resources that are 
not at risk of being deployed away from the border if partners have a 
higher priority or competing mission. Although these partners' 
resources may have competing missions, they are intended to supplement 
not sustain the border security mission. However, identifying how 
these partner resources and contributions could supplement Border 
Patrol's efforts on the border could better position CBP to target 
coordination efforts and make more efficient resource allocation 
decisions. Moreover, including partner resources in their assessments 
could better demonstrate the extent to which their coordination 
efforts can address border security gaps. 

The Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government state 
that periodic comparison and accountability for resources should be 
made so that agencies can provide reasonable assurance that their 
objectives are being achieved through the effective and efficient 
stewardship of public resources.[Footnote 68] Additionally, we 
previously reported that DHS has not fully responded to a legislative 
reporting requirement to link its initiatives--including partnerships--
to existing vulnerabilities to inform decisions on federal resource 
allocations.[Footnote 69] The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 
Commission Act of 2007 required the Secretary of Homeland Security to 
submit a report to Congress that addressed the vulnerabilities along 
the northern border, and provide recommendations and resources that 
would be required to address them.[Footnote 70] Our review of the 
resulting DHS report submitted to Congress in November 2008 showed a 
listing of threats, vulnerabilities, and DHS initiatives to address 
them, but information was not provided to link this information and 
determine the resources needed to address the remaining security gaps. 
Our recommendation to DHS to provide more specific information in 
these areas in future reports to Congress remains unaddressed. 

Border Patrol and CBP initiatives to update their resource planning 
methodology and performance measures provide an opportunity to link 
the benefits of partnerships to border security. Border Patrol is 
developing a new methodology for its resource planning documents that 
could be used to identify the capacity of partners to fill border 
security gaps. Defined as an Analysis of Alternatives, this 
methodology calls for field commanders to identify alternatives for 
achieving border control--other than the resources requested in their 
resource planning documents. According to DHS's Office of Policy, this 
kind of analysis will directly support efforts at the department level 
to bring strategy and resource allocation into closer alignment, 
including analysis of capability requirements derived from the 
strategy. As Border Patrol continues to refine the guidance and policy 
supporting this effort, considering the extent that this process, 
among others, could be used to assess available partner resources and 
potentially leverage such resources to fill Border Patrol resource 
gaps could better position CBP to target coordination efforts and make 
more efficient resource decisions. Moreover, current measures of 
partnerships having a positive effect on border security goals are 
focused on staff and resources CBP provides to partnerships, rather 
than how the benefits of partnerships address border security gaps. 
[Footnote 71] CBP officials acknowledged the limitations of the 
measures and plan to enhance them pending changes that may be 
forthcoming in its larger effort to realign measures under a 
departmentwide strategy for the northern border. 

Conclusion: 

Securing the nation's vast and diverse northern border is a daunting 
task. The nature, size, and complexity of the border highlights the 
importance of international, federal, state, local, and tribal 
entities working together to enhance security. Northern border 
partners reported benefiting from collaboration through interagency 
forums and joint operations, which have enhanced coordination by 
facilitating the sharing of intelligence and leveraging of resources 
between the northern border partners. However, DHS oversight of the 
forums sponsored by DHS could help address concerns identified by 
multiple partners and working groups that a lack of attention may 
result in duplication of efforts across the northern border and 
inefficient use of partners and their limited resources. Additionally, 
the challenges we have identified with northern border coordination 
between DHS components and among federal partners emphasizes the need 
to establish oversight of MOU compliance between Border Patrol and 
ICE, and underscores the importance of implementing past 
recommendations to ensure oversight that reinforces accountability 
when establishing a partnership through a written agreement. We have 
previously recommended that ICE and DEA, as well as Border Patrol and 
Forest Service, take the necessary steps to uphold implementation of 
their MOUs. As a result of our work, we believe it is important for 
these agencies to follow through with the recommendations so as to 
achieve an effective and coordinated approach to address border 
security issues. While DHS has planning efforts underway to streamline 
northern border security efforts internally and across its northern 
border partners, until such plans are implemented, coordination 
challenges could be preventing partners from receiving vital 
information needed to effectively secure the border. Finally, by 
excluding partner resources available to address border security gaps 
in its assessment of northern border needs, DHS may be missing 
opportunities to target coordination efforts and make more efficient 
resource decisions. Integrating partner resources in the DHS resource 
planning process, whether through Border Patrol's Analysis of 
Alternatives or other means, may provide a more complete picture of 
border security status and resource requirements on the northern 
border. Developing policy and guidance to assess the integrated 
capacity of all northern border partners could also assist DHS in 
achieving the vision in its QHSR to establish a strategic framework 
for homeland security that guides all northern border partners to a 
common end. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To help ensure DHS is maximizing the benefits of its coordination 
efforts with northern border partners through interagency forums, 
documented agreements, and its resource planning process, we recommend 
that the Secretary of Homeland Security take the following three 
actions: 

* Provide DHS-level guidance and oversight for interagency forums 
established or sponsored by its components to ensure that the missions 
and locations are not duplicative and to consider the downstream 
burden on northern border partners. 

* Provide regular DHS-level oversight of Border Patrol and ICE 
compliance with the provisions of the interagency MOU, including 
evaluation of outstanding challenges and planned corrective actions. 

