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75–642 PDF 2012

UNRESOLVED INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS AT DHS: 

OVERSIGHT OF INVESTIGATION MANAGEMENT 

IN THE OFFICE OF THE DHS OIG 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION, 

EFFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

AUGUST 1, 2012 

Serial No. 112–171 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

http://www.house.gov/reform 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California, Chairman 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

RAU ́ L R. LABRADOR, Idaho 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

JOE WALSH, Illinois 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio 

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

LAWRENCE J. BRADY, Staff Director 

JOHN D. CUADERES, Deputy Staff Director 

ROBERT BORDEN, General Counsel 

LINDA A. GOOD, Chief Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION, EFFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL

MANAGEMENT

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

CONNIE MACK, Florida, Vice Chairman 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York, Ranking 

Minority Member 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on August 1, 2012 ............................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Charles K. Edwards, Acting Inspector General, Department of Homeland 

Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 6 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Mr. David V. Aguilar, Acting Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 20 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 22 

Mr. Daniel H. Ragsdale, Acting Deputy Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 33 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 35 

(1) 

UNRESOLVED INTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS AT 

DHS: OVERSIGHT OF INVESTIGATION MANAGEMENT IN THE OFFICE OF THE DHS OIG 

Wednesday, August 1, 2012, 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION, 

EFFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:35 a.m., in Room 

2203, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Todd Russell Platts 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Platts, Lankford, Farenthold, Towns, 

and Connolly. 

Staff Present: Ali Ahmad, Majority Communications Advisor; 

Molly Boyl, Majority Parliamentarian; John Cuaderes, Majority 

Deputy Staff Director; Linda Good, Majority Chief Clerk; Mitchell 

S. Kominsky, Majority Counsel; Mark D. Marin, Majority Director 

of Oversight; Tegan Millspaw, Majority Research Analyst; Cheyenne Steel, Majority Press Assistant; Noelle Turbitt, Majority Staff 

Assistant; Jaron Bourke, Minority Director of Administration; Beverly Britton Fraser, Minority Counsel; Ashley Etienne, Minority Director of Communications; and Devon Hill, Minority Staff Assistant. 

Mr. PLATTS. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Government 

Organization, Efficiency, and Financial Management will come to 

order. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to conduct oversight of the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General and its 

management of investigative cases. The Department of Homeland 

Security is the third largest department in the Federal Government and has the crucial mission of ensuring the United States’ 

safety, security, and that we are resilient against terrorism and 

other threats. Because of the importance of DHS’s mission, it is 

crucial that it have a fully capable inspector general and staff to 

provide oversight and accountability. 

Over the past few years, DHS OIG has had thousands of open 

investigations that must be properly managed and resolved. Our 

hearing today will review the number of open cases at DHS OIG, 

as well as its recent decision to transfer cases back to Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Protection 

entities. 

2 

As of March 2012, DHS OIG had 2,361 open investigative cases. 

In its latest semiannual report, which covered a six month period 

between October 2011 and March 2012, DHS OIG closed only 730 

cases. This is 31 percent of DHS’s open cases. 

Since 2009 the Office of OIG number of cases has not dropped 

below 2,000 at any point, while the number of cases closed has 

averaged approximately 566 per six month reporting period. 

In April DHS OIG announced that it would transfer cases of misconduct involving employees at the United States Immigration and 

Customs Enforcement and the United States Customs and Border 

Protection entities back to these agencies for handling. In order to 

make sure that allegations of misconduct were fully investigated in 

a timely manner, 377 cases were transferred in April and another 

280 transferred in June. 

While transferring OIG’s case work may help to ensure investigations are resolved more quickly, this process certainly must be 

overseen with great diligence. Allowing ICE and CBP to investigate 

their own misconduct, or staff within their entities, could create the 

appearance of a conflict of interest unless proper internal controls 

are maintained and emphasized. 

Additionally, these transfers have resulted in a 68 percent increase in the cases at ICE and CBP’s internal affairs offices. If ICE 

and CBP do not have sufficient resources to manage these cases, 

it could result in wrongdoing going undetected. 

