Vital Interests: Elisa thanks for joining us on the Vital Interests forum. We're going to be talking about the report you and your fellow authors produced for the Center for American Progress on Redefining Homeland Security: A New Framework for DHS to Meet Today's Challenges.

This is a challenging topic as there have been many pros and cons expressed about DHS since it was created in 2003 - some would like to see this department disbanded entirely, others suggest reforms, while some other advocates want to allocate more resources and have DHS assume even more responsibilities. 

To put this in context, can you take us back to what happened after 9/11 when the government was laser-focused on the shocking terrorist attacks on the homeland on 9/11 and the absolute need for the consolidation of 22 agencies into a new Department Homeland Security?

Elisa Massimino: Obviously, following on the catastrophic attacks of 9/11, Congress and the executive branch—and the public as well—had a lot of questions. How could this happen? How could we not know about the plot? The 9/11 Commission was charged with analyzing what went wrong with the systems that are supposed to prevent such attacks, and what could be done to fix them.  There was a strong sense in Congress that the executive branch agencies whose mandates related to the vulnerabilities exposed by the attacks—immigration, intelligence, law enforcement—needed to be better coordinated. And there was a sense of a need to elevate them together to a cabinet level department, and to consolidate them in a way that would make the most of the resources necessary to fight the newly declared “Global War on Terror.” If you look at the legislation that established the department, though, you see that a lot of different interests and missions were essentially stitched together. But the driving purpose was to make sure something like the 9/11 attacks would never happen again.

VI: The "Not on my watch" mentality.

Elisa Massimino: Yes, and really, it's of course understandable that that would be the focus and the mission at the time. But in practice, trying to operationalize that is a daunting task. Some of this consolidation made sense; but for others it didn't make a lot of sense. This was a huge bureaucratic reshuffling, under a particularly breathless timeline--not a particularly strong aptitude of government bureaucracies. There were plenty of important insights motivated by 9/11 about the need to share intelligence between agencies, the need to do a better job of airport security, and for more insightful analysis of real threats to the nation.

Putting that into practice, and just the normal messiness of the sausage-making of legislation, what you ended up with was a pretty hastily put together, and not necessarily coherent, group of agencies. Some of these were already dysfunctional before they got folded into DHS, with the Immigration and Naturalization Service chief among them. Since then, the place has just ballooned. DHS is now by far the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country.

VI:I think the report states 80,000 DHS agents are involved in law enforcement of some kind?

Elisa Massimino: Yes, 80,000 of the total of 240,000 employees. That makes DHS twice as big as the Justice Department and its budget just keeps growing. The DHS budget for 2018 was $64 billion not counting all the disaster funds that go through FEMA. This level of allocation to DHS is not necessarily a bad thing on its own, but what we decided to do with this report is to address the concerns of the people who want to disband this department and the reasons of others who wanted to throw even more resources at it.

We wanted to ask some fundamental questions before deciding what the prescription should be. We started with an inquiry asking what are the needs for homeland security today, how are they different from what they were 20 years ago, and how well-suited is DHS to address those needs? You could write a whole separate report on the homeland security industrial complex and how it has both fed from and contributed to the massive mission creep we see evolving since DHS was first constituted.

Our idea was, really, before you decide to cut back or expand, can you figure out what are the biggest needs that other agencies in the federal government aren't as well-suited to meet as DHS is? Is there a different way of thinking about human security as a concept that would produce a department that meets those needs more effectively and efficiently and provides greater value to the American people and people who want to visit here for business, or refugees, or other immigrants? Can we do that? We started from the premise of “if we didn't have a DHS, we'd probably have to create one.”

We determined fairly quickly that a complete disbanding of the department would not only be a non-starter politically but would create real gaps in keeping Americans safe. Just as there was a need for reform to meet new threats in 2003, there are needs today—different from those 20 years ago--that wouldn't be met if we didn't have a DHS. So that’s where we started: what is the relevant mission today and what do the American people need from the Department of Homeland Security? From there we started asking what that would look like in terms of DHS priorities and we set out to build a framework for thinking about the department’s work, and the people needed to do that work.

VI: Let’s go back to the atmosphere that existed when DHS was first contemplated. The circumstances that led to the 9/11 attacks were fundamentally intelligence failures. There was a problem of communication between the FBI and the CIA about the potential for an attack using aircraft and the involvement of Al Qaeda operatives. Much of this has been blamed on the “wall” that was put in place between the intelligence services and law enforcement agencies due to Church Committee investigations of abuses by the CIA, NSA, and the FBI.