* Direct CBP to develop policy and guidance necessary to identify, 
assess, and integrate the available partner resources in northern 
border sector security assessments and resource planning documents. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to DHS, USDA, DOD, DOI, and DOJ for 
their review and comment. In commenting on our draft report, DHS 
concurred with our recommendations and described actions underway or 
planned that may directly or indirectly serve to address them. In 
regard to our first recommendation, DHS stated that the structure of 
the department precludes using a single headquarters organization to 
provide DHS-level guidance and oversight for interagency forums 
established by its components. Instead, DHS said it will review the 
inventory of interagency forums through its strategic and operational 
planning efforts to assess efficiency and identify challenges 
consistent with the forthcoming DHS Northern Border Strategy that will 
better integrate, coordinate, and achieve northern border management 
missions. Within the context of these higher-level efforts and any 
subsequent tactical or operational assessments or planning, we 
encourage DHS to provide the guidance and oversight necessary to 
ensure that missions and locations of these forums are not duplicative 
and consider the downstream burden on northern border partners. 

In regard to our second recommendation that DHS provide oversight of 
Border Patrol and ICE compliance with the MOU, DHS stated that it will 
recommend that the ICE-CBP Coordination Council be resumed, and that 
proper use of the Coordination Council would enable the recommended 
DHS-level body to review and evaluate both Border Patrol and ICE 
compliance with the MOU. We note that in the past, the Coordination 
Council was unable to improve upon the long-standing coordination 
challenges between Border Patrol and ICE. Thus, to be effective, a 
resumed Coordination Council may require changes to its previous 
structure, although determining what those changes should be was 
beyond the scope of this study. Nevertheless, we encourage DHS 
headquarters to actively work with the Coordination Council and 
provide the oversight necessary to address the MOU compliance issues 
identified in our report. 

Finally, DHS stated that our third recommendation to develop policy 
and guidance to identify, assess, and integrate partner resources in 
northern border security assessments and resource planning would be 
resolved through formulation of new policy and guidance resulting from 
three foundational documents to be issued later this year; namely, the 
departmentwide strategy for the northern border, the Northern Border 
Strategy Implementation Plan, and the Shared Vision for Perimeter 
Security and Competitiveness between the United States and Canada. We 
encourage DHS to ensure that within the context of these higher-level 
strategic efforts and any subsequent tactical or operational 
assessments or planning, CBP provide consistent policy and guidance on 
integrating partner resources to help ensure that DHS is maximizing 
the benefits of its coordination efforts. 

In commenting on our draft report, USDA agreed with our 
recommendations and stated that it will continue to work closely with 
DHS to support northern border efforts and take the actions necessary 
to make certain personnel at all levels of the agency implement 
provisions of the interagency MOU. 

DOD, DOI, and DOJ did not have formal comments on our draft report. 
DHS, DOD, and DOJ provided technical comments, and we obtained 
technical comments on selected text from state and Canadian officials. 
We incorporated these technical comments as appropriate. Appendix II 
contains written comments from DHS. Appendix III contains written 
comments from USDA. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies to the 
Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and interested 
congressional committees as appropriate. In addition, this report will 
be available at no charge on GAO's Web site at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-8777, or stanar@gao.gov. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major 
contributions to this report are listed in appendix IV. 

Signed by: 

Richard M. Stana: 
Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues: 

[End of section] 

List of Requesters: 

The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Susan M. Collins: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Daniel K. Akaka: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable George V. Voinovich: 
Ranking Member: 
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal 
Workforce, and the District of Columbia: 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Carl Levin: 
United States Senate: 

The Honorable Jon Tester: 
United States Senate: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Officials Operating within the Four Sectors Included in 
this Review: 

For the purposes of this review, we interviewed Department of Homeland 
Security (DHS) headquarters officials with knowledge of DHS 
coordination efforts and also interviewed federal, state, local, 
tribal, and Canadian field-level officials in the four sectors we 
visited—Blaine, Spokane, Detroit, and Swanton—with a nexus to security 
efforts along the northern border to obtain their perspective on DHS 
coordination efforts.[Footnote 72] For information related to the two 
interagency forums in our review—the Integrated Border Enforcement 
Team (IBET) and the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST)—as 
shown in table 4 below, we interviewed 18 U.S. federal and Canadian 
law enforcement officials participating in the IBET or the BEST, or 
both, across the four sectors.[Footnote 73] 

Table 4: Number of Offices Interviewed for Information on Interagency 
Forums, by Sector: 

Sector: Blaine; 

Agency: 1. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Border Patrol 
(Border Patrol). 

Agency: 2. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

Agency: 3. U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). 

Agency: 4. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)[A]. 

Agency: 5. Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)[B]. 

Agency: 6. Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA)[C]. 

Sector: Spokane; 

Agency: 7. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 8. ICE. 

Sector: Detroit; 

Agency: 9. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 10. ICE. 

Agency: 11. DEA. 

Agency: 12. USCG. 

Agency: 13. RCMP. 

Agency: 14. CBSA. 

Sector: Swanton; 

Agency: 15. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 16. ICE. 

Agency: 17. RCMP. 

Agency: 18. CBSA. 

Source: GAO. 

[A] We interviewed DEA Blaine and Detroit with regard to their 
perspective on the BEST in Blaine and Detroit. 

[B] We interviewed RCMP Vancouver north of both the Blaine and Spokane 
sectors. For the purposes of this report, to avoid double counting, we 
are categorizing it as being part of the Blaine sector. 