Our hearing today will review how ICE and CBP are managing 

these cases. It will also focus on the OIG’s relationship with these 

component entities and how it can better collaborate to investigate 

and manage its cases. 

In 2010, DHS OIG wrote, and I would emphasize not the current 

IG, but prior personnel wrote that its relationship with the agency 

was a longstanding problem due to resistance and lack of cooperation with OIG investigations. 

Today we will learn more about that relationship between DHS 

and its OIG and staff, and examine ways to improve collaboration 

from now and into the future. 

The United States is unique in the important role of inspectors 

general. The Inspector General Act of 1978 established IGs to act 

as independent watchdogs over federal departments and agencies. 

Today IGs are on the front lines of preventing waste, fraud, and 

abuse across the Federal Government. Their role directly benefits 

both Congress, in our oversight duties, and taxpayers by creating 

a government that is more transparent and accountable. In order 

to do their jobs well, IGs need to maintain strong accountability 

and integrity, while fostering a collaborative relationship with the 

agencies they oversee. 

DHS OIG has an extremely important task of overseeing an 

agency that protects our borders, guards against terrorism, and ensures the security of our Country here at home. I commend OIG’s 

efforts in moving forward in a productive manner, especially in the 

last year and a half, and working with their component entities 

that are represented here today, and certainly look forward to the 

testimony of all three of our witnesses and the insights you can 

share with this Committee. 

3 

With that, I yield to the Ranking Member, the gentleman from 

New York, Mr. Towns, for the purpose of an opening statement. 

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding 

this hearing today. 

Today we will focus on the efficiency of investigations into employee misconduct at the Department of Homeland Security components, Customs, Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, ICE. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for, again, holding this hearing. 

The largest law enforcement agency in the Country, over 47,000 

law enforcement personnel, are deployed along the U.S. borders, at 

ports of entry and overseas, on a continuous basis to secure our 

borders. 

At ICE, the second largest federal law enforcement agency, over 

20,000 employees enforce federal laws governing border control, 

customs, trade, and immigration. 

These agencies, along with TSA, form the backbone of our homeland security enterprise. 

I want to first acknowledge those that perform their missions 

with integrity and thank them for a job well done. Unfortunately, 

we must turn our attention to the few employees who have disgraced themselves and the agencies that employ them through acts 

of personal misconduct, and in many instances criminality. 

Some employees come into contact with sensitive, sometimes 

classified, information, and in many cases our national security interests lie literally in the palms of their hands. Dishonest employees have leaked sensitive information to drug cartels, smugglers, 

and others under investigation. Others have taken cash bribes or 

other favors in exchange for allowing contraband or undocumented 

aliens to pass through our borders. 

More than 140 CBP officers since 2004 have been arrested or indicted for acts of corruption. Many others are under investigation 

as we sit. 

Corruption or misconduct occurring at DHS can have greater national security implications than misconduct occurring at other federal agencies. For this reason, investigations into CBR and ICE 

employees, misconduct and criminality must be dealt with swiftly 

and efficiently. 

The Office of the Inspector General has the primary authority 

within DHS for investigating allegations of criminality and misconduct among employees. The inspector general has a staff of 219 

investigators and a budget of $150 million to investigate a workforce of over 220,000 employees. That doesn’t seem to be enough. 

With the escalation of complaints of employee misconduct and 

corruption, and a decreasing IG budget, it is not surprising that 

the IG must find innovative ways to move the investigative process 

forward. The CBC Office of Internal Affairs at ICE, the Office of 

Professional Responsibility, are playing a critical role in the investigation of these complaints. 

We have to remember that DHS was only created in 2002, when 

Congress joined together previously independent agencies that may 

not have had a history of cooperating with one another to resolve 

cases. But today cooperation between OIG, ICE, and CBP is exVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:14 Aug 31, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75642.TXT APRIL
4 

tremely important to securing our border personnel against corruption. 

Fortunately, under its current leadership, there is more DHS 

interagency cooperation than ever before. That recent positive development addresses a historic weakness present at the creation of 

DHS. I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses and hope we 

can find stronger pathways forward to such an important mission, 

because working together is very important, and without it we will 

not be able to achieve our goals. 

On that note, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. PLATTS. I thank the Ranking Member. 

Before I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, I just want to echo 

very well stated important statement by the Ranking Member, that 

while we are here to talk about investigations of cases of wrongdoing, that we make sure we herald the great work of the 99 percent plus of the officers, agents, staff of DHS, all the entities who 

do great work, courageous work, are truly on the front lines of protecting this Nation and, Mr. Towns, I thank you for that reminder 

that I intended to include and did not reference. Well stated. 

We are grateful to each of you and your staffs and your offices 

who are out there on the front line. 

With that, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Connolly, 

for an opening statement. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing. I want to commend you personally for your 

longstanding commitment to holding fair and substantive oversight 

hearings that not only highlight deficiencies in government programs, but, importantly, do so in a productive manner, as you just, 

in fact, stated, that allows members to work in a bipartisan fashion 

to implement corrective actions. We are going to miss you around 

here. 

Today’s hearing is focused on the DHS OIG’s performance adjudicating cases and coordinating investigative efforts with the U.S. 

Immigrations, Customs and Enforcement Office of Professional Responsibility, and the U.S. Customs Border Protection’s Office of Internal Affairs. 

However, I believe this hearing actually highlights a far more serious fundamental management challenge that can contribute to 

impeding our efforts across the Federal Government to prevent and 

detect waste, fraud, and abuse, while promoting departmental efficiency, economy, and effectiveness: longstanding vacancies in key 

agency leadership positions. 

The U.S. Senate’s inability to efficiently confirm presidential 

nominees has resulted in a dysfunctional oversight system that increases the threat of fraud and abuse going undetected, while, really, raising a question of the Senate’s constitutional responsibility to 

provide advice and consent in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, it 

has become common for months to pass before non-controversial 

nominees are given an up or down vote. 

A disgraceful, yet increasingly common experience is that of Michael Horowitz, his nomination to be inspector general for the Department of Justice. That was announced on July 29th, 2011, but 

did not receive a vote in the Senate until March 29th of this year, 

at which point he was approved unanimously. 

5 

Most concerning is that IG vacancies appear most prevalent 

among IG positions for the Federal Government’s largest and most 

complex agencies, such as the Department of State, which has been 

without a permanent IG for 1,658 days; the Department of Defense, which has been without a permanent IG for 220 days; and 

the agency that is the focus of today’s hearing, DHS, we are lucky 

to have an acting IG, but it has been without a permanent IG for 

250 days. 

Fortunately, there appears to be bipartisan recognition that 

OIGs require a permanent Senate confirmed leadership to be most 

effective and to best serve the American people. 

Senator Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, stated recently that 

‘‘even the best acting inspector general’s lack the standing to make 

lasting changes needed to improve his or her office.’’ I concur in 

that sentiment and hope even now that we can move forward to ensure federal IGS are adequately staffed, funded, and empowered to 

reduce wasteful spending, increase agency efficiency, and ultimately improve the lives of the people we serve. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PLATTS. I thank the gentleman. You make very important 

relevant points here about the importance of the confirmation process and giving the Department a fully confirmed IG, and hopefully 

that will happen sooner than later. Not because we are not grateful 

for the current work of the acting, but the points that the gentleman made in giving that additional standing and presence of a 

Senate confirmed IG. 

We are going to keep the record open for seven days for any 

members who want to submit opening statements or other materials, and we will now move to our testimony from our witnesses. 

We are honored to have three very distinguished public servants 

with us: Mr. Charles Edwards, Acting Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security; Mr. David Aguilar, Acting Commissioner of the United States Customs and Border Protection; and 

Mr. Daniel Ragsdale, Acting Deputy Director at United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Pursuant to our Committee rules, if I could ask the three of you 

to stand and raise your right hand to be sworn in. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are 

about to give this Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, 

and nothing but the truth? 

[Witnesses respond in the affirmative.] 

Mr. PLATTS. Let the record reflect all witnesses answered in the 

affirmative. 

You will see a light system in front of you. The timer is set for 

five minutes, but if you need to go over that, that is understandable. We appreciate your written testimonies you have given us; I 

call it my homework in preparation for the hearing and allow me 

to have a better understanding and better exchange with you here 

today. But we are glad to have you here in person and share your 

oral testimony, so it is at five, but if you need to go over, don’t 

worry about that. 

We are glad to have you. Mr. Edwards, if you would like to 

begin. 

6 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES K. EDWARDS 

Mr. EDWARDS. Good morning, Chairman Platts, Ranking member 

Towns, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee. Thank 

you for inviting me to testify today about the critical investigative 

work of DHS OIG. 

OIG has 219 criminal investigators deployed at 33 offices around 

the Country, with a concentration of resources in the southwest. 

While OIG has a primary focus on employee corruption, it also has 

jurisdiction for allegations involving DHS contractors and financial 

assistance beneficiaries, including disaster assistance recipients. 

Both the personnel and organizational independence of OIG investigators, free to carry out their work without interference by 

agency officials, is essential to maintaining public trust in the DHS 

workforce. Resulting complex corruption investigations is challenging and time-consuming. OIG makes every attempt to expedite 

these investigations, but some of the more complex investigations 

take time to obtain the necessary evidence of corrupt activity and 

identify any additional employee involvement. 

OIG recognizes the importance of ensuring that corrupt CBP officers and border patrol agencies who are willing to compromise 

homeland security for personal gain are quickly removed from any 

position that would allow harm to the Country, so we work closely 

with the components to balance homeland security needs, while investigating thoroughly to expose all wrongdoers, not just a single 

employee against whom allegations have been made. 

Generally, once a matter has been presented to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and accepted for prosecution, the majority of investigative activity is complete. However, OIG still classifies the case as 

open until all judicial activity is done, which may take years. 

Although case complexity and time to prosecute may extend 

some cases for several years, over 70 percent of OIG’s criminal investigation cases have been open less than 24 months. 

In August 2011, the CBP commissioner and I signed an agreement to enhance joint efforts against border corruption within the 

ranks of CBP workforce. Cooperative efforts between OIG and CBP 

IA have provided OIG with additional assets to meet the challenge 

of CBP’s significant and ongoing expansion. Our agreement established and integrated DHS’s approach to participation with other 

agencies investigating border corruption, recognizing both OIG’s 

obligation to work independently of DHS’s components and the 

need for collaboration and information sharing among law enforcement entities. 

A key component of our investigative strategy is to leverage limited resources and share intelligence with law enforcement at all 

levels. DHS OIG has agents participating in border corruption task 

forces in many parts of the Country. These cooperative relationships ensure that different law enforcement agencies are not pursuing the same targets, which compromises law enforcement 

agents’ safety and is a duplication of effort. 

With respect to information sharing, the OIG and FBI have a 

mutual responsibility under the attorney general guidelines to 

7 

promptly notify one another upon initiation of any criminal investigation. OIG timely meets this responsibility. 

By fiscal year 2011, OIG’s policy to open allegations of employee 

corruption or compromise of border or transportation security, combined with the expanding workforce, led to a 95 percent increase 

over fiscal year 2004 of complaints involving CBP employees. The 

growth of OIG’s cadre of criminal investigators did not match the 

growth in complaints. The increased volume led to increased case 

openings and the DHS OIG investigative staff was taxed beyond its 

capacity. 

As a part of my commitment to ensuring that allegations of employee corruption are fully investigated, ICE Director Morton and 

I agreed, in April 2012, that OIG would transfer 370 cases involving CBP and ICE employees to ICE for completion. As a part of 

OIG oversight of the component internal affairs elements, OIG is 

requiring periodic reports from CBP on the status of the transferred investigations until each is closed. To date, ICE OPR has reported that it transferred about one-third of the cases it received 

to CBP IA and has closed 60 cases. 

Also, in June 2012, OIG transmitted 287 completed investigations involving unknown subjects to the relevant DHS component 

for appropriate action. Because the cases were completed, OIG is 

requiring no follow-up. 

We appreciate the Subcommittee’s attention and interest in 

OIG’s criminal investigative work. We will continue to pursue collaboration with all our law enforcement partners to ensure employee corruption does not jeopardize homeland security. 

Chairman Platts, this concludes my prepared remarks. I would 

be happy to answer any questions that you or the members may 

have. Thank you, sir. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Edwards follows:] 

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Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Edwards. I appreciate your testimony. 

Commissioner Aguilar, before you begin, I just want to recognize, 

as I referenced, appreciate the service of all three of you, but knowing, as we have talked, of your now over 34 years of service, I want 

to especially thank you for your service and leadership to our Nation and all of our citizens, and that dedication especially in such 

an important role with border protection. 

Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID V. AGUILAR 

Mr. AGUILAR. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman Platts, Ranking 

Member Towns, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, 

thank you for the invitation to speak about the ongoing collaboration, the great collaboration, I believe, between U.S. Customs and 

Border Protection, DHS’s Office of Inspector General, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Our efforts to combat corruption 

and maintain integrity within our ranks are critically important to 

CBP and to the public that we serve. 

I would like to begin by recognizing the commitment, the bravery, vigilance, honor, and the character demonstrated by the overwhelming majority of CBP agents and officers who put their lives 

on the line every day to protect our Nation. 

CBP has more than 60,000 employees, including over 47,000 uniformed agents and officers who carry out CBP’s critical mission of 

securing our Nation’s borders, while expediting lawful trade and 

travel. We recognize that public service is a public trust. That public service is a public trust is at the forefront of our interest. 

At the center of CBP’s core values is integrity, and it is of the 

utmost importance that all of our employees are guided by the 

highest ethical and moral principles. Tragically, embarrassingly, a 

small number within our ranks have disgraced, dishonored the 

proud men and women who serve honorably and with distinction 

each day to protect our Nation. 

Although the number of CBP employees who have betrayed the 

trust of the American public and their peers is a fraction of one 

percent of our workforce, we continue to focus our efforts on rooting 

out this unacceptable and deplorable behavior. One act of corruption is one too many. It is unacceptable. 

CBP prides itself on being a family. However, when one member 

of this family strays into criminality, he or she cannot go unchecked and without consequence. Our most valuable, and we recognize, sometimes vulnerable, resource has been and will continue 

to be our employees. They are key to our success in protecting this 

Nation. And it must be emphasized that no act of corruption within 

our agency can or will be tolerated. 

Collaboration amongst us seated at the table here is key to combating corruption and other forms of serious misconduct. We rely 

on our partnerships with the Office of Inspector General, with ICE, 

with FBI to work towards this common goal. 

In December of 2010, CBP and ICE executed a Memorandum of 

understanding that established protocols for agents with CBP’s Office of Internal Affairs and ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility to collaborate in the investigation of CBP employee-related 

21 

misconduct and corruption. CBP and ICE are jointly working currently over 300 cases, many of which are a result of a transfer that 

Mr. Edwards just talked about, that came about as a result of our 

May 2012 agreement. 

To date, ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility and CBP’s Office of Internal Affairs have closed over 60 of these cases. 

In August of 2011, CBP entered into a similar MOU with the 

DHS OIG and deployed 14 CBP internal affairs agents to OIG offices across the United States. This had never happened before. 

Today, CBP internal affairs agents are working side-by-side with 

DHS OIG agents on approximately 90 CBP employee-related investigations of alleged corruption and misconduct. 

Collaboration with our DHS partners has greatly enhanced our 

effectiveness and has given CBP leadership unprecedented insight 

into the threat that potentially corrupt employees may pose to the 

homeland, giving us the opportunity to make adjustments, to look 

at our processes, and instill new workforce policies in order to 

avoid any kind of corruption. 

Consistent with ICE and OIG efforts to pursue criminal investigations, CBP is also striving to more effectively use administrative authorities that rest within our capabilities to mitigate the 

threat caused by CBP employees accused of corruption during the 

course of an investigation. This may include reassignment to administrative duties, administrative leave, indefinite suspension, 

suspension of law enforcement authorities, or other appropriate actions. This forward-leaning approach provides CBP with the flexibility to address the threat posed by employee corruption and misconduct in a manner that reduces the impact on the agency, our 

mission, and the responsibilities to the American public. 

Chairman Platts, Ranking Member Towns, members of the Subcommittee, again, we thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

Integrity is the great cornerstone of everything that we do at CBP 

on a daily basis in protecting this Nation. I look forward to addressing any questions that you might have of us. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Aguilar follows:] 

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Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Commissioner. 

Mr. Ragsdale? 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL H. RAGSDALE 

Mr. RAGSDALE. Good morning. Thank you. Chairman Platts, 

Ranking Member Towns, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of Secretary Napolitano and Director Morton, 

thank you for the opportunity to appear today and discuss the 

ways in which ICE upholds DHS’s standards for integrity and professionalism. 

With more than 20,000 employees in 72 offices around the world, 

ICE is the second largest federal investigative agency. ICE promotes homeland security and public safety through criminal and 

civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, 

trade, and immigration. While the vast number of ICE and DHS 

employees perform their law enforcement and other duties with 

honor every day, isolated acts of employee misconduct do sometimes occur. 

As noted in my written testimony, ICE’s Office of Professional 

Responsibility is a robust program with over 500 employees and 

252 special agents trained to investigate border crime and misconduct offenses. ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility works 

closely with our partners in DHS and CBP to ensure that a vigorous process exists to ensure the integrity of our shared mission. 

To build on the partnership between DHS IG, ICE, and CBP, two 

MOUs were executed to ensure close collaboration among the agencies. In December 2010, ICE and CBP entered into a Memorandum 

of understanding that assigned CBP internal affairs personnel to 

ICE OPR to assist in investigations of CBP employee criminal misconduct. In August 2011, the IG and CBP executed a similar 

memorandum of understanding. I can candidly say that we did not 

always have this level of collaboration. However, I am proud to report that the MOUs have reinforced ICE’s commitment to providing complete and timely awareness in cases involving criminal 

misconduct by DHS employees. 

One example of the collaboration with our partners was found in 

the investigation of former CBP officer Devon Samuels in Atlanta. 

This individual used his position of trust to bypass TSA security 

measures to smuggle drugs, money, and guns for a Jamaican drug 

trafficking organization. ICE partnered in this effort with CBP’s internal affairs and the DHS IG and federal, local, and international 

private partners. The investigation led to 17 arrests and the seizure of 15 guns, a kilogram of cocaine, more than 300 pounds of 

marijuana, a quarter of a million units of ecstacy, and a quarter 

of a million dollars in U.S. currency. Samuels ended up being sentenced to eight years in jail. 

Likewise, in an ICE–OPR-led case with support from the FBI, 

former ICE special agent Jovana Deas was criminally convicted for 

abusing her position of trust to share information from law enforcement databases with members of a drug trafficking organization. 

Following this ICE-led investigation, she was arrested, pled this 

February to a 21 count indictment, and resigned her position. She 

was recently sentenced to two and a half years in jail. 

34 

While not every case involves the kind of allegations I just described, we regard every example of employee misconduct as potentially undermining our critical mission, and we take every matter 

that comes to our attention seriously. 

As you know, as part of our continuing commitment to effective 

law enforcement, in May 2012, the DHS IG transferred approximately 370 cases to ICE regarding criminal and administrative 

misconduct allegations. ICE and CBP promptly began working to 

determine the next investigative steps needed in each case. Since 

we received the cases, ICE has transferred 155 non-criminal cases 

to CBP for administrative action and returned 4 to the IG. 195 

cases remain open with ICE OPR, with assistance from CBP IA. 

Further, I am proