United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Report to the Honorable F. James 

Sensenbrenner, Jr., House of 

Representatives 

DHS IMMIGRATION 

ATTORNEYS 

Workload Analysis 

and Workforce 

Planning Efforts Lack 

Data and 

Documentation 

April 2007 

 

GAO-07-206 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

April 2007

DHS IMMIGRATION ATTORNEYS

Workload Analysis and Workforce 

Planning Efforts Lack Data and 

Documentation 

Highlights of GAO-07-206, a report to the 

Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., 

House of Representatives

The legal staff of key Department

of Homeland Security (DHS) 

components—Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. 

Citizenship and Immigration 

Services (USCIS), and Customs and 

Border Protection (CBP)—perform 

important immigration 

enforcement, inspection, and 

service functions. This report 

addresses the actions ICE, USCIS, 

and CBP legal offices are taking to 

identify attorney needs, determine

where those attorneys should be 

deployed, and address staffing 

shortfalls. To conduct its work,

GAO interviewed component

senior legal office officials in 

headquarters and regional offices

and reviewed available 

documentation on staffing.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is recommending that ICE’s 

legal office fully document its plans 

for incorporating additional 

workforce data and enhancing its

workforce tracking system;

USCIS’s legal office document its 

plans for implementing a workload 

tracking system; and all three legal

offices document their attorney 

workforce planning processes. 

DHS generally agreed with four of

the five recommendations. CBP’s 

legal office disagreed with the

recommendation to document its 

attorney workforce planning 

efforts. It believes that the core

workforce planning principles 

discussed in this report are 

inapplicable to small offices such 

as its office. GAO believes that

these planning principles are 

appropriate. 

GAO’s prior work on strategic workforce planning states that staffing 

decisions should be based on valid and reliable data. However, ICE and 

USCIS’s legal offices do not currently have such data available, though 

efforts are under way to obtain the data. Moreover, GAO’s standards for 

internal controls in the federal government call for clear documentation, but 

none of the three legal offices have fully documented the processes, 

procedures, and data they use in their workforce planning decisions. 

ICE legal officials acknowledged that while an approach is in place for 

identifying attorney staffing needs, more data are needed to improve their 

attorney staffing decisions to help ensure that a sufficient number of 

attorneys are available to handle rising caseloads. ICE’s legal office has 

relied primarily on its professional judgment to set a staffing ratio between 

attorneys and immigration judges. It also uses a workload system that 

tracks, for instance, the number of cases prepared. But attorney time, and 

other metrics, are not tracked. The legal office is working to incorporate 

these and other data into its existing system by December 2007. ICE’s legal

office has not yet fully documented its plans for enhancing its workload 

system by discussing how it intends to measure its progress or report the 

results of its efforts. Without such documentation, the office may not be able 

to effectively monitor its progress in meeting its goals related to this effort. 

Nor has the office documented its overall attorney workforce planning 

process, making it difficult for the office to validate its staffing decisions. 

USCIS officials acknowledged that its attorney workforce planning approach 

is based on estimates of workload data, such as the number of legal actions 

filed against USCIS, and that it is not possible to reliably determine attorney 

needs or anticipate shortfalls based on these estimates. Officials stated that 

DHS has not been in a position to support a request for additional attorneys 

for USCIS, because USCIS lacks sufficiently reliable data. These officials 

said that they coordinate with other USCIS offices to acquire additional legal

resources. Efforts to implement a comprehensive workload system are to be 

completed by the end of fiscal year 2007, but the legal office has not yet 

documented its (1) plans for implementing this system describing goals, 

milestones, and other elements or (2) attorney workforce planning process.

Thus, the office may not have reasonable assurance that its personnel are

implementing workforce planning efforts as intended. 

CBP legal officials reported implementing a successful approach for 

assessing staffing needs by analyzing workload statistics, soliciting feedback 

from CBP program offices on their legal needs, and estimating the time 

attorneys need to complete their work. Using this method, the Chief Counsel 

said that the legal office has not experienced staffing shortfalls and has met 

rising workloads by obtaining funding to hire additional attorneys. However,

CBP’s legal office lacks documentation of its attorney staffing process, 

making it difficult to review and validate the success of its approach. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-206.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Richard Stana 

at (202) 512-8777 or stanar@gao.gov. 
Contents 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 4

Background 8

DHS Components Are Taking Steps to Improve Workforce 

Planning for the Attorney Staffing Process, but Need Better Data 

Related to Work Activities 14 

Conclusions 28

Recommendations for Executive Action 30 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 31 

Appendix I USCIS Program Office Positions Converted to 

Attorney Positions 36 

Appendix II Comments from the Department of Homeland 

Security 37 

Appendix III GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 42 

Tables 

Table 1: ICE’s Planned Enhancements to GEMS That It Reports 

Will Provide Additional Data to Assist in Its Workforce 

Planning Efforts 19 

Table 2: USCIS Program Office Positions Converted to Attorney 

Positions for Fiscal Years 2004-2006 by Program Office 36 

Figures 

Figure 1: Transfer of Immigration Functions from Former INS into 

DHS 8

Figure 2: Number of Attorney Positions Funded at ICE, USCIS, and 

CBP for the Fiscal Years Ending September 30, 2004, 2005, 

and 2006 10 

Figure 3: Funding Provided to ICE, USCIS, and CBP for Attorneys’ 

Salaries and Expenses for Fiscal Years 2004-2006 12 

Page i GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Abbreviations 

CBP Customs and Border Protection 

CCTS Chief Counsel Tracking System 

DHS Department of Homeland Security 

EOIR Executive Office for Immigration Review 

GEMS General Counsel Electronic Management System 

ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement 

INS Immigration and Naturalization Service 

OCC Office of Chief Counsel 

OPM Office of Personnel Management 

USCIS U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services 

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the 

United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further 

permission from GAO. However, because this work may contain copyrighted images or 

other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to 

reproduce this material separately. 

Page ii GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

April 17, 2007

The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. 

House of Representatives 

Dear Mr. Sensenbrenner: 

The federal government’s immigration enforcement responsibilities 

encompass many legal functions, including those related to the removal of 

aliens illegally present in the United States and the investigation of those 

who engage in fraud. Immigration legal functions also pertain to 

determining the admissibility of aliens during inspections at ports of entry, 

and providing legal review and advice related to the adjudication of 

millions of immigration benefit applications and petitions (including 

naturalization and permanent resident applications) filed each year. 

Attorneys within three of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) 

components play important roles in carrying out immigration functions. 

Although each component’s legal office reports to the DHS General 

Counsel, their attorneys provide legal advice and services to the 

components in which they are located. These components—U.S. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and 

Immigration Services (USCIS), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection 

(CBP)—and their attorney roles on immigration matters are as follows: 

• ICE is responsible for, among other things, enforcement of immigration 

law. Attorneys within ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor 

prepare legal opinions on immigration cases, prosecute cases in 

immigration court, and provide legal advice and support to other 

personnel in DHS and the Department of Justice.1

 In this role, the 

Office of the Principal Legal Advisor supports the three components’ 

work to remove aliens illegally present in the United States, enforce 

immigration law in the workplace, and prosecute alien smugglers and 

human traffickers. 

 1

ICE attorneys also provide advice on administrative issues and appear in administrative 

hearings before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Merit 

Systems Protection Board. They also respond to attorney grievances. In addition, selected 

ICE attorneys serve as Special Assistant United States Attorneys in both criminal and civil 

matters. 

Page 1 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
• USCIS is primarily responsible for processing applications for 

immigration benefits such as applications for nonimmigrant visas, 

permanent residence, U.S. citizenship, and asylum.

2

 USCIS attorneys, 

through its Office of Chief Counsel, provide legal support to the 

agency’s program offices. This legal support includes, among other 

responsibilities, providing legal advice on immigration and 

administrative issues,3

 providing litigation support to the Department of 

Justice—in its role as lead counsel—in defending lawsuits brought 

against USCIS in federal court, and representing USCIS in visa petition 

proceedings before the Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration 

Appeals.4

• CBP employs attorneys who, through CBP’s Office of Chief Counsel, 

provide legal support, training, and guidance to CBP personnel, review 

proposed legislation, support the Department of Justice in civil or 

criminal judicial actions involving CBP, and represent CBP in 

administrative matters.5

Immigration-related court litigation has steadily increased over the last 

several years. For example, between fiscal years 2000 and 2005, the

number of civil cases prosecuted by ICE attorneys in immigration courts 

increased almost 39 percent, from about 381,000 to 531,000 cases.6

Moreover, according to statistics maintained by the Department of 

Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review, between fiscal years 

2001 and 2005, the number of visa petition appeals filed escalated almost 

250 percent, from 1,129 to 3,950, increasing USCIS attorneys’ work in 

representing the agency before the Department of Justice’s Board of 

Immigration Appeals. Although CBP attorneys do not play as prominent a 

 2

A nonimmigrant is a person, not a citizen or national of the United States, seeking to enter 

the United States temporarily for a specific reason, such as business or pleasure. 

3

USCIS attorneys represent USCIS in administrative hearings before the U.S. Equal 

Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Federal 

Labor Relations Authority, and labor arbitrators. 

4

The Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals primarily conducts appellate 

reviews of immigration judge decisions but also hears appeals of certain decisions made by

DHS district directors or other immigration officials. 

5

CBP attorneys represent CBP in administrative hearings before the U.S. Equal 

Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Federal 

Labor Relations Authority, and labor arbitrators. 

6

GAO, Executive Office for Immigration Review: Caseload Performance Reporting Needs

Improvement, GAO-06-771 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 11, 2006).

Page 2 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
role in supporting immigration litigation as do ICE and USCIS attorneys, 

its Office of Chief Counsel’s workload statistics reflected a 15 percent 

increase in its aggregate workload between fiscal years 2004 and 2005. 

In your former capacity as Chairman of the House Committee on the 

Judiciary, you requested that we conduct a study of these components’ 

attorney workforce planning processes. You also expressed concerns 

about DHS’s human capital management with respect to whether staffing 

levels for attorneys responsible for providing legal services in support of 

immigration activities within DHS have kept pace with increasing 

caseloads. 

In this report, we discuss what actions ICE, USCIS, and CBP legal 

components have taken or plan to take to identify attorney needs, 

determine where those attorneys should be deployed, and address staffing 

shortfalls.7

 Our report addresses ICE, USCIS, and CBP actions related to 

workforce planning for attorney staffing from the formal allocation of 

attorneys among these three DHS components (May 6, 2004) through the 

end of the most recent fiscal year (September 30, 2006). 

To determine what actions ICE, USCIS, and CBP have taken or plan to 

take to identify their attorney needs, determine where to deploy those 

attorneys, and to address staffing shortfalls, we principally relied on 

interviews with knowledgeable officials from their legal offices. For ICE, 

we met with the Principal Legal Advisor and representatives from his 

headquarters and Arlington offices. For USCIS, we met with the Office of 

Chief Counsel’s Deputy Chief Counsel, Chief of Staff, and other 

headquarters staff as well as the Regional and Deputy Regional Counsel 

for the eastern region. We also met with an official from USCIS’s eastern 

regional program (operational) office. For CBP, we met with the Chief 

Counsel, the Deputy Chief Counsel, and representatives from the Houston 

office. We met with representatives from ICE’s Arlington legal office, 

USCIS’s eastern region legal office, and CBP’s Houston legal office 

because these officials were knowledgeable about the field office role in

their agency’s attorney workforce staffing process. In addition, we 

examined available documentation from the DHS components we 

reviewed, including staffing requests prepared for budget justifications, 

statistics on ICE’s and CBP’s workload, and 2004 organizational 

 7

A shortfall is the difference between the number of attorneys an agency is authorized and

the number the agency determines it needs. 

Page 3 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
assessments of ICE’s and USCIS’s legal offices. We also obtained and 

analyzed information on alien detention costs DHS incurred during fiscal

year 2006 to assess the impact on DHS that ICE’s legal office told us 

occurs when ICE attorneys request delays in hearings. We determined that 

information related to ICE’s workload, specifically, the number of national 

security cases ICE attorneys handled prior to and after September 11, 

2001, and alien detention costs were sufficiently reliable for purposes of 

this report.8

 We based this decision on an assessment of the policies and 

procedures ICE uses for collecting and maintaining this information. We 

also compared the components’ workforce planning processes to core 

workforce planning principles outlined in our past work on strategic 

human capital management and the Office of Personnel Management’s 

(OPM) guidance on human capital.9

We conducted our work from July 2006 through March 2007 in accordance 

with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Our prior work on strategic workforce planning states that staffing 

decisions, including needs assessments and deployment decisions, should 

be based on valid and reliable data;

10 however, ICE and USCIS’s legal 

offices do not currently have such data available, though efforts are under 

way to address this challenge. Our prior work has also identified that 

written policies and procedures—including clearly defined, welldocumented, transparent, and consistently applied criteria—are necessary 

to developing human capital approaches that enable the sustained 

contributions of skilled staff. Moreover, our standards for internal controls

in the federal government state that clear documentation should be readily 

available for examination. Although ICE, USCIS, and CBP’s legal offices 

reported having procedures in place that are intended to determine the 

Results in Brief 

 8

We did not conduct a data reliability assessment of workload data for CBP because 

documentation was not available to validate its workforce planning process. In addition, 

we did not conduct a data reliability assessment of workload data for USCIS because 

USCIS has not yet fully implemented a system to generate comprehensive workload data. 

9

GAO, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective Strategic Workforce Planning, 

GAO-04-39 (Washington, D.C.: December 2003); GAO, A Model of Strategic Human Capital 

Management, GAO-02-373SP (Washington, D.C.: March 2002); GAO, Human Capital: 

A Self-Assessment Checklist for Agency Leaders, GAO/OCG-00-14G (Washington, D.C.:

September 2000); and OPM, Strategic Human Resources Management: Aligning with the 

Mission, (Washington, D.C.: September 1999).

10See GAO-02-373SP, p. 23. 

Page 4 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
number of attorneys needed, to deploy attorneys where they are needed 

most, and to address attorney staffing shortfalls, none of these three legal

offices have fully documented their processes, procedures, and the data 

they use in these workforce planning decisions. Without documented 

plans and procedures, it will be difficult for the legal offices to review and 

validate their staffing decisions or for others to independently assess the 

legal offices’ workforce planning efforts. This is particularly important to 

help ensure that sufficient legal resources are available to meet 

organizational goals related to immigration enforcement, inspection, and 

service functions—particularly in light of rising legal workloads in all 

three offices. Furthermore, without documentation, the legal offices may 

not have and be able to provide reasonable assurance that they are 

consistently applying their staffing process, implementing their workforce 

planning efforts as intended, or sustaining their efforts over time. An 

analysis of each legal office’s approach to workforce planning, and efforts 

under way to address challenges, follows: 

• Officials from ICE’s legal office acknowledged that while an approach 

is in place for identifying attorney staffing needs, more data are needed 

to improve their attorney staffing decisions. ICE’s legal office has relied 

primarily on its professional judgment to establish a staffing ratio 

between attorneys and immigration judges. This ratio, historically 

based on two attorneys for each immigration court judge, reflects the 

legal office’s judgment of how the office’s workloads translate into an 

appropriate number of attorneys needed, and where they should be 

deployed. The staffing ratio approach may not always ensure that 

attorney resources are allocated where they are most needed because

it does not take into account the length of time needed to complete 

each case. To help determine its staffing needs, the legal office 

supplements this approach with a workload tracking system that 

measures, for instance, the number of hearings attended. However, the

system does not track other information such as the time it takes 

attorneys to conduct their work activities. Thus, ICE’s legal office lacks 

comprehensive data that it can rely on for making staffing decisions. 

Officials from ICE’s legal office also reported that the office faces 

staffing shortfalls as caseloads rise, resulting in delayed court

proceedings, increased detention costs, and other effects. Officials 

from the legal office stated that they are working to incorporate 

additional data into the office’s existing workload tracking system by 

December 2007, to better manage the attorney staffing process. 

Although ICE’s legal office reports having ways to measure its progress 

in making enhancements to its workload tracking system and in 

reporting the results of its progress, the office has not yet documented 

its performance measures or mechanisms for reporting on the status of 

Page 5 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
its efforts. Without such documentation, ICE’s legal office may not be 

in a position to effectively monitor its progress in meeting its goals 

related to this effort or provide reasonable assurance that its 

enhancements are being implemented as intended. 

• USCIS legal officials stated that its attorney workforce planning 

approach is based on estimates of workload data, such as the number 

of legal actions filed against USCIS. These officials acknowledged that 

it is not possible to reliably determine USCIS attorney needs or 

anticipate shortfalls based on these estimates, since other workload 

activities, such as the provision of legal advice to USCIS’s program 

offices, are not included. As a consequence, lacking sufficiently reliable

data, these officials stated that DHS has not been in a position to 

request additional attorneys for USCIS. Instead, to address some 

staffing needs, USCIS officials said that they have coordinated with 

other USCIS offices to acquire additional legal resources. For example, 

the legal office officials told us that they meet at least quarterly with 

USCIS program office officials to discuss converting vacant positions 

within the program office into attorney positions, to help offset 

shortfalls. Although this approach has resulted in the acquisition of 

new attorney positions, USCIS legal officials told us they remain 

understaffed. Efforts to implement a more comprehensive workload 

data management system to improve the staffing process are to be 

completed by the end of fiscal year 2007, officials stated, but USCIS’s 

legal office has not yet documented its plans for implementing this 

system. Without such documentation, the legal office may not have 

reasonable assurance that its personnel are implementing the system 

as intended.

• Officials in CBP’s legal office reported that the office has developed 

and implemented a successful approach for determining how many 

attorneys the legal office needs to conduct its work, where to 

geographically locate these attorneys, and to anticipate and address 

shortfalls before they occur. They said that this approach involves 

analyzing workload statistics, soliciting feedback from CBP program 

offices on their legal service needs, and estimating the time attorneys 

need to complete their work. Using this method, the Chief Counsel said 

that the legal office has not experienced staffing shortfalls and has met 

rising workloads by obtaining funding from the CBP Commissioner to 

hire additional attorneys. 

In this report, we make recommendations to the Secretary of Homeland 

Security to document (1) ICE’s plan for measuring its progress in making 

enhancements to its workload tracking system and for reporting on the 

Page 6 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
results of its efforts; (2) USCIS’s plans for implementing a data 

management system to help ensure that the system is implemented as 

intended; and (3) attorney workforce planning processes for each 

component’s legal offices to assist these offices in better managing their 

staffing process for effectively achieving the legal offices’ goals. 