[C] We interviewed CBSA Vancouver north of both the Blaine and Spokane 
sectors. For the purposes of this report, to avoid double counting, we 
are categorizing it as being part of the Blaine sector. 

[End of table] 

To obtain information on the northern border joint operations, we 
interviewed officials in 19 offices who participated in one or more of 
these operations across the Blaine, Spokane, Detroit, and Swanton 
sectors. These officials represented 2 Canadian offices, 9 U.S. 
federal offices, 7 state and local offices, and 1 tribal office. See 
table 5 below. 

Table 5: Number of Offices Interviewed for Information on Joint 
Operations, by Sector: 

Sector: Blaine; 

Agency: 1. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 2. USCG. 

Agency: 3. Washington State Patrol. 

Agency: 4. Whatcom County Sheriff. 

Agency: 5. RCMP. 

Sector: Spokane; 

Agency: 6. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 7. ICE. 

Agency: 8. Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service (Forest 
Service). 

Agency: 9. Okanogan County Sheriff 

Sector: Detroit; 

Agency: 10. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 11. ICE. 

Agency: 12. USCG. 

Agency: 13. Michigan State Police. 

Agency: 14. Detroit Police Department. 

Agency: 15. RCMP. 

Sector: Swanton; 

Agency: 16. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 17. New York State Police. 

Agency: 18. Rouses Point Police. 

Agency: 19. St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of table] 

Officials in 30 federal, state, local, and Canadian offices across the 
four sectors we visited, shown in table 6 below, provided general 
information on the challenges of interagency forums. 

Table 6: Number of Offices Interviewed for Information on the 
Challenges of Interagency Forums, by Sector: 

Sector: Blaine; 

Agency: 1. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 2. ICE. 

Agency: 3. USCG. 

Agency: 4. DOJ’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 

Agency: 5. DEA. 

Agency: 6. Washington State Patrol. 

Agency: 7. Whatcom County Sheriff. 

Agency: 8. RCMP. 

Agency: 9. CBSA. 

Sector: Spokane; 

Agency: 10. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 11. ICE. 

Agency: 12. FBI. 

Agency: 13. National Park Service. 

Agency: 14. Okanogan County Sheriff. 

Sector: Detroit; 

Agency: 15. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 16. ICE. 

Agency: 17. USCG. 

Agency: 18. FBI. 

Agency: 19. DEA. 

Agency: 20. Michigan State Police. 

Agency: 21. Detroit Police Department. 

Agency: 22. RCMP. 

Agency: 23. CBSA. 

Sector: Swanton; 

Agency: 24. Border Patrol. 

Agency: 25. ICE. 

Agency: 26. FBI. 

Agency: 27. New York State Police. 

Agency: 28. Rouses Point Police. 

Agency: 29. RCMP. 

Agency: 30. CBSA. 

Source: GAO. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security: 
Washington, DC 20528: 

December 3, 2010: 

Mr. Richard M. Stana: 
Director: 
Homeland Security and Justice: 
Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, D.C. 20548: 

Dear Mr. Stana:	 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment on the Government 
Accountability Office (GAO) draft report entitled, "BORDER SECURITY: 
Enhanced DHS Oversight and Assessment of Interagency Coordination Is 
Needed for the Northern Border" GAO-11-97, dated December 2010. GAO 
was asked to address the extent to which the Department of Homeland 
Security (DHS) has (1) improved coordination with state, local, 
tribal, and Canadian partners; (2) progressed in addressing past 
federal coordination challenges; and (3) progressed in securing the 
northern border and used coordination efforts to address existing 
vulnerabilities. 

The U.S. northern border continues to be important to our national 
security. Our work there is of critical importance — we must always be 
vigilant toward the security of our borders and toward the enforcement 
of trade laws, which we can accomplish while facilitating and 
expanding the flow of legitimate trade and travel that is critical to 
our nation's economy. Equally, we must ensure safety and resiliency 
before, during, and after disasters. In keeping with this critical 
balance, state-of-the-art technologies and infrastructure improvements 
are utilized to ensure the efficient movement of legitimate trade and 
travel across the northern border. Fortified partnerships, 
intelligence, and information sharing initiatives are critical and act 
as force multipliers that provide comprehensive awareness of the 
northern border environment to our strategically placed personnel. 

Since the establishment of DHS in 2003, a number of steps have been 
taken to improve security along the northern border while facilitating 
the flow of legitimate trade and travel. These notable steps by U.S. 
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) include the deployment of 
additional Border Patrol Agents, CBP Officers, and Air and Marine 
Interdiction Agents; expanding use of northern border trusted traveler 
programs; the deployment of radiation portal monitors to northern 
border ports of entry; the deployment of border security technology 
solutions to the Great Lakes region; and the establishment of new 
northern border air branches and several northern border marine 
branches. 

GAO made three recommendations to help ensure DHS is maximizing the 
benefits of its coordination efforts with northern border partners 
through interagency forums, documented agreements, and its resource 
planning process. The recommendations and DHS's actions to address the 
recommendations are described below. 

Recommendation 1: Provide DHS-level guidance and oversight for 
interagency forums established or sponsored by its components to 
ensure that the missions and locations are not duplicative and to 
consider the downstream burden on northern border partners. 