After 9/11 many thought these restrictions were a mistake, that these misconceived guardrails should be rethought. Was one of the motivations for creating a Department of Homeland Security the idea that there could be a more centralized way to be able to identify threats and then aggressively respond?

Elisa Massimino: Certainly, it was part of the discussion around responses to 9/11. It's interesting, though, I think part of what you're saying is that DHS’s creation helped fix some of the intelligence gaps in communication between agencies. But I don't know if we can say it was fixed by DHS; it was improved, but not because of the creation of DHS. 

Even if there wasn't a conscious decision or a failure to learn the lessons of the Church Committee and make sure that those were folded into the creation of this new agency, certainly, what we see twenty years down the road is that there has been a lot of abuse connected with DHS. Some of that is due to the same mindset that you were just describing of the immediate post-9/11 era – to take off the gloves, let's not have anything slowing us down, all of that. So today we see a DHS with expanded authorities that are also somewhat vague. And there are very few guardrails for the use of those authorities. That's why, particularly in the hands of the previous administration, you saw how easily DHS could be politicized. Even though there have been problems at the Justice Department and FBI with politicization, there is more of a history of independence in those agencies that is not true for DHS.

As a relatively new agency, DHS found itself to be quite malleable in the hands of a White House that wanted to use it for political purposes. Unfortunately, as a country we have had to keep relearning that lesson about the need for independence and oversight. 

Part of what we're suggesting in our report for this new framework for DHS is that there are lots of areas, including some in the intelligence sphere, where DHS is not adding that much value, where it's not statutorily meant to be in the lead, and where it's actually encroaching on other agencies’ areas of responsibility. Meanwhile, there's a whole set of areas where it is much more appropriate, we think, for DHS to lead but the department is not investing in or adequately prioritizing them.

Our report recommends a fundamental rebalancing of priorities at the department. Some of this is responsive to the high-profile problems and abuses of DHS, but our vision is animated primarily by the positive mission we think DHS should be pursuing.

Think about the pandemic, for example. Obviously health agencies need to be in the lead, but DHS should have played a much more significant role that it has so far. It's partly the saying in the military about always fighting the last war. That's a big problem with DHS. The origin story of DHS is all about the 9/11 attacks and international terrorism. That has exercised a hugely dominant force across the department for nearly two decades. Yet today, the FBI identifies some of the most dangerous threats emanating from domestic extremism.

VI: The report talks about a strategic shift of priorities in DHS to a focus more on safety and services. If there is going to be a shift in how you want to redefine, recalibrate, redirect DHS? Does this mean you have to really think about what safety means for this country? Not in post 9/11 terms, but in 2021 realties?

What causes the most harm to the well-being of American citizens? The experiences of the recent COVID pandemic are certainly one. Nothing comes close to the tragic numbers that are still increasing of over 600,000 deaths and some 34 million cases, many with unknown long-term consequences.

But we can also point to other substantial harms being done to the American population. There was a recent report about drug overdoses in the United States which documented in 2020 that 93,000 people died of drug overdoses. Then another major threat to the safety of Americans is guns. Each year there is an average of 40,000 deaths related to weapons and 100,000 casualties. Mass shootings are everyday events. These are the realities impacting the safety of the American population. How can a redefined DHS address these major societal threats?

Elisa Massimino: First, going back to your original question, which I think really is the right one, and the one that animated our thinking at the very beginning of this report: what does Homeland Security mean for us now? We thought a lot about a broader conception that is really focused more on a broader concept of human security and that encompasses creating the environment in which people can thrive in safety.

Obviously, there are a lot of different federal departments that are going to have a hand in dealing with the complex challenges faced by this country, as well as global challenges where you have to work with other countries to create a coordinated response. I was struck by Secretary Mayorkas’s comment during his confirmation hearing that he sees DHS as a “department of partnerships.” That concept is very present in our thinking in this report.

How can DHS focus on maximizing the ability to address threats to the American public like the ones you described? I would also say that climate change, pandemics, the epidemic of gun violence, opioid addiction, these are issues that obviously have a devastating impact on the safety and security of Americans. We think that there should be a rebalancing of priorities at DHS, so that the workforce understands that its value and its priorities are not exclusively in the prevention of terrorism or law enforcement, but really should also be about protection and collaboration and communication.

We think there is a lot that can be done to establish new DHS priorities. There can be a stronger investment financially in these other areas that will allow DHS to play a role in protecting, collaborating, and communicating better. We know DHS is not going to be the lead in many areas like addressing a pandemic, but if we have a DHS that really invests in partnerships, connecting state, local, tribal, and territorial government officials with federal resources so that a lot of these issues can be addressed much more effectively at a local level, then that would be a key mission for DHS and would help it deliver more value to Americans and those who live, work, and seek safety in our country.

VI: DHS has been tasked with some responsibility for cybersecurity, as have many other agencies like NSA, the Defense Department, CIA, FBI, and components of the intelligence community. Despite all these government actors there have been a number of recent serious cyber attacks and hacks like the Solarwinds and Colonial Pipeline incidents that largely took place because these were private entities that lacked sufficient cybersecurity protections and government oversight. How can DHS play a more central role in a vital area like cybersecurity so that failures like these can be prevented?

Elisa Massimino: One of our recommendations for a re-imagined DHS would be to have the department play a much bigger role in communicating with the private sector about all kinds of things, but certainly about cyber risks and infrastructure risks, because so much of that is in the hands of private entities. I'm not saying it doesn't do any of that right now, but it has not been as high a priority as it needs to be because it was not seen as a central mission of DHS.

I think it's going in that direction now as more people understand the magnitude of the threat. For DHS to establish itself as a trusted source of that information, it has to be able to develop resilient relationships with the private sector, so that we're working together, the government and private sector, to prevent these attacks from happening and to help businesses recover quickly, because the threat is so great.

I also think the U.S. government is way behind the curve on understanding and addressing cyber threats. Building on the theory of DHS as a department of partnerships, our recommendation to DHS is to ramp up collaboration and communication with the private sector, because it is the ideal department to lead that effort. So we do see understanding and communicating ways to counter cyber threats across all of society as a vital role for the agency going forward.

VI: Since its inception, DHS’s relationship with the intelligence community has been fraught. The diverse entities of the intelligence community have notoriously been engaged in turf battles and this new department was not immune. Has this impacted the ability of DHS to create an effective intelligence gathering and implementing group?

Elisa Massimino: Yes, it has. What I have seen and what I learned from a lot of experts while we were formulating these recommendations is that there is an appropriate role for the department on intelligence gathering, but that it spends a fair amount of time doing intelligence gathering-related things that other agencies can do far better.

If you think about it, DHS is much better suited to intelligence gathering about people and goods coming into the country, those kinds of things. But DHS does not need to be doing global intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism intelligence. We've got other agencies much better suited for doing that. We've also obviously seen some abuses by DHS on intelligence gathering, like coming up with this database on journalists in Portland and getting personal data about individuals coming into the country, things that are really violations of fundamental rights.

Any domestic intelligence gathering that DHS would do needs to have far greater oversight and really well-defined parameters. We're not saying there's no role for DHS in intelligence gathering, but right now it's not functioning well at all. It's encroaching in other areas without guard rails, and the authorities seem to be in need of tightening up.

VI: Recently the surgeon general made a strong statement about the impact of misinformation about COVID and getting vaccinated that was harming the health of the nation. He called for a war against misinformation being disseminated about COVID and vaccines. Should DHS be involved in the war countering the disinformation that the surgeon general has called for?

Elisa Massimino: We don't address this in detail in this report, and partly it's because we viewed this report as a paradigm shift document. You'll see, we don't create a new organizational chart for the department. We don't say which pieces should be moved elsewhere. Yet while we don't give a detailed prescription, the examples that you just mentioned are very much the kind of thing that we had in mind when we talked about DHS doubling down on its role of communicating threats to the American public.

I don't know about you, but when this pandemic started, and then also when the vaccines became available, I kept thinking, “Where's the public education campaign? Where is the investment in combating misinformation? How are we putting accurate information out there, and just flooding the zone with the facts?” We didn't have it. I don't think the CDC is really set up for that mission.

Of course, there's always going to be emergency and ongoing threat situations where there is a point at which the government needs to be proactively pushing out the facts to people in a way that reaches the right communities, and that coordinates with state and local and tribal and other government entities on the communications front. We just didn't have it during the pandemic, but wouldn't DHS be a place you would look to get something like that?