We provided a draft of this report to DHS for review and comment. In 

commenting on this report, DHS generally agreed with four of our five 

recommendations. However, CBP’s legal office disagreed with our 

recommendation that it needs to develop documentation that clearly 

describes its criteria, methodology, analysis, data, and the personnel 

responsible for conducting workforce planning efforts. CBP’s legal office 

commented that while workforce planning principles included in our 

exposure draft, A Model of Strategic Human Capital Management, may 

be useful to managing large-scale federal operations, it believes the 

principles are inapplicable to small offices such as CBP’s legal office, 

which has nearly 200 attorneys.11 We disagree. We believe that the core 

planning principles discussed in this report are appropriate for all 

workforce planning efforts, including those conducted by CBP’s legal 

office. Furthermore, as previously stated, our standards for internal 

control in the federal government require that significant events be clearly 

documented and that the documentation be readily available for 

examination by an independent entity. A copy of DHS’s letter commenting 

on the report is presented in appendix II. 

 11See GAO-02-373SP. 

Page 7 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created DHS, bringing together 

22 agencies and programs responsible for key aspects of homeland 

security including immigration enforcement and service-related 

functions.12 A legacy agency—the former Immigration and Naturalization 

Service (INS)—was among the 22 agencies brought together within DHS.13

As a result of this merger, responsibility for immigration enforcement, 

inspection, and service-related functions was transferred to three 

components within DHS—ICE, USCIS, and CBP. Figure 1 shows the 

transfer of former INS immigration enforcement and service-related 

functions into DHS. 

Background 

Transition of Legacy 

Agencies into DHS and 

Legacy Attorney Staffing 

Allocations 

Figure 1: Transfer of Immigration Functions from Former INS into DHS 

Merged

into

Immigration and

Naturalization Service

(INS)

Service

Inspections and border patrol

Investigations, intelligence,

detention, and removal

Department of

Homeland Security

(DHS)

U.S. Citizenship and

Immigration Services (USCIS)

U.S. Customs and Border

Protection (CBP)

U.S. Immigration and

Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Former

agency Function

New 

department Component

Source: GAO analysis of DHS data.

Before DHS became operational, on March 1, 2003, managers of the former 

INS’s Office of the General Counsel identified the proportion of its 

710 attorneys to allocate among the legal offices within ICE, USCIS, and 

CBP, according to DHS officials. DHS officials also told us that the former 

INS’s Office of the General Counsel made these decisions based upon its 

judgment of the anticipated need each component would have for 

 12Homeland Security Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-296, 116 Stat. 2135. Two other legacy 

agencies, the former U.S. Customs Service (USCS) and the Department of Agriculture’s 

Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, were also merged into DHS, and responsibility 

for their customs investigations and enforcement and inspection functions were 

transferred to ICE and CBP. However, these functions do not relate to immigration.

13Prior to the merger, INS was part of the Department of Justice. 

Page 8 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
providing immigration legal services and available attorney work hours. 

As such, INS’s managers determined that ICE should receive an allocation 

of 600 attorney positions for its Office of Principal Legal Advisor, USCIS 

should receive 62 attorney positions for its Office of Chief Counsel, and 

CBP should receive 48 attorney positions for its Office of Chief Counsel. 

On May 6, 2004, the DHS General Counsel issued a memorandum 

formalizing INS’s decisions.14 CBP’s Chief Counsel also told us that when 

DHS became operational, his office (formerly the Office of Chief Counsel 

in the legacy U.S. Customs Service) had 123 attorney positions. With the 

allocation of 48 positions from the former INS General Counsel’s office, 

CBP’s legal office had a total of 171 attorney positions. Since May 6, 2004, 

then, the three legal offices have obtained additional resources through 

other action, such as the annual budget process. Figure 2 shows the 

number of attorney positions that were funded at ICE, USCIS, and CBP’s 

legal offices for the fiscal years ending September 30, 2004, to September 

30, 2006. 

 14The Office of General Counsel is responsible for directing the activities of DHS’s legal 

offices. However, DHS officials told us that its Office of General Counsel does not play a

role in determining the component’s attorney resource needs as part of the budget process. 

Page 9 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Figure 2: Number of Attorney Positions Funded at ICE, USCIS, and CBP for the

Fiscal Years Ending September 30, 2004, 2005, and 2006 

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Number of attorney positions

Component

Source: ICE, USCIS, and CBP’s legal offices.

As of 5/6/2004

As of 9/30/2004

As of 9/30/2005

As of 9/30/2006

ICE USCIS CBP

600 603

666

698

62 80 88 92

171 178 183 192

Organization and Funding 

for Components’ Legal 

Resources within DHS 

ICE’s legal office is led by a Principal Legal Advisor who is assisted by a 

Deputy. The legal office is organized into 12 divisions. Eleven of these 

divisions, such as Commercial and Administrative Law, Enforcement Law, 

and National Security Law, are located in the headquarters office in 

Washington, D.C. Officials from the legal office told us that as of 

September 30, 2006, 119 of the office’s 698 attorneys are located in 

headquarters. They also said that as of September 30, 2006, the largest 

division, Field Operations, has 579 attorneys located in 51 field offices 

throughout the United States. This division is headed by a Director with 

assistance from 26 Chief Counsels. 

USCIS’s legal office is led by a Chief Counsel who is assisted by a Deputy 

Chief Counsel. As of September 30, 2006, the office’s 92 attorneys are 

located in USCIS’s headquarters offices in Washington, D.C., and its three

Page 10 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
regional offices throughout the United States in proximity to USCIS’s 

program offices. Each regional office is managed by a Regional Counsel. 

Officials in the legal office said that 38 USCIS attorneys are located in its 

headquarters offices, 21 attorneys are located in the Eastern Region, 16 in

the Central Region, and 17 in the Western Region. 

CBP’s legal office is led by a Chief Counsel with support from a Deputy 

Chief Counsel. At the end of fiscal year 2006, CBP’s 192 attorneys were 

located in offices throughout the United States in close proximity to CBP’s 

program offices. For example, the legal office’s officials reported that 

approximately 40 attorneys were located in headquarters offices in 

Washington, D.C., at the end of fiscal year 2006, with the remainder 

located in 27 field offices. The field offices are managed by Associate and 

Assistant Chief Counsels. 

Figure 3 illustrates funds provided to ICE, USCIS, and CBP legal offices 

for their attorneys’ salaries and expenses for each of the fiscal years 

2004–2006. 

Page 11 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Figure 3: Funding Provided to ICE, USCIS, and CBP for Attorneys’ Salaries and

Expenses for Fiscal Years 2004-2006 

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Salaries and expenses (dollars in millions)

Fiscal year

Source: ICE, USCIS, and CBP’s legal offices.

ICE

USCIS

CBP

2004 2005 2006

66

9

19

75

11

21

81

12

24

Guidance on Strategic 

Workforce Planning 

Strategic workforce planning helps ensure that an organization has the 

staff with the necessary skills and competencies to accomplish its 

strategic goals. Since 2001, we have reported strategic human capital 

management as an area with a high risk of vulnerability to fraud, waste, 

abuse, and mismanagement. In January 2007, we reported that significant 

opportunities remain to improve strategic human capital management in 

the federal government to respond to current and emerging 21st century 

challenges.15 For example, we reported that DHS’s human capital systems 

require continued attention to help prevent waste and ensure that DHS can 

allocate its resources efficiently and effectively. 

 15GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, GAO-07-310 (Washington, D.C.: January 2007), pp. 6,

39, and 45. 

Page 12 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
We have also issued various policy statements and guidance reinforcing 

the importance of sound human capital management and workforce 

planning. Our human capital guidance states that the success of the 

workforce planning process that an agency uses can be judged by its 

results—how well it helps the agency attain its mission and strategic 

goals—not by the type of process used.16 The guidance also highlights 

eight critical success factors in strategic human capital management, 

including making data-driven human capital decisions and targeted 

investments in people.17 To make data-driven human capital decisions, 

the guidance states that staffing decisions, including needs assessments 

and deployment decisions, should be based on valid and reliable data. 

Furthermore, the guidance states that to make targeted investments in 

people, organizations should clearly document the methodology 

underlying their human capital approaches. We have identified these 

factors, among others, as critical to managing human capital approaches 

that facilitate sustained workforce contributions. 

Additional guidance we issued on strategic workforce planning outlines 

key principles for effective workforce planning. These principles include 

(1) involving management, employees, and other stakeholders in the 

workforce planning process; (2) determining critical skills and 

competencies needed to achieve results; (3) developing workforce 

strategies to address shortfalls and the deployment of staff; (4) building 

the capabilities needed to address administrative and other requirements 

important in supporting workforce strategies; and (5) evaluating and 

revising these workforce strategies.18

OPM has also issued strategic workforce planning guidance to help 

agencies manage their human capital resources more strategically.19 The 

guidance recommends agencies analyze their workforce, conduct 

competency assessments and analysis, and compare workforce needs 

against available skills. Along with OPM, we have encouraged agencies to 

consider all available flexibilities under current authorities in pursuing 

solutions to long-standing human capital problems. In addition, our 

 16See GAO-04-39, p. 2. 

17See GAO-02-373SP, pp. 8-9. 

18See GAO-04-39, pp. 2-3. 

19OPM, Key Components of a Strategic Human Capital Plan (Washington, D.C.: 

September 2005). 