Response: Concur. DHS concurs with the recommendation that DHS 
headquarters provide guidance and oversight for interagency forums 
established or sponsored by its components. DHS headquarters consists 
of organizations, including the Management Directorate, the Office of 
Intelligence and Analysis, the Office of Policy, the Office of 
Counternarcotics Enforcement, and the Office of Operations 
Coordination and Planning, that engage with operational components in 
many areas. The Department operates under this broad engagement 
structure to ensure that headquarters components support operational 
components in all DHS mission areas while simultaneously maintaining 
the ability to adapt to evolving Department-wide priorities and 
objectives. While it is important that each headquarters component 
engage with the operational components within their respective areas 
of expertise, the structure of the Department precludes the 
accomplishment of this goal through a single headquarters organization 
devoted specifically to the northern border and interagency forums. 
Each DHS component, individually and in conjunction with other DHS 
components, other Federal departments and agencies, and myriad 
external partners and stakeholders is ultimately responsible for 
executing DHS's mission. Through DHS strategic and operational 
planning efforts, DHS will review the inventory of forums to assess 
efficiency and identify challenges. This effort will be consistent 
with the Department's forthcoming unified DHS Northern Border 
Strategy, as mentioned in the report, which will provide Department-
wide guidance to better integrate, coordinate, and achieve its 
northern border management missions. 

Recommendation 2: Provide regular DHS-level oversight of Border Patrol 
and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement compliance with the 
provisions of the interagency memorandum of understanding, including 
evaluation of outstanding challenges and planned corrective actions. 

Response: DHS concurs with the recommendation that OHS-level oversight 
is needed to ensure Border Patrol and ICE compliance with the 
interagency MOU. However, as the draft report explains, CBP and ICE 
established the ICE-CBP Coordination Council to ensure that 
operational component policies and procedures supported the roles and 
responsibilities outlined in the MOU and were communicated to and 
implemented in the field. DHS recommends that the use of this tool, as 
laid out in the MOU addendum, be resumed and utilized to fulfill its 
intended purpose. Proper use of the Coordination Council would enable 
the recommended OHS-level body to review and evaluate both Border 
Patrol and ICE compliance with the MOU. Relevant DHS headquarters 
components should keep abreast of and engaged with the efforts of the 
Coordination Council to provide additional guidance if necessary. Due 
to the success of the MOU in several regions along the border, many of 
the implementation decisions for the MOU are better suited to the 
subject matter experts within the operational components, with DHS 
headquarters components providing any higher-level guidance necessary. 

Recommendation 3: Direct CBP to develop policy and guidance necessary 
to identify, assess, and integrate the available partner resources in 
northern border sector security assessments and resource planning 
documents. 

Response: Concur. CBP acknowledges the existence of the challenges 
cited in the draft report and agrees that CBP should have a consistent 
policy and consistent approach towards identifying, assessing and 
integrating partner resources into security assessments and resource 
planning. It is important that CBP identify partnerships and the 
resources available to increase overall border security. Doing so 
along the border could better position CBP to target coordination 
efforts and make more efficient resource allocation decisions. 
Moreover, including partner resources in border assessments could 
better demonstrate the extent to which coordination efforts can 
address border security gaps. 

CBP and DHS have worked together to accomplish a great deal. Both have 
forged stronger relationships with partner agencies within the U.S. 
government and with international partners. This recommendation will 
be resolved in the context of the Department-wide strategy for the 
northern border, the DHS Northern Border Strategy Implementation Plan, 
tentatively scheduled for issuance later this year; and the Shared 
Vision for Perimeter Security and Competitiveness: A Declaration by 
the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister 
of Canada, tentatively scheduled for signature in December 2010. CBP's 
existing strategy for the northern border may change in response to 
the issuance of these three foundational documents. Existing CBP-wide 
and component office policies and the formulation of new policy and 
guidance will result from the issuance of these documents. 

CBP appreciates the opportunity to review and comment on the draft 
report, particularly on the recommendation. We place great value in 
resolving the issues identified in the report. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Jerald E. Levine: 
Director: 
Departmental GAO/OIG Liaison Office: 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Comments from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 

United States Department of Agriculture: 
Forest Service: 
Washington Office: 
1400 Independence Avenue, SW: 
Washington, DC 20250: 

File Code: 1420: 

Date: November 22, 2010: 

Richard M. Stana: 
Homeland Security and Justice: 
Government Accountability Office: 
441 G. Street, N.W. 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Dear Mr. Stana: 

Thank you for the opportunity to review and provide comment on the 
draft U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report on Border 
Security: Enhanced DHS Oversight and Assessment of Interagency 
Coordination Is Needed for the Northern Border (GAO-11-97)." The 
Forest Service has reviewed the report and generally concurs with the 
report's observations and recommendations. The United States 
Department of Agriculture (USDA) will continue to work closely with 
DHS to support their efforts to mitigate northern border 
vulnerabilities and ensure that established agreements are proactively 
implemented to prevent coordination challenges. The USDA will continue 
to take the necessary action to make certain that personnel
at all levels conduct early and continued consultations to implement 
provisions of the 2006 Memorandum of Understanding, including 
determining agencies' information needs for intelligence. 