VI: What you're saying is that DHS needs to entirely change its public face and assume a more assertive and authoritative communications role for the government? Right now, when people think about DHS, they conjure up images of heavily armed ICE swat teams raiding the workplaces and dwellings of undocumented immigrants rounding them up for detention and deportation.

Elisa Massimino: Absolutely. One of our principal recommendations for DHS is to shift to a focus on safety and services model, which is really a complete change in the profile of the department. If you think about the average American's interaction with the federal government, DHS is probably getting much more reach into people's lives through travel and other activities than they realize.

So, it's got a huge responsibility and right now, as you said, the image of DHS is not a good one. It’s image is separation of immigrant families, it's the abuse of power in the protests last summer. It is not surprising that the morale among DHS employees is right at rock bottom compared to other agencies. I think it was low before in part, because of some of the lack of a clear sense of mission, the mismatch between needs and priorities under successive administrations, but over the last few years, it's really plummeted, and that's not good for anybody.

VI: Having the 240,000 employees of DHS unhappy in their jobs is certainly a concern.

Elisa Massimino: Some of that can be fixed with a shift in emphasis and real leadership from the top. I think that Secretary Mayorkas, as somebody who has spent his career in law enforcement, and who is also an immigrant, has the profile and position that is particularly well-suited to lead a meaningful reform of DHS. 

It will be a very tough task if we think about what is needed for a deep depoliticization of DHS because of the policies of the last administration.

VI: Let's talk about depoliticization. You mentioned the fact that because DHS is a young agency, its connection to the executive branch and the influence of successive presidents is very real. How can DHS be restructured to assure more operational independence? Can this be done by Congress mandating different guidelines, different priorities? 

Elisa Massimino: All of the above I think, is going to be necessary. Leadership, obviously, will make a huge difference in establishing a new culture at DHS. That means from the top, both from the White House, but also from Secretary Mayorkas. A key factor in ensuring depoliticization and preventing future abuse is clear authorities and rigorous oversight. At the moment, Congressional oversight of the department is an absolute mess.

VI: I think the report mentioned 22 different Congressional committees and subcommittees which have some jurisdiction over aspects of DHS.

Elisa Massimino: It's the worst oversight structure of anything I've ever seen. It makes it difficult for the department to get the resources that it needs, and difficult to match those resources to real priorities. And it makes it easy to get away with all kinds of inefficiencies. Our report recommends there should be a single authorizing committee and appropriations committee. 

The House Homeland Security Committee recently held a hearing on DHS reform. My colleague Katrina Mulligan, acting VP at the Center for American Progress who oversaw the production of this report, testified alongside Carrie Cordero from the Center for a New American Security, and Tom Warrick from the Atlantic Council, and there was a fair amount of agreement on some key recommendations. As we approach the 20th anniversary of the creation of DHS, there is an opportunity to refocus on the mission and structure of the department, and there is significant interest on Capitol Hill in hearing ideas for reform. 

Members of Congress at the hearing expressed a lot of interest in how to fix congressional oversight. There are a couple of bills recently introduced that would address some of these problems. It's a huge turf issue for a lot of people and no committee wants to let go of its jurisdiction over such an important department, but it is seriously hampering the effectiveness of oversight, and that creates a vicious cycle of mismatched resources, abuses that then produce outrage, that produce a lack of respect and understanding about a department that has such an important role to play in serving the American people. 

We don't have a magic answer for that. But we think it starts with reframing the concept of homeland security to focus on services, safety, and human security. Our recommendations are about how rebalancing DHS’s priorities to focus less exclusively on protection and enforcement (which would of course remain a key part of the DHS mission), while really ramping up a focus on communication and facilitation, and on welcoming and connecting, would help transform DHS into a stronger, more effective guarantor of homeland security.

A lot of that paradigm shift can be done without legislation, and with the leadership of Secretary Mayorkas. But the oversight and appropriations and authorization for the department annually, that cannot happen without major reform in Congress. I'm pleased to see that there are folks willing to tackle that. It'll be a slog.

VI: Do you think there will be bipartisan support for DHS reform? 