Page 13 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
guidance outlines strategies for deploying staff in the face of finite 

resources.20

Officials at ICE, USCIS, and CBP reported using a range of approaches to

determine their staffing needs, deploy attorneys to locations where they 

are needed most, and anticipate and address attorney shortfalls. However, 

none of the components’ approaches have been documented and no 

mechanisms exist for validating attorney staffing decisions. Both ICE and 

USCIS officials acknowledged that they do not have reliable workload 

data to determine their staffing needs, make allocation decisions, and 

identify staffing shortfalls, but report taking actions to obtain more and 

better data. Despite not having the data needed to reliably determine 

staffing shortfalls, ICE and USCIS’s legal offices said that current staffing 

levels are insufficient for conducting their work. CBP’s legal office told us

that through its workforce management practices it is able to anticipate

shortfalls and develop strategies to avoid them such as securing funding 

for additional attorneys before any shortfalls occur. 

Officials from ICE’s legal office reported having an approach to staff 

attorneys and identify staffing shortfalls; acknowledging that the 

methodology for this approach lacks sufficient data and is not 

documented, they plan to collect and incorporate workload data into 

staffing decisions. To determine how many immigration attorneys are 

needed for its work, where those attorneys are to be deployed, and how 

staffing shortfalls are to be addressed, ICE’s legal office primarily relies on 

the number of immigration judges who preside over immigration courts 

throughout the country. Specifically, the legal office’s officials make their 

attorney staffing decisions by establishing a ratio of the number of 

attorneys needed per judge—an approach developed before the inception

of DHS by the legacy INS General Counsel’s office. Officials in ICE’s legal 

office said that this approach was, and is currently, based on

management’s professional judgment of how their office’s workload 

translates into the appropriate number of attorneys needed, as well as 

where they should be deployed. The ratio is, therefore, used as the basis 

for the legal office’s decisions to request additional attorneys through the 

DHS Components Are 

Taking Steps to 

Improve Workforce 

Planning for the 

Attorney Staffing 

Process, but Need 

Better Data Related to 

Work Activities

ICE Lacks Data Needed to 

Reliably Determine Its 

Overall Attorney Staffing 

Needs, but Is Taking 

Action to Collect Such 

Data 

 20See GAO/OCG-00-14G, p. 19. 

Page 14 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
annual budget process.21 Officials in ICE’s legal office also told us that for 

particularly complex, sensitive, or high-profile cases, such as those 

involving national security, they supplement the ratio approach by 

considering the staffing needs of each of its offices and the historical and 

current workload related to these types of cases that are assigned to each

office to help them make staffing decisions. Using this approach, the legal 

office reported that it allocated 61 attorneys during fiscal year 2006 to 

25 of its field offices to handle these types of cases. 

Officials in ICE’s legal office told us that they have historically decided 

that they should assign two attorneys to handle the office’s immigration 

workload for every immigration judge—and this forms the basis of the 

ratio approach that has been used. These officials also told us that this 

decision was based on the assumption that because immigration judges 

hear cases 7 to 8 hours each day, one attorney would always need to be in 

court and another would be needed to complete other related matters 

such as case preparation, legal research, or provide legal advice to ICE 

offices. Officials in the legal office also stated that this decision was based 

upon factors that were related to the workload that existed at the time the 

ratio was established. They said that the staffing ratio approach is based 

on professional judgment and historical experience and takes into 

consideration some workload data maintained by the immigration courts, 

such as the number of appeals stemming from immigration judge 

decisions.22 However, other workload metrics, such as the time attorneys 

spend researching and preparing for cases are not considered when 

making these decisions because ICE’s legal office does not yet have

systems fully in place to track these data, according to its officials. 

Consequently, the staffing ratio approach is not based on comprehensive 

workload data, nor is it grounded in reliable workload data. For example, 

one assumption built into the current staffing ratio is that each ICE 

attorney conducts the same amount of work for every immigration judge.

 21Officials from ICE’s legal office said that the majority of their attorneys litigate in 

immigration courts and provide advice to ICE employees and that their staffing decisions

related to these attorneys are based on the ratio of attorneys to immigration judges. 

However, they also told us that staffing decisions for headquarters attorneys responsible 

for providing legal services related to ethics or administrative law are conducted by 

establishing a ratio of attorneys to ICE program clients. Officials from ICE’s legal office 

said that these attorney-to-client ratios are determined by reviewing workload estimates 

and benchmarking those ratios with other executive branch legal programs such as those 

at the Departments of Justice and Treasury. 

22When an appeal is filed related to an immigration judge’s decision, ICE attorneys are 

responsible for litigating the case before the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Page 15 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
However, this may not always be the case, given that differences exist in 

the volume and complexity of cases, which could mean that different 

numbers of attorneys are needed. 

The legal office’s staffing ratio approach to making decisions about 

attorney staffing has not been fully successful in helping the agency avoid 

staffing shortfalls. Officials from ICE’s legal office reported to Congress in 

February 2006 that they faced attorney staffing shortfalls due to rising 

caseloads, increased complexity in cases, and an expansion of the 

agency’s mission into areas such as customs law. They told us that they

continue to face shortfalls because recent increases in both the number 

and the complexity of immigration cases have led to increases in the 

number of cases handled by a judge and in the amount of time required for 

case preparation work—all of which has a bearing on attorney staffing and 

workloads. These officials also told us that as a result of increased 

workloads they often request delays in court proceedings to obtain 

sufficient time to prepare for cases, but have no data to quantify the 

number of delays requested. Moreover, they said that these delays result in

increased costs for DHS when the cases involve aliens placed in agency 

custody. For example, they stated that each day the hearing was delayed

costs DHS approximately an additional $100 for housing an alien in fiscal 

year 2006. In addition, officials from ICE’s legal office said that an increase 

in case complexity and an expansion of the office’s responsibilities, such 

as providing legal advice regarding customs-related enforcement matters, 

also requires additional resources to perform legal work outside of court.23

Officials from ICE’s legal office told us, for instance, that prosecution of 

aliens who pose a threat to national security—particularly time-consuming 

cases—has increased from about 50 cases per year before September 11, 

2001, to approximately 700 cases in fiscal year 2006. The legal office 

officials told us that it had 4 attorneys in headquarters handling national

security cases before September 11, 2001, and 13 attorneys in headquarters 

handling such cases in fiscal year 2006. The legal office reported taking

action to address existing attorney shortfalls by requesting funding for 

additional attorneys through the annual budget process. For example, the 

legal office requested funding for 193 additional attorney positions in fiscal 

year 2006 as part of its fiscal year 2007 budget request—positions that 

were ultimately funded for half of fiscal year 2007 as part of DHS’s fiscal 

 23In its 2006 budget request, ICE’s legal office reported that it regularly provides advice to

its field offices on customs-related enforcement matters, including cargo search and 

seizure related issues. 

Page 16 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
year 2007 appropriation. To avoid future shortfalls, officials from ICE’s 

legal office said that they are currently working to increase coordination 

with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review 

(EOIR), which administers the immigration courts, to anticipate the 

placement of new immigration judges or the transfer of existing judges 

from one location to another. The legal office officials said that because a 

key data element for their workforce planning methodology is the number 

and location of immigration judges, increased coordination with EOIR will 

allow the legal office to better anticipate its attorney needs at various 

locations around the country. 

Despite these actions, the shortfalls that have arisen as a result of these 

changing conditions have, according to officials from ICE’s legal office, 

affected the agency’s ability to carry out its mission. For example, the legal 

office officials said that because they currently face staffing shortfalls, 

they are unable to respond in a timely manner when an alien requests a 

change of venue—that is, a request to move the alien’s case from one court 

to another court. They also said that that if they cannot respond to a 

change of venue and explain why such a request should not be granted, it 

is likely that a larger percentage of these requests will be granted. 

According to officials from ICE’s legal office, aliens not in agency custody 

who are granted their request to change venue often do not appear for 

their hearings and remain in the country illegally. Furthermore, they said 

that the government may incur unnecessary detention and transportation 

costs when such unopposed requests are granted to detained aliens. 

Questions about the effectiveness of the legal office’s staffing ratio as a 

reliable or sufficient means of ensuring that its attorney staffing needs can 

be met, and shortfalls averted, are not new. In 2004, a business consulting 

firm hired to analyze the legal office’s staffing process concluded that the

premise of the ratio approach was no longer valid in light of rising 

caseloads and an increasing client base. The consulting firm also 

concluded that the premise of the ratio was not valid because the legal 

office had experienced a growth in the number of attorneys who 

performed management tasks and these attorneys were not included in the 

calculation of the ratio. Officials from ICE’s legal office stated that 

although the consulting firm’s report to the office’s senior management 

underscored a need to improve its attorney staffing process by 

incorporating more workload data, they intend to continue using the ratio 

approach for determining attorney needs and making allocation decisions 

until they can collect such data. 

Page 17 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Our prior work on strategic workforce planning states that staffing 

decisions, including needs assessments and deployment decisions, should 

be based on valid and reliable data.

24 Without basing its attorney needs 

assessments as well as its deployment decisions on comprehensive 

workload data that are valid and reliable, officials from ICE’s legal office 

cannot ensure that the ratio approach accurately determines the number 

of attorneys the office needs, where they should be deployed, and any 

shortfalls they may face.

ICE’s legal office has taken some action to improve the decision-making 

process for attorney staffing. For example, officials from the legal office 

said that in preparation of their fiscal year 2007 budget request, they 

adjusted their target attorney-to-judge ratio from 2:1 to 2.5:1 in an effort to

reflect the need for additional attorneys as caseloads increase. This effort, 

however, was based, as in the past, primarily on professional judgment 

rather than comprehensive workload statistics. 

ICE Reports Taking Action to 

Collect Data to Improve 

Workforce Planning 

ICE’s legal office has also taken steps to enhance its workload data 

collection efforts. Officials from this office reported that they deployed a 

General Counsel Electronic Management System (GEMS) nationwide, in

fiscal year 2005, to organize and track information on immigration cases 

and other workload projects. It also tracks workload measures, such as 

the number of hearings attended. ICE legal officials also said that they are

also working on several enhancements to GEMS that the office plans to 

implement during fiscal year 2007 that will help to improve its workforce 

planning efforts. In 2002, ICE established a Knowledge Management 

Division that, among other things, is responsible for ensuring that these 

enhancements are implemented. Table 1 describes these enhancements 

and the office’s timeline for implementing them. 

 24See GAO-02-373SP, p. 23. 

Page 18 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Table 1: ICE’s Planned Enhancements to GEMS That It Reports Will Provide Additional Data to Assist in Its Workforce 

Planning Efforts 

Planned enhancement Description of enhancement planned 

Planned 

implementation date

Time accounting To provide ICE’s legal office with the capacity to track time its attorneys spend on 

their work by activity. 

December 2007

Performance 

management 

To provide ICE’s legal office with the ability to extract information from data

captured in GEMS to generate performance measures that are intended to

describe how well the legal office is meeting its mission goals, whether they are 

on track for meeting their performance targets, and whether their current 

resources are sufficient to meet those goals.

To identify those cases that require the most resources. 

To identify workload trends, which will assist ICE’s legal office in predicting future 

workloads and outcomes. 

June/July 2007

Knowledge management To provide ICE’s attorneys with the ability to readily identify and extract 

information about a case or project that is similar to other cases or projects other 

attorneys may be working on. 

August 2007 

Source: ICE’s legal office. 

Officials in the legal office told us that they also established a working 

group to analyze the legal office’s processes and to determine measures 

that would best describe the office’s workload. They also reported 

establishing a division that will be responsible for, among other things, 

evaluating and validating the additional workload measures captured by

GEMS. According to the legal office’s deployment plan for these 

enhancements, some of the workload measures that the office plans to 

collect will include the number of cases by type and location as well as the 

time attorneys spend on these cases. This plan also outlines how the legal 

office plans to incorporate these workload measures in its future attorney

workforce planning decisions. For example, it states that officials from the 

legal office will determine an average amount of time attorneys spend on 

each type of case by reviewing and analyzing the number of hours 

attorneys spend on these cases at each field office. As a result, this 

average will provide senior management with an indication of the number 

of attorneys needed to handle its projected caseload at all of its field 

offices. However, ICE’s legal office has not fully documented its plans for 

enhancing GEMS. Although the Chief from the legal office’s Knowledge 

Management Division told us that he measures his office’s progress in 

implementing GEMS enhancements by using project milestones and orally 

reports to the Principal Legal Advisor on these issues almost daily, the

office’s planning documentation does not address these issues. 

Specifically, the documentation does not state how the legal office intends

Page 19 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
to measure its progress in making these enhancements or to report the 

results of its efforts. 

Industry best practices on information technology management stress the 

importance of effective planning.25 Inherent in such planning is the 

development and use of program management plans that specify 

performance measures and reporting mechanisms. Furthermore, our 

standards for internal control in the federal government call for clear 

documentation.26 Such documentation could help ensure better 

accountability, replication, and consistency. By not documenting 

performance measures or mechanisms for reporting on the status of its 

efforts to enhance GEMS, ICE’s legal office may not be in a position to 

effectively monitor its progress in meeting its goals related to this effort. 

ICE’s legal office has not documented its methodology or the role of its 

staff responsible for determining its attorney needs, identifying and 

addressing related shortfalls, or deploying attorneys where they are 

needed. Our principles on strategic workforce planning state that the

methodology underlying staffing decisions should be well documented.27

Our standards for internal control in the federal government also 

recognize the need for clear documentation.28 Without documentation, it 

may be difficult for ICE’s legal office to review and validate the decisionmaking process or for others to independently assess the legal office’s 

efforts. Furthermore, if the legal office’s rationale for its staffing decisions, 

including factors it considered when establishing and changing the ratio, is

not documented, the legal office and its stakeholders may not have and be

able to provide assurance that its staffing processes are being consistently

applied or sustained over time. 

ICE Lacks Documentation for 

Validating Its Attorney 

Workforce Planning Decisions 

 25GAO, Near-Term Effort to Automate Paper-Based Immigration Files Needs Planning 

Improvements, GAO-06-375 (Washington, D.C.: March 2006), p. 14. 

26GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO/AIMD-00-21.3 

(Washington, D.C.: November 1999), p. 15. 

27See GAO-02-373SP, p.25.

28See GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1, p. 15

Page 20 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Officials with USCIS’s legal office stated that they need additional 

attorneys to meet current workload demands and that they work with 

USCIS program offices to acquire additional attorneys. Acknowledging 

that the office has not fully implemented a system to reliably determine its 

attorney staffing needs, make allocation decisions, or anticipate and fully 

address staffing shortfalls, they reported that they have efforts under way 

to resolve these issues. Officials in USCIS’s legal office said that despite its

need for additional attorneys to meet its current workload demands, 

USCIS’s legal office does not have comprehensive workload data to 

support requests for additional attorney resources. 

USCIS Acknowledges It 

Lacks Data Needed to 

Determine Attorney 

Staffing Needs, but Efforts 

Are Under Way to Address 

the Problem 

USCIS’s legal office reported that its approach to managing workforce 

planning decisions generally relies on professional judgment. For example, 

it said that as part of the annual budget process, senior legal managers 

discuss attorney needs and where attorneys should be geographically 

located. They also told us that these managers consider two inputs as part 

of this process. First, they said that they consider workload estimates by 

analyzing spreadsheets that the legal office personnel generate by 

recording certain workload activities, such as the total number of legal 

actions filed against USCIS. However, these officials said that this method 

generates incomplete workload data, since other workload activities, such

as the provision of legal advice to program offices, are not included on the 

spreadsheets. Thus, the officials said that these workload estimates may 

not be reliable indicators of actual workload activities. Second, they said 

the managers use feedback the legal office solicits from USCIS program 

offices to help them assess their attorney needs and determine where to 

allocate attorneys. This feedback includes information about recurring 

legal issues or the need for a particular field office to have an attorney onsite. Officials in USCIS’s legal office acknowledged that there is no fully 

implemented system in place, as of February 2007, to track all of its 

attorneys’ workload such as the amount of time attorneys spend 

completing their workload activities or the total volume of work the office

faces. Our prior work on strategic workforce planning has shown that 

staffing decisions, including needs assessments and deployment decisions, 

should be based on valid and reliable data.29 While professional judgment 

is an important and valuable element of any decision-making process, 

without valid and reliable data, it will be difficult for officials in USCIS’s 

legal office to ensure that their approach provides a reasonable 

 29See GAO-02-373SP, p.23. 

Page 21 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
determination of the number of attorneys they need, where they should be

deployed, or any shortfalls they may face. 

Officials in USCIS’s legal office report that it has and is taking action to 

obtain additional workload data to improve the reliability of its staffing 

decisions, including how it identifies shortfalls, and to support future 

budget requests. In 2003, to facilitate the transition from legacy INS to 

USCIS, USCIS’s legal office hired an independent consulting firm to assess 

the office’s staffing resources and solicit feedback from USCIS program 

offices on their legal needs, among other things. In March 2004, the 

consulting firm reported to USCIS’s legal office on the results of its 

assessment.30 Officials in USCIS’s legal office said they used the 

information from this assessment to help determine the legal needs of 

USCIS program offices and identify areas for improving how the office 

provides legal services. In response to the assessment’s recommendations, 

USCIS’s legal office’s staff told us that they plan to fully implement a data 

management system that will capture all of its work activities by the end

of fiscal year 2007 and that USCIS began efforts to implement this system 

by purchasing software for it in October 2006. USCIS legal office staff told

us this new system will allow them to capture comprehensive workload 

data such as the volume of legal advice requested and provided, attorney 

hours spent on different types of requests (e.g., legal advice or training), 

and the number of pending visa petition appeals, among other things. They 

said they plan to adjust their methodology for determining attorney 

staffing needs, making allocation decisions, and identifying staffing 

shortfalls by considering additional data on workload activities and the 

time attorneys spend on these activities. They also said they plan to use 

these data as support for future budget requests for additional attorneys 

and as key inputs for an attorney allocation model they expect to develop 

and put in place 1 year after the data management system has been fully 

implemented. 

The USCIS legal office’s Chief of Staff orally reviewed with us the office’s 

goals, major milestones, work tasks, and monitoring efforts associated 

with implementing this system. He told us that the office had, among other 

things, completed its design of the functionality requirements for the 

system and resolved security issues for installing the software on USCIS’s 

network in January 2007. He also said that the office had installed 

 30IBM, Detailed Organizational Assessment Briefing: Office of the Chief Counsel, US

Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security (March 2004). 

Page 22 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
software and conducted tests to ensure it was working properly on each

attorney’s computer in February 2007 and plans to spend the rest of the 

fiscal year entering data, such as requests for legal advice, into the system. 

However, USCIS’s legal office has not documented its plans for 

implementing this system. Industry best practices stress the importance of 

effective planning. Inherent in such planning are the development and use 

of program management plans that define, among other things, program 

goals and major milestones, delineate work tasks and products and the 

associated schedules and resources for achieving them, and specify 

performance measures and reporting mechanisms.31 By not documenting 

its plans, USCIS’s legal office may not have provided and be able to 

provide reasonable assurance that it is implementing its plans as intended 

to effectively achieve its goals. 

To address attorney staffing shortfalls, USCIS’s legal office has a strategy 

in place—but an acknowledged lack of reliable data on workload 

requirements limits the strategy’s effectiveness in reducing shortfalls. 

According to staff in the legal office, on at least a quarterly basis, officials 

meet with the leadership of USCIS’s program offices to discuss, on a caseby-case basis, converting vacant positions within the program offices into 

attorney positions as a way to help offset shortfalls. USCIS’s legal office

told us these discussions focus on five factors: (1) the legal staff resources 

the program office believes it needs to achieve its mission, (2) the number 

of attorneys and program staff present at the geographic location of the 

vacant position, (3) the perceived need to have an attorney on-site to 

address legal issues, (4) estimates of the number of pending visa appeals 

at the location, and (5) the quality and volume of decisions being made at 

the location. Once these discussions have concluded, USCIS’s legal office

said the program office decides whether having the support of an 

additional attorney would better help the program office achieve its goals 

than would hiring an additional program staff member. USCIS’s legal 

office staff said if the program office decides in favor of hiring an 

additional attorney, the legal office will work with the program office to 

recruit and hire an attorney to fill the vacant position. 

USCIS’s Legal Office 

Coordinates with Other USCIS 

Offices to Remedy Some 

Attorney Staffing Shortfalls 

throughout USCIS 

Officials in USCIS’s legal office said that, depending on the agreements 

reached with the program office, the salary and related expenses for the 

newly converted attorney position can be funded entirely by the program 

office. Alternatively, these officials stated that both the program and legal

 31See GAO-06-375, p. 14. 

Page 23 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
offices could contribute funding to cover the salary and other expenses 

associated with the position. USCIS’s legal office said it has obtained 

10 additional attorney positions through this process since 2004 (app. I 

provides additional details on these positions). Although USCIS attorneys 

say these additional attorney positions have helped the legal office meet 

some of its workload demands, they still feel that they are understaffed 

because they are unable to meet current workload demands.

Two concerns exist with USCIS’s approach to managing its staffing 

shortfalls. First, as previously discussed, USCIS legal officials

acknowledged that the attorney workload estimates on which its decisions 

about shortfalls are based may not be reliable because comprehensive 

workload data are not collected and analyzed; such data would allow 

USCIS’s legal office to reliably identify shortfalls for the office as a whole. 

Second, USCIS’s legal office has not documented policies and procedures 

that identify the staff responsible for managing such shortfalls and for 

assessing its attorney needs, deploying its attorneys, and identifying 

shortfalls. In addition, the legal office has not documented its approach for 

these staffing processes. As stated earlier, our prior work on strategic 

workforce planning and our standards for internal control in the federal 

government have stressed the need for clearly documenting significant 

events.32 Without documented plans and procedures, USCIS’s legal office 

may not be consistently evaluating the factors it considers important when 

assessing attorney needs, determining where attorneys should be located, 

or converting program office positions into attorney positions over time. 

Furthermore, without such documentation, it will be difficult or USCIS’s 

legal office to review and validate its decision-making process or for 

others to independently assess the legal office’s workforce planning 

efforts. 

Although USCIS’s legal office reported that it has been working to 

implement better workload tracking procedures, until these efforts are 

completed and fully documented, it cannot reliably determine its staffing 

needs and related shortfalls or take action to fully address such shortfalls. 

USCIS legal office officials also said that when the office was initially 

created, they did not anticipate that defending lawsuits brought against 

USCIS in federal court would constitute the majority of their workload, 

limiting their ability to provide sufficient legal advice to USCIS program 

offices. Thus, the legal office remains at risk of not being able to meet its 

 32See GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1, p. 15, and GAO-02-373SP, p. 25. 

Page 24 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
mission goals. For example, officials told us that when an attorney visits a 

field office that does not usually have an attorney on-site, the visiting 

attorney is generally confronted with lines of program staff waiting to seek 

legal advice at his/her office door. USCIS attorneys also told us that by not

being able to provide adequate legal training to program staff on changes 

in immigration law, policy, and related proceedings, USCIS is at risk of 

making incorrect decisions related to benefit adjudications. USCIS’s 

program officials also confirmed the legal office’s position by telling us 

that they do not get as much legal support as they would like. For 

instance, the program officials said that additional legal support is needed 

to improve the quality of the program offices’ adjudication decisions, 

particularly denials. The program officials also said that without adequate 

legal support, the agency remains vulnerable to an increasing number of 

appeals and adverse decisions that could have been avoided through 

proper legal review. 

CBP Reports 

Implementing a Successful 

Attorney Workforce 

Staffing Approach, but 

Lacks Documentation for 

Validating Its Decisions 

CBP’s legal office reported that it has an approach in place to determine 

its attorney staffing needs, deploy attorneys to locations where they are

needed, and anticipate attorney shortfalls, although the approach has not 

been documented and no documentation exists for validating CBP’s 

attorney staffing decisions. The office told us that its methodology for this

approach consists of analyzing (1) workload statistics, (2) feedback from 

CBP program officers regarding the legal needs of those offices, and 

(3) estimates of the time it takes attorneys to conduct their activities. After 

completing this analysis, the legal office’s senior management said that 

they apply their professional judgment to make attorney staffing decisions. 

CBP’s legal office said that it uses workload statistics from its Chief 

Counsel Tracking System (CCTS) to determine the frequency and level of

service its attorneys are asked to provide throughout the year.33 CCTS 

captures data on the type and volume of workload activities conducted by

its attorneys, such as the number of legal training courses conducted by

 33The Chief Counsel Tracking System is an automated system that maintains data on legal 

matters handled by CBP’s legal office. The Deputy Chief Counsel told us that, as a general 

rule, the legal office’s attorneys are responsible for opening cases in the Chief Counsel 

Tracking System only if they take more than 30 minutes to complete. The legal office’s 

personnel can access this system to obtain data on the status of a case or to obtain 

information about the office’s workload. Officials in the legal office told us that this system 

has been in place for more than 20 years, as it was originally maintained by the legacy 

agency, U.S. Customs Service, Office of Chief Counsel, but that technology enhancements 

have been made over the years. 

Page 25 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
attorneys for Border Patrol agents and the number of times CBP attorneys 

provide advice to Border Patrol personnel on land use issues. Officials in 

the legal office said that they conduct workload evaluations of these 

statistics by analyzing the number of cases opened, number of cases 

closed, and case types, by attorney and office location, to help inform 

attorney staffing decisions. The legal office officials said they also review 

statistics in CCTS on a quarterly basis to look for trends in work areas. 

Furthermore, they said that such an analysis helps the office anticipate

attorney needs in specific work areas as well as assist in highlighting 

locations where attorneys may need to be deployed. For example, they 

stated that when DHS was established, approximately 9,000 employees 

assigned to field offices located along the southern border of the United 

States were transferred to CBP from the former INS. Officials from CBP’s 

legal office said that they reviewed statistics in CCTS to help them 

determine the amount and type of legal work generated by CBP employees 

with comparable responsibilities. In turn, they said that this helped the 

legal office decide to create four new field offices for attorneys in Texas—

Laredo, McAllen, Del Rio, and Marfa—and to place additional attorneys in

El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona. The legal office also said that it 

conducts workload evaluations throughout the year, as needed, by holding 

discussions among the executive staff to ensure that each headquarters 

and field client is afforded an appropriate level of legal expertise.34 The 

Chief Counsel stated that he talks with his five Associate Chief Counsels in 

the field almost daily, focusing on issues such as the staff’s approach to 

completing their work, issues to be resolved when a case becomes 

increasingly complex, workload priorities, and any workload surges 

occurring in particular issue areas or at specific locations to help inform 

staffing decisions. Officials in the legal office also stated that it compares 

the experience and skills of its attorneys with the legal needs of its clients 

when determining in which location attorneys might best be placed. 

Officials from CBP’s legal office told us that another key input in their 

staffing decisions involves the feedback they solicit from CBP program 

officers to learn what current and projected legal services the program 

offices require. For example, they told us that Border Patrol program 

officers told the legal office’s staff that its need for legal services would 

increase because CBP plans to place an additional 2,500 Border Patrol 

agents along the southern U.S. border in fiscal year 2007. As a result, the 

 34CBP’s legal office’s executive staff consists of the Chief Counsel, Deputy Chief Counsel, 

three headquarters Associate Chief Counsels and five Associate Chief Counsels in the field. 

Page 26 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Chief Counsel reported obtaining funding for 15 additional attorneys based 

on a ratio of 6 additional Chief Counsel attorneys being needed for each 

1,000 newly added Border Patrol agents. The Chief Counsel told us that he

developed this ratio using his professional judgment and actual case data

from over 31⁄2 years of providing legal support to the Border Patrol 

program officials in CBP. He said that in developing this ratio he also 

considered workforce statistics on the number of (1) litigation cases 

related to border patrol activities, (2) administrative proceedings, 

(3) employee hearings, and (4) the Border Patrol’s requests for advice. He 

also said that these statistics provided him with an indication of the 

volume of work stemming from border patrol activities and the number of 

attorneys needed to efficiently manage the work his office does for the 

Border Patrol component of CBP. 

Officials in CBP’s legal office told us that another key data element 

involved in attorney staffing decisions is estimates of the time it takes 

attorneys to complete their work. The Chief Counsel said that he makes 

such estimates relying upon his own experience and professional 

judgment. The legal office officials said that CCTS does not maintain 

information on the time it takes attorneys to complete their work, 

although they considered incorporating such a component into the system 

in 1999. They said that they decided not to incorporate such a component

into CCTS because the benefits of having a component to capture data on 

the time it takes attorneys to conduct their activities would not exceed the 

costs of developing and implementing the component. The Chief Counsel 

told us that there was no available documentation of the analysis 

supporting this decision.

CBP’s Chief Counsel told us that as a result of his current workload 

management practices, his office is able to avoid staffing shortfalls by 

securing funding to acquire additional resources before any shortfalls 

occur—although documentation is not available to validate this 

conclusion. He also said that this approach allows CBP’s attorney offices 

to fulfill workload priorities, meet the legal service needs throughout the 

agency, and attain performance targets such as addressing litigation and

administrative hearing issues by court-imposed deadlines. He stated that 

when he determines a need for additional resources, he will work directly 

with CBP’s Office of Finance and CBP’s Commissioner to obtain funding 

to acquire these resources. For example, in fiscal year 2005, the Chief 

Counsel obtained funding to hire 23 additional attorneys to assist in 

addressing anticipated increases in the office’s workload. The Chief 

Counsel made his funding request after conducting workload evaluations 

of CCTS data and determining that his office’s workload was steadily 

CBP Reports that Staffing 

Shortfalls Have Been Avoided 

Page 27 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
increasing in a number of areas. In a memo to CBP’s Commissioner related 

to this request, the Chief Counsel explained that he would need additional 

attorneys to (1) address the increasing number of administrative hearings, 

(2) provide litigation support to the Department of Justice, and (3) provide 

legal advice and training to CBP program offices. 

CBP’s legal office does not have any written policies and procedures that

describe the criteria, methodology, analyses, data, and staff responsible 

for assessing its attorney needs, determining where to deploy its attorneys, 

and anticipating and addressing staffing shortfalls before they occur. 

Although the legal office maintains internal memorandums that document

its requests for additional staffing, the memorandums provided to us 

include general information about the legal office’s increased workload in 

various areas, and do not explain how the legal office determined its 

staffing needs or shortfalls. 

CBP Does Not Have Written 

Policies and Procedures for Its 

Attorney Staffing Process 

Our prior work on strategic workforce planning has identified the need for 

such written policies and procedures.35 Moreover, our standards for 

internal control in the federal government calls for clear documentation of 

policies and procedures that is readily available for examination.36 Without 

documented policies and procedures, there is no institutional record of the 

legal office’s actions. Therefore, it may be difficult to review and validate 

the decision-making process for effective management oversight. Effective 

management oversight is important for ensuring sound stewardship and 

accountability of resources. Moreover, without documented policies and 

procedures, CBP’s legal office may not be able to ensure that its staff 

consistently applies criteria it has established, implements procedures as 

intended, or sustains those efforts over time. 

Since its inception, DHS and its components have performed an important 

role in providing a range of law enforcement, immigration inspection, and 

benefits adjudication services that help to protect the United States 

against potential terrorist actions and address other problems arising from 

illegal immigration. To achieve its mission in these areas, it is important 

that DHS be able to manage its human capital needs to ensure that skilled 

personnel are available when needed. The hundreds of staff attorneys who 

litigate in immigration courts, and provide other legal services to support 

Conclusions 

 35See GAO-02-373SP, p.25. 

36See GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1, p. 20. 

Page 28 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
immigration enforcement, inspection, and benefit service missions are a 

key part of DHS’s workforce. 

Although each component’s legal office has developed its own approach to

attorney workforce planning, there are opportunities for ICE and USCIS to 

enhance their planning processes to help ensure that sufficient legal staff

are available to litigate immigration cases and perform other necessary 

legal services. ICE and USCIS report having an insufficient number of 

attorneys to cope with rising caseloads. More reliable, accurate data on a 

variety of attorney workload measures could better position officials in 

anticipating staffing needs—and in presenting a well-founded case to 

Congress for appropriate resource levels. ICE and USCIS legal officials 

acknowledged that their attorney staffing processes have not always 

afforded a reliable basis for determining how many attorneys are needed

to manage workloads, how legal workloads can be managed to avert 

shortfalls, and how best to deploy available attorney staff to ensure they 

are placed where most needed. Both components are taking steps to 

address this problem—but their efforts to implement new workload 

tracking systems or improve data collection on workforce activities have

not been completed. Data-driven workload tracking and data collection

efforts are necessary to help the legal offices ensure that they are in a 

position to anticipate and justify requests for appropriate resources 

needed to meet mission goals related to immigration enforcement, 

inspection, and service functions, and to make sound and reliable staffing

decisions. 

With respect to ICE, its legal office has not documented performance 

measures or mechanisms for reporting on the status of its enhancements 

to its workload tracking system (the General Counsel Electronic 

Management System). Thus, the legal office may not be able to provide 

reasonable assurance that its enhancements are being implemented as 

intended. Nor may ICE’s legal office be able to effectively monitor its 

progress in making these enhancements. Moreover, ICE has not 

documented its methodology for conducting workforce planning efforts, 

the personnel responsible for conducting such efforts, and its rationale for 

making staffing decisions including any factors it considered in making 

those decisions. Without documentation of this methodology and a 

rationale for making staffing decisions, it will be difficult for the legal 

office to effectively monitor the results of its staffing decisions or for the 

results to be independently validated. Furthermore, without clearly 

documenting the personnel responsible for conducting workforce 

planning efforts, it may not be possible for the legal office to monitor or 

ensure accountability. 

Page 29 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
USCIS also faces challenges associated with its attorney workload 

tracking system. Although USCIS legal office’s Chief of Staff indicated that 

his office has goals, major milestones, work tasks, and monitoring efforts 

associated with implementing this system, there is no written 

documentation associated with any of these elements. Without clearly 

documenting program goals, major milestones, work tasks, products (such 

as the time accounting system), and the associated schedules and 

resources for achieving them, it may not be possible to effectively 

implement this system as intended or on schedule. In addition, as with 

ICE, USCIS’s legal office has not documented performance measures or 

mechanisms for reporting on the status of its workload tracking system. 

Thus, the agency may not be able to provide reasonable assurance that its 

enhancements are being implemented as intended or be able to effectively 

monitor its progress in making these enhancements. Further, as noted for 

ICE, USCIS has not documented its approach for conducting workforce 

planning efforts or the personnel responsible for conducting such efforts. 

While CBP appears to be managing its attorney workforce planning needs 

successfully, and has avoided attorney staffing shortfalls, it too lacks 

formal written documentation that clearly describes the core components 

of its workforce planning efforts—criteria, methodology, analysis, data, 

and the personnel responsible for these efforts. Without this 

documentation, CBP’s planning process cannot be independently 

validated. 

To strengthen the workforce planning efforts needed to achieve the legal

offices’ goals, we recommend that the Secretary of the Department of 

Homeland Security direct the General Counsel to take the following five 

actions: 

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

With respect to ICE’s Office of the Principal Legal Advisor: 

• document an implementation plan for measuring progress in 

making enhancements to the General Counsel Electronic 

Management System and to report on the results of efforts to 

enhance the system and 

• develop documentation that clearly defines its methodology for 

conducting workforce planning efforts, the personnel responsible 

for conducting such efforts to enhance accountability, and its 

rationale for making staffing decisions, including any factors it 

considered in making those decisions. 

Page 30 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
With respect to USCIS’s Office of Chief Counsel: 

• document the office’s plans for implementing a workforce data

management system that clearly explains the goals of such an effort, 

major milestones, work tasks and products and the associated

schedules and resources for achieving them, as well as performance 

measures and reporting mechanisms associated with the effort and 

• develop documentation that clearly describes its approach and the 

personnel responsible for conducting workforce planning efforts 

related to (1) using workforce data and other information related to 

time attorneys spend completing their work activities to develop 

needs assessments and deploy staffing resources where they are 

needed most, and (2) identifying and addressing staffing shortfalls 

to enhance accountability over staffing decisions. 

With respect to CBP’s Office of Chief Counsel: 

• develop documentation that clearly describes its criteria, 

methodology, analysis, data, and the personnel responsible for 

workforce planning efforts related to (1) using workforce data and 

other information related to time attorneys spend completing their 

work activities to develop needs assessments and deploy staffing 

resources where they are needed most, and (2) anticipating or

addressing staffing shortfalls to enhance accountability over staffing 

decisions. 

We provided a draft of this report to DHS for review and comment. DHS 

provided written comments on March 23, 2007, which are presented in 

appendix II. In commenting on the draft report, DHS reported that it 

generally concurred with four of our recommendations, but disagreed with 

the fifth. 

Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

ICE’s legal office agreed with the intent of our first recommendation that it

document an implementation plan for measuring progress in making 

enhancements to the General Counsel Electronic Management System and 

to report on the results of efforts to enhance the system. The legal office 

commented that ICE’s Office of the Chief Information Officer maintains 

documentation on the General Counsel Electronic Management System’s 

life-cycle management process that includes documents such as early 

design description documents, flowcharts of the office processes affected 

by the General Counsel Electronic Management System, recommended 

Page 31 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
office procedures for implementation, and planned enhancements 

description documents. 

We reviewed documents, such as the planned enhancements description 

documents, relevant to this issue prior to sending our draft report to DHS 

for comment. At that time, these documents did not contain information 

on how ICE planned to measure its progress in making enhancements to 

the General Counsel Electronic Management System or how ICE planned

to report on the results of its efforts to enhance the system. However, after 

we provided our draft report to DHS for comment, ICE’s legal office 

drafted a task order to contract with a software developer to assist in 

making enhancements to its General Counsel Electronic Management 

System. As part of this task order, the legal office included a listing of key 

milestones for system enhancements, including information on measuring 

progress in making such enhancements. The legal office also included 

documentation in this task order that clearly articulates how, when, and to

whom a status report on the results of efforts to enhance the system 

should be communicated. We believe these actions address the intent of 

the recommendation and will assist ICE’s legal office in effectively 

monitoring its progress in meeting its goals related to this effort and in 

obtaining reasonable assurance that its enhancements are being 

implemented as intended. 

ICE’s legal office also agreed with our second recommendation, that it 

develop documentation that clearly defines its methodology for 

conducting workforce planning efforts, the personnel responsible for 

conducting such efforts, and its rationale for making staffing decisions, 

including any factors it considered in making those decisions. We believe 

such documentation is necessary to assist ICE’s legal office in reviewing 

and validating its workforce planning decisions and in obtaining 

reasonable assurance that its staffing processes are consistently applied

and sustained over time. 

In addition, ICE’s legal office took issue with our finding that its staffing 

ratio of attorneys to immigration judges is not based on comprehensive 

workload data or grounded in reliable workload data. The legal office 

cited that the ratio was developed within an analytical framework based 

on workload data of the number of active cases, the number of cases 

received, and the time it took to complete a case in immigration court. 

However, as we discussed earlier in this report, officials from ICE’s legal 

office acknowledged that their approach for staffing attorneys and 

identifying shortfalls lacks sufficient workload data, such as the time 

attorneys spend researching and preparing for cases, because the office

does not yet have systems fully in place to track these data, although 

Page 32 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
efforts are under way to collect such data. Thus, the ratio is not based on 

comprehensive workload data. Furthermore, as we discussed earlier in 

this report, the consulting firm the legal office hired to analyze its staffing 

process concluded that the premise of the ratio approach was no longer

valid in light of rising caseloads and an increasing client base. The 

consulting firm also concluded that the premise of the ratio was not valid

because the legal office had experienced a growth in the number of 

attorneys who performed management tasks and these attorneys were not 

included in the calculation of the ratio. Once comprehensive and reliable

workload data are available, the legal office should be in a position to 

appropriately modify the ratio to assist in future workforce planning 

efforts. 

USCIS’s legal office agreed with our third recommendation, that it 

document the office’s plans for implementing a workforce data

management system that clearly explains the goals of such an effort, major 

milestones, work tasks and products, and the associated schedules and 

resources for achieving them, as well as performance measures and 

reporting mechanisms for the effort. The legal office also noted that it 

intends to take action to address this recommendation. 

USCIS’s legal office noted that it generally agreed with our fourth 

recommendation, that it develop documentation that clearly describes its 

approach and the personnel responsible for conducting workforce 

planning efforts. The legal office indicated that once it has identified and

captured workload data, it will be in a better position to determine the 

type and volume of legal services requested by its clients as well as 

whether current attorney levels are sufficient to address the legal needs of 

the agency.

CBP’s legal office did not agree with our fifth recommendation, to develop 

documentation that clearly describes its criteria, methodology, analysis, 

data, and the personnel responsible for conducting workforce planning

efforts. The legal office commented that it had provided us with 

documentation of its workload data and excerpts from its Attorney 

Practice Guide that describes the function and use of its Chief Counsel 

Tracking System (CCTS), an automated system for maintaining workload 

data. While this documentation does provide information on workload 

data for the office, our conclusions and recommendation are based on the 

fact that it does not describe or identify the legal office’s methodology for 

how it systematically analyzes and summarizes this information to 

determine the number of attorneys the legal office needs and where to 

deploy those attorneys. In addition, the legal office commented that it had 

Page 33 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
provided us with copies of two internal memorandums relating to 

addressing staffing shortfalls. However, these memorandums provide 

general information about the legal office’s increased workload in various 

areas, and do not explain how the legal office determined its staffing needs 

or shortfalls. On the basis of the legal office’s comments, we added a 

discussion to this report to clarify the information included in these 

memorandums. 

Although we agree with CBP’s legal office that the degree to which it 

documents its workforce planning efforts is a management decision, we

believe that documentation should be sufficient to allow management 

decisions to be validated by independent review. On the basis of our audit,

we concluded that additional documentation was needed to enhance the 

transparency of the legal office’s decision-making process. Such 

documentation could also be used by the legal office’s management to 

track its workforce planning efforts over time and make continuous 

improvements as appropriate. Furthermore, as previously stated, our 

standards for internal control in the federal government require that 

significant events be clearly documented and that the documentation be 

readily available for examination by an independent entity. Appropriate 

documentation is an internal control activity that helps ensure that 

management’s directives are carried out as intended. Such documentation 

is critical in creating an institutional record in the event of staffing changes 

to help sustain workforce planning procedures over time. 

In addition, CBP’s legal office commented that while workforce planning 

principles included in our exposure draft, A Model of Strategic Human 

Capital Management, may be useful to managing large-scale federal 

operations, it believes the principles are inapplicable to small offices such

as CBP’s legal office, which has nearly 200 attorneys.37 We disagree. We

believe that the core planning principles, critical success factors, and 

fundamental ideas discussed in this report, such as having workforce 

planning approaches with clearly defined, well-documented, transparent, 

and consistently applied criteria for making human capital investments, 

are appropriate for all workforce planning efforts, including those 

conducted by CBP’s legal office. 

DHS also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as 

appropriate.

 37See GAO-02-373SP. 

Page 34 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
We plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days after the date of

this report. At that time, we will send copies to selected Congressional 

Committees; the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and 

other interested parties. We will also make copies available to others on 

request. In addition, the report will be available on GAO’s Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov. 

If your office or staff have any questions concerning this report, please 

contact me at (202) 512-8777 or by e-mail at stanar@gao.gov. Other GAO 

contacts and key contributors to this report are listed in appendix III. 

Richard M. Stana 

Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues 

Page 35 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Appendix I: USCIS Program Office Positions Appendix I: USCIS Program Office Positions Converted to Attorney Positions 

Converted to Attorney Positions 

To help address legal needs of the United States Customs and Immigration 

Service (USCIS) program offices, the USCIS Office of Chief Counsel 

(OCC) told us that its staff meets with the leadership of USCIS’s program 

offices, at least quarterly, to discuss converting vacant positions in the 

program offices to OCC attorney positions. As a result, the USCIS OCC 

reports that it has obtained 10 attorney positions through this process 

since fiscal year 2004. Table 2 illustrates the number of program office 

positions that USCIS converted to attorney positions for fiscal years 

2004 through 2006 by program office. 

Table 2: USCIS Program Office Positions Converted to Attorney Positions for Fiscal 

Years 2004-2006 by Program Office 

Originating program office Number of converted positions

Domestic Operationsa4

National Security Records and Verificationb3

Office of the Chief Information Officerc1

Security and Investigationsd1

Transformatione1

Total 10

 Source: USCIS data. 

a

USCIS Domestic Operations is responsible for processing and adjudicating applications, petitions, 

and related fees and for providing benefit decisions to customers. 

b

The National Security and Records and Verification program office is responsible for establishing 

policies and procedures related to the management of alien files and related records; developing, 

coordinating, and leading the national anti-fraud operations for USCIS; overseeing policies and 

procedures pertaining to background checks on applicants and petitioners; and providing verification 

information to federal, state, and local benefit-granting agencies. 

c

The Office of the Chief Information Officer is responsible for providing leadership in the delivery of 

innovative, reliable, and responsive information technology services to USCIS and its customers. 

d

The Office of Security and Investigations is responsible for overseeing continuity of operations 

planning and implementation, securing communications and document storage, providing security 

awareness training, and implementing agencywide physical and facility security programs. 

e

The Transformation Office is responsible for developing, coordinating, prioritizing, and managing 

plans and initiatives for improving USCIS business processes and technology. 

Page 36 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Appendix II: Comments from the Department Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security

of Homeland Security 

Page 37 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 38 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 39 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 40 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Appendix II: Comments from the Department 

of Homeland Security

Page 41 GAO-07-206 DHS Attorney Workforce Planning
Appendix III: GAO

A

 Contact and Staff 

cknowledgments 

Page 42 GAO-07-206

Appendix III: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

Richard M. Stana (202) 512-8777 

In addition to the contact named above, Debra B. Sebastian, Assistant 

Director; Amy L. Bernstein; R. Rochelle Burns; Frances A. Cook; 

Jennifer A. Gregory; Wilfred B. Holloway; and Paul G. Revesz made key 

contributions to this report. 

DHS Attorney Workforce Planning

GAO Contact: 

Acknowledgments: 

(440521) 
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