If you have any questions, please contact Donna M. Carmical, Chief 
Financial Officer, at (202) 205-1321 or dcarmical@fs.fed.us. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Thomas L. Tidwell: 
Chief: 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Richard M. Stana, (202) 512-8777 or stanar@gao.gov. 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, Cindy Ayers, Assistant 
Director, and Dawn Locke, analyst-in-charge, managed this assignment. 
Susan Czachor, Josh Diosomito, and Kelly Liptan made significant 
contributions to the work. David Alexander assisted with the design 
and methodology, and Frances Cook provided legal support. Jessica Orr, 
Robert Robinson, Debbie Sebastian, Neil Asaba, Carolyn Blocker, Lisa 
Canini, and Richard Eiserman assisted with report preparation. 

[End of section] 

Related GAO Products: 

Border Security: Additional Actions Needed to Better Ensure a 
Coordinated Federal Response to Illegal Activity on Federal Lands. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-177]. Washington, D.C.: 
November 18, 2010. 

Information Sharing: Federal Agencies Are Sharing Border and Terrorism 
Information with Local and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies, but 
Additional Efforts Are Needed. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-41]. Washington, D.C.: December 18, 
2009. 

Homeland Security: DHS Has Taken Actions to Strengthen Border Security 
Programs and Operations, but Challenges Remain. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-542T]. Washington, D.C.: March 6, 
2008. 

Homeland Security: Federal Efforts Are Helping to Alleviate Some 
Challenges Encountered by State and Local Information Fusion Centers. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-35]. Washington, D.C.: 
October 30, 2007. 

Border Security: Security Vulnerabilities at Unmanned and Unmonitored 
U.S. Border Locations. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-884T]. Washington, D.C.: September 
27, 2007. 

Homeland Security: Opportunities Exist to Enhance Collaboration at 
24/7 Operations Centers Staffed by Multiple DHS Agencies. [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-89]. Washington, D.C.: October 20, 
2006. 

Border Security: Opportunities to Increase Coordination of Air and 
Marine Assets. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-543]. 
Washington, D.C.: August 12, 2005. 

Combating Alien Smuggling: Opportunities Exist to Improve the Federal 
Response. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-305]. 
Washington, D.C.: May 27, 2005. 

Managing for Results: Barriers to Interagency Coordination. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-00-106]. Washington, 
D.C.: March 29, 2000. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] For example, DHS data show that in fiscal year 2009, apprehensions 
of inadmissible aliens along the northern border were approximately 
1.3 percent of apprehensions along the southwest border, and pounds of 
illegal narcotics seized along the northern border were about 1.6 
percent of pounds seized along the southwest border. 

[2] Ports of entry are the facilities that provide for the controlled 
entry into or departure from the United States for persons and 
materials. Specifically, a port of entry is any officially designated 
location (seaports, airports, or land border locations) where DHS's 
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers or employees are assigned 
to accept entries of merchandise, clear passengers, collect duties, 
and enforce customs laws. 

[3] Collaboration can be broadly defined as any joint activity that is 
intended to produce more public value than could be produced when 
organizations act alone. 

[4] According to our November 2008 report, DHS reported its northern 
border vulnerabilities, such as terrorism, drug trafficking, and 
illegal immigration to Congress; however its report did not include 
information on the extent that various DHS initiatives mitigate or 
eliminate such vulnerabilities. GAO, Northern Border Security: DHS's 
Report Could Better Inform Congress by Identifying Actions, Resources, 
and Time Frames Needed to Address Vulnerabilities, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-93] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 25, 
2008). 

[5] GAO, Drug Control: Better Coordination with the Department of 
Homeland Security and an Updated Accountability Framework Can Further 
Enhance DEA's Efforts to Meet Post-9/11 Responsibilities, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-63] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 20, 
2009); GAO, Border Security: Additional Actions Needed to Better 
Ensure a Coordinated Federal Response to Illegal Activity on Federal 
Lands, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-177] 
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 18, 2010). DHS, Office of Inspector General, 
An Assessment of the Proposal to Merge Customs and Border Protection 
with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, OIG-06-04 (Washington, D.C., 
November 2005); DHS, Office of Inspector General, DHS' Progress in 
Addressing Coordination Challenges Between Customs and Border 
Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, OIG-07-38 
(Washington, D.C., Apr. 13, 2007). 

[6] In total, there are eight Border Patrol Sectors that encompass the 
13 northern border states. They are, from west to east, Blaine, 
Spokane, Havre, Grand Forks, Detroit, Buffalo, Swanton, and Houlton. 

[7] Legislation we reviewed included the Implementing Recommendations 
of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, Pub. L. No. 110-53, 121 Stat. 266, 
and the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 
2135. 

[8] U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Report to Congress on Ongoing 
DHS Initiatives to Improve Security along the U.S. Northern Border 
(Washington, D.C., Feb. 29, 2008). 

[9] According to DHS, the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report 
(QHSR) outlines the strategies for guiding the activities of homeland 
security partners toward a common end. These partners are defined by 
DHS as the homeland security enterprise to include the collective 
efforts and shared responsibilities of federal, state, local, and 
tribal partners, among others, to maintain public safety. DHS, 
Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report: A Strategic Framework for 
a Secure Homeland (Washington, D.C., February 2010). 

[10] DHS, CBP Northern Border Strategy (Washington, D.C., August 2009). 

[11] Those with whom we met at DHS headquarters included the Office of 
the Inspector General, and the offices of International Affairs, 
Strategic Plans, Program Analysis and Evaluation, Operations 
Coordination and Planning, Intelligence and Analysis, CBP, and ICE. 

[12] DHS and DOJ, Fusion Center Guidelines: Developing and Sharing 
Information and Intelligence in a New Era--Guidelines for Establishing 
and Operating Fusion Centers at the Local, State, and Federal Levels 
(Washington, D.C., August 2006). DHS, Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) 
and Memoranda of Agreement (MOA) (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 24, 2003). 
GAO, Information Sharing: Federal Agencies Are Sharing Border and 
Terrorism Information with Local and Tribal Law Enforcement Agencies, 
but Additional Efforts Are Needed, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-41] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 18, 
2009); GAO, Interagency Collaboration: Key Issues for Congressional 
Oversight of National Security Strategies, Organizations, Workforce, 
and Information Sharing, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-904SP] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 25, 
2009); and GAO, Results-Oriented Government: Practices That Can Help 
Enhance and Sustain Collaboration among Federal Agencies, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15] (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 21, 
2005). 

[13] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-177]. 

[14] The ORBBP is Border Patrol's standardized national planning 
process that links sector-and station-level planning, operations, and 
budgets. This process documents how sectors identify and justify their 
requests to achieve effective control of the border in their area of 
responsibility, and enables Border Patrol to determine how the 
deployment of resources, such as technology, infrastructure, and 
personnel, can be used to secure the border. 

[15] DHS, CBP Northern Border Strategy. 

[16] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, The 9/11 Commission 
Report (Washington, D.C., July 22, 2004). 

[17] GAO, Border Security: Agencies Need to Better Coordinate Their 
Strategies and Operations on Federal Lands, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-590] (Washington, D.C.: June 16, 
2004), and [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-177]. 

[18] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-63]. 

[19] DHS OIG-06-04, and OIG-07-38. 

[20] Pub. L. No. 110-53, § 731(a)-(b), 121 Stat. 266, 351 (2007). 

[21] DHS, Department of Homeland Security Information Sharing Strategy 
(Washington, D.C., Apr. 18, 2008). 

[22] DHS's U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Report to Congress on 
Ongoing DHS Initiatives to Improve Security along the U.S. Northern 
Border (Washington, D.C., Feb. 29, 2008). 

[23] DHS, Quadrennial Homeland Security Review Report. 

[24] Officials in the 18 offices interviewed included those from 4 
Border Patrol and 4 ICE offices representing the four sectors in our 
study, 2 USCG offices operating within the Blaine and Detroit sectors, 
2 DEA offices operating within the Blaine and Detroit sectors, as well 
as 3 RCMP and 3 CBSA offices north of the Blaine, Detroit, and Swanton 
sectors. RCMP and CBSA officials north of the Spokane sector are the 
same officials north of the Blaine sector. 

[25] An official from RCMP north of the Detroit sector reported that 
information sharing through the IBET and BEST in the Detroit sector 
was limited by the reluctance of some participating agencies to share 
proprietary information with their partners, which has affected the 
quality of intelligence produced by the forums. 

[26] ICE officials operating within the Swanton sector stated that the 
IBETs in their area of responsibility did not increase the sharing of 
resources among participants, but such coordination was not needed as 
these IBETs did not conduct operations. 

[27] Deconfliction is important in areas of overlapping responsibility 
to prevent law enforcement agencies from unknowingly disrupting 
operations of other law enforcement agencies, and to prevent 
accidental shootings of law enforcement agents conducting covert 
operations. A DOJ report assessing border security threats on tribal 
lands cited the importance of deconfliction for the Akwesasne 
reservation in the Swanton Sector, which has more than six federal, 
state, local, or tribal law enforcement agencies operating within its 
borders. National Drug Intelligence Center, DOJ, Cross Border Drug 
Trafficking Through Indian Country (Washington, D.C., August 2009). 

[28] Other interagency forums--such as the High Intensity Drug 
Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program, an interagency forum sponsored by 
the Office of National Drug Control Policy--were also used for 
deconfliction in the Blaine, Detroit, Spokane, and Swanton sectors. 
For example, USCG officials in the Detroit sector stated that it used 
the HIDTA to deconflict law enforcement operations with law 
enforcement agencies who are not involved in the IBET such as the FBI. 
(The HIDTA program is a federally funded program that brings together 
federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies into task forces 
that conduct investigations of drug trafficking organizations engaged 
in illegal drug production, manufacturing, importation, or 
distribution.) 

[29] Officials we interviewed include: (1) Blaine sector--Border 
Patrol, ICE, USCG, Washington State Patrol, Whatcom County Sheriff's 
Office, and RCMP; (2) Spokane sector--Border Patrol, ICE, Forest 
Service, and Okanogan County Sheriff; (3) Detroit sector--Border 
Patrol, ICE, USCG, Michigan State Police, Detroit Police, and RCMP; 
and (4) Swanton sector--Border Patrol, New York State Police, Rouses 
Point Police, and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police. 

[30] USCG officials operating within the Detroit sector reported that 
the ultimate goal is to expand the Channel Watch concept to occur on a 
daily basis to strengthen border security benefits once funds and 
resources are available. 

[31] Representatives from the five core IBET agencies and DOJ 
constituted the IBET/BEST working group, including Canada's RCMP and 
CBSA, and U.S. federal agencies including Border Patrol, ICE, USCG, 
and DOJ. The findings of this working group were published in a final 
report. DHS, IBET/BEST Interaction Final Report (Washington, D.C., 
April 2009). 

[32] Officials we interviewed included: (1) Blaine sector--Border 
Patrol, ICE, USCG, FBI, DEA, Washington State Patrol, Whatcom County 
Sheriff's Office, RCMP, and CBSA; (2) Spokane sector--Border Patrol, 
ICE, FBI, National Park Service, and Okanogan County Sheriff; 
(3)Detroit sector--Border Patrol, ICE, USCG, DEA, FBI, Michigan State 
Police, Detroit Police, RCMP, and CBSA; and (4) Swanton sector--Border 
Patrol, ICE, FBI, New York State Police, Rouses Point Police, RCMP, 
and CBSA. 

[33] A National Park Service official operating within Spokane sector 
also cited concerns about mission overlap of the IBET and BEST with 
other interagency forums. For example, the official questioned the 
purpose of having both the IBET and Project Northstar--another 
binational interagency forum--in the same sector. 

[34] In its April 2007 report, the Inspector General reported that it 
was not clear how a BEST would operate differently from IBETs, which 
jointly investigate cross-border criminal and terrorist activity along 
the U.S.-Canadian border, and that care should be taken to avoid 
duplication of efforts with IBETs on the northern border. DHS, Office 
of Inspector General, DHS's Progress in Addressing Coordination 
Challenges Between Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement. 

[35] The IBET/BEST Working Group noted during its January 29, 2009, 
meeting to discuss the IBET/BEST Interaction Report that IBET and BEST 
roles and responsibilities needed clarification and that a framework 
was necessary for their interaction and collaboration. 

[36] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15]. 

[37] State and local fusion centers are permanent collaborative 
efforts of two or more agencies with colocated staff and documented 
guidelines for establishing resources, expertise, and information at 
the center with the goal of maximizing its ability to detect, prevent, 
investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity. DOJ and 
DHS guidelines exist to prevent overlap among state and local fusion 
centers, ensure that DHS, DOJ, and the states are cognizant of 
existing fusion centers and those currently under development, and 
leverage those that already exist. DHS and DOJ, Global Justice 
Information Sharing Initiative, Fusion Center Guidelines, Developing 
and Sharing Information and Intelligence in a New Era, Guidelines for 
Establishing and Operating Fusion Centers at the Local, State, and 
Federal Levels--Law Enforcement Intelligence, Public Safety, and the 
Private Sector (Washington, D.C., August 2006). 

[38] CBP and ICE, Guidelines Governing the Interaction between ICE's 
Office of Investigations (OI) and CBP's Office of Border Patrol (OBP) 
(Washington, D.C., 2004), and Addendum to Guidelines Governing the 
Interaction between ICE's Office of Investigations (OI) and CBP's 
Office of Border Patrol (OBP) (Washington, D.C., 2007). 

[39] ICE and Border Patrol in Blaine sector said that there was no 
overlap in their work, and thus no competition between the components. 
ICE officials in Detroit said that competition did not exist with 
Border Patrol; however, Border Patrol did not agree. 

[40] According to CBP officials, CBP, ICE, and the USCG are currently 
discussing improvements to their performance metrics that may lead to 
crosscutting performance measures. These discussions consist of the 
potential to develop an implementation plan for regularly reporting 
illegal migrant data flow from all law enforcement entities to resolve 
duplicate counting. CBP could not provide a time frame for such a 
plan, and it is unclear how resolving duplicate counting will help 
address competition for performance metrics between the northern 
border partners. 

[41] GAO, Combating Alien Smuggling: Opportunities Exist to Improve 
the Federal Response, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-305] (Washington, D.C.: May 27, 
2005). 

[42] Congressional Research Service, Immigration Enforcement within 
the United States, RL33351 (Washington, D.C., Apr. 6, 2006). 

[43] DHS, Office of Inspector General, An Assessment of the Proposal 
to Merge Customs and Border Protection with Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement, and DHS, Office of Inspector General, DHS' Progress in 
Addressing Coordination Challenges Between Customs and Border 
Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

[44] The OIG stated that effective policy implementation requires 
constant monitoring by headquarters and that field managers be held 
accountable when those policies are violated. 

[45] The OIG noted that there was a disconnect between headquarters' 
perceptions of what occurred in the field and what the OIG observed, 
and that headquarters officials were unaware that the numerous policy 
memorandums and correspondence were not implemented in the field. 

[46] The OIG had reported that at headquarters, there was inadequate 
staffing and authority to prevent CBP and ICE from working at cross- 
purposes, headquarters did not intervene to effectively coordinate 
operations, and it was slow to resolve conflicts. 

[47] DHS headquarters offices included the Office of Intelligence and 
Analysis, the Office of General Counsel, the Information Sharing and 
Collaboration Branch, the Office of US-VISIT, the Federal Law 
Enforcement Training Center, the Coast Guard Investigative Service, 
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among numerous others who 
concurred on this input. 

[48] The phrase "One-DHS" was coined following the Secretary of 
Homeland Security's February 2007 memo that outlined DHS's policy for 
information exchange and sharing. DHS, DHS Policy for Internal 
Information Exchange and Sharing (Washington, D.C., Feb. 1, 2007). 

[49] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15]. 

[50] According to Forest Service near the Detroit area, the border 
security-related activities conducted by Forest Service fall within 
the Grand Forks sector, which is not within the scope of this review. 
Also, according to Border Patrol in Swanton, the DHS-DOI-USDA MOU is 
not applicable to their sector. As such, Forest Service in Detroit and 
Swanton were not included in this review. 

[51] DHS, DOI, and USDA, Memorandum of Understanding Among U.S. 
Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Department of Interior, and 
U.S. Department of Agriculture Regarding Cooperative National Security 
and Counterterrorism Efforts on Federal Lands along the United States' 
Borders (Washington, D.C., 2006). 

[52] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-177]. 

[53] We previously reported that the 1994 MOU between ICE and DEA was 
outdated and not reflective of the reorganization of the U.S. Customs 
Service into ICE. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-63]. 

[54] DEA and ICE, Interagency Cooperation Agreement Between the U.S. 
Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement Regarding Investigative Functions Related to the 
Controlled Substances Act (Washington, D.C., 2009). 

[55] RCMP officials agreed that the MOU adversely affects ICE and they 
are periodically caught in the middle of disputes between ICE and DEA. 

[56] According to headquarters officials from DEA, it is important for 
one agency to speak for the U.S. government on it policies pertaining 
to drug investigations. These officials explained that if other U.S. 
entities do not coordinate through DEA and begin speaking directly to 
foreign governments and law enforcement personnel, contradictory 
information may be provided, causing confusion. 

[57] The Special Operations Division is a multiagency operational 
coordination center that coordinates various enforcement efforts by 
identifying connections among and between disparate investigative and 
enforcement activities to build a comprehensive strategy against 
criminal organizations. Additionally, the Organized Crime Drug 
Enforcement Task Force fusion center is an intelligence and data 
center containing all drug and drug-related financial intelligence 
information from various investigative agencies including ICE. 

[58] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-63]. 

[59] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15]. 

[60] We reported on the long-standing disputes between ICE and DEA and 
the disagreement on each other's roles and responsibilities, 
recommending that the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland 
Security issue a revised agreement between the agencies to establish 
effective collaboration practices, defined roles, responsibilities, 
and shared goals to preclude duplication and ensure officer safety. 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-63]. 

[61] At the request of the Chairman of the House Homeland Security 
Committee, we began work to determine the extent to which DEA and ICE 
have taken actions to implement the June 2009 interagency cooperation 
agreement on counternarcotics investigations, including developing 
processes for monitoring the implementation of the agreement. As part 
of this work, we plan to also assess the status of the recommendations 
made in [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-63]. 

[62] CBP's performance measure for border miles and coastal sectors 
under effective control tracks the number of miles where the 
appropriate mix of personnel, technology, and tactical infrastructure 
has been put in place to reasonably assure that when an illegal entry 
is detected, the Border Patrol has the ability to respond and the 
illegal entry is brought to a satisfactory law enforcement resolution. 

[63] DHS, CBP Northern Border Strategy. 

[64] According to CBP officials, they are working to update their 
definitions of border security for the northern border as they explore 
a more accurate means to depict northern border security. 
Additionally, RCMP officials stated that RCMP and CBP are 
collaborating on developing a joint border security assessment. In the 
meantime, however, effective control and full situational awareness 
are the metrics reported in DHS's Annual Performance Report as those 
used to measure northern border security. 

[65] These differences are due to the relative differences in the 
number of illegal migrants and criminals crossing the southwest and 
northern borders. For example, DHS data show that in fiscal year 2009, 
apprehensions of inadmissible aliens along the northern border were 
approximately 1.3 percent of the number of apprehensions along the 
southwest border, and pounds of illegal narcotics seized along the 
northern border were about 1.6 percent of the pounds seized along the 
southwest border. 

[66] According to IBET's resource data, 188 ground sensors are 
available in the Spokane sector. Of the 188 sensors available, Border 
Patrol controls 149 sensors, while the remaining 39 sensors are under 
Forest Service. 

[67] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-15]. 

[68] GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] 
(Washington, D.C.: November 1999). 

[69] As a result of our review in GAO-09-93, we recommended that the 
Secretary of Homeland Security should include in future reports more 
specific information on the actions, resources, and time frames needed 
to improve security of the northern border along with any attendant 
uncertainties, and the basis used to prioritize action and resources 
for northern border security relative to other areas of national 
security. As of fiscal year 2010, this recommendation had not yet been 
implemented. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-93]. 

[70] Pub. L. No. 110-53, § 731(a)-(b), 121 Stat. 266, 351. 

[71] These measures listed in CBP's Northern Border Strategy include 
the number of CBP personnel assigned to IBETs, state and local fusion 
centers, and the RCMP headquarters; the number of joint operations; 
the number of other agency representatives at CBP, and the percentage 
of resources focused on priority trade issues and partnerships. 

[72] Some agencies were not interviewed in certain sectors as they 
have a limited nexus to border security in that particular sector, for 
example Forest Service operating in the Detroit and Swanton sectors. 
Specifically, according to a Forest Service official operating near 
the Detroit area, the border security–related activities conducted by 
Forest Service fall within the Grand Forks sector, which is not within 
the scope of this review. Also, according to Border Patrol in Swanton, 
the DHS-Department of Interior (DOI)-U.S. Department of Agriculture 
(USDA) memorandum of understanding (MOU) is not applicable to its 
sector. As such, Forest Service in Detroit and Swanton were not 
included in this review. 

[73] At the time of this review, the BEST locations on the northern 
border included Blaine, Detroit, and Buffalo. 

[End of section] 

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