Elisa Massimino: I don't know yet. I know just from watching the hearing the other day, there's still a fair appetite on the Republican side to focus DHS solely on the "border crisis," and what the administration is doing there.

VI: In other words, they don't want a kinder and gentler DHS. They want a DHS that is all about protecting and enforcing as a primary mission?

Elisa Massimino: Well, do they want that on the merits, or do they want to make that argument to score political points? When you have conversations, at least in private, with some Republicans, and you talk about other homeland security needs beyond the border, those are not partisan. They're fundamental to protecting the American people and are also about facilitating economic success, and all kinds of things that Republicans usually claim to care about. Can we do hard things together? That is the pressing question not just on DHS reform but on so many other priorities the country needs to address.

VI: I also imagine much of the prospect for redefining DHS depends on what the Biden administration can accomplish in terms of immigration reform - the pressing issues of a path to citizenship, the resolution of DACA, realistic federal guidelines on how to regulate migration, how to process asylum claims. All a department like DHS has to work with are antiquated and dysfunctional federal laws that were last reformed in 1965 and a contrasting mess of executive orders.

Elisa Massimino: That's so true. The immigration experts at the Center for American Progress were key members of the team that produced this report. We know that it's one thing to say that DHS, ICE, CBP, the immigration-focused agencies, should not be cruel and violent. That's important—but that’s a pretty low bar. But we also know that the real heart of the problem is that our immigration laws are antiquated, they don’t serve America’s interests right now, and they invite people to go around the regular process, because the process is fundamentally broken.

Americans have been, from almost the very beginning of our country, of two minds about immigration. It’s like we have two signs up at the border, “Help Wanted” and “Keep Out." So the dysfunction is deep-seated. And the solution isn’t going to be a quick fix. It's not something that gets magically resolved in one presidential administration.

But if the Biden administration can succeed in getting some meaningful changes through Congress, that will take some of the pressure off, as well as create space for a more thoughtful and reasonable approach to DHS's role on immigration. These things are very much linked together and getting the sequencing right is part of the challenge.

VI: So, it is important to get effective and meaningful legislation as opposed to what every past administration always falls back on, which is executive orders. Biden can issue a number of executive orders that continue the DACA program, make sure that the ICE agents aren't as aggressive as there have been, and make the asylum process less adversarial. These are band aids, not solutions - is that right?

Elisa Massimino: They're band aids that can be ripped off by the courts, or the next president. President Obama did not want to move those things forward by executive order, because he knew that that is not necessarily sustainable, and he was right. I think we have to realize that, and the community pushing for these changes has to recognize that; we want change that's sustainable.

VI: You said there has been a hearing on DHS reform. Is there a timeframe for more in-depth discussions and some kind of implementation being brought forward?

Elisa Massimino: It's always hard to say. The lifespan of an issue on Capitol Hill can be very long. But because the 20th anniversary of the establishment of DHS is coming up, I think in the next nine months you're going to see a lot more discussion of these issues in additional hearings. I would expect sharper development of administration views on how to update and reboot DHS.

VI: The report that you and your co-authors have assembled for the Center for American Progress offers important talking points on the key successes and failings in the organization and practice of DHS as well as a blueprint for redefining this department's essential mission. Thank you for this effort.

Elisa Massimino: We hope so. There are lots of different ways you can operationalize it, but the framework itself, I think, is adaptive to new threats and opportunities. It’s both promising and forward-looking.

VI: Elisa, well we're coming to the end of our time. Thanks very much for your insights on DHS. We like to end on a positive note, and it certainly seems that there is a thoughtful movement to rethink how DHS can bring the American people the safety and service they are due. We will be paying attention in the coming months to see what initiatives can be actualized.

Elisa Massimino: My pleasure. Great talking with you, John.

Elisa Massimino is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and Executive Director of the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown University Law Center where she recently served as the Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Chair in Human Rights. Before joining the Georgetown faculty, Massimino was a senior fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a practitioner-in-residence at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously, Massimino spent 27 years—the last decade as president and CEO—at Human Rights First, one of the nation’s leading human rights advocacy organizations.

Massimino has a distinguished record of human rights advocacy in Washington. She has testified before Congress dozens of times; writes frequently for mainstream publications and specialized journals; appears regularly in major media outlets; and speaks to audiences around the country. During her leadership at Human Rights First, the influential Washington publication The Hill consistently named her one of the most effective public advocates in the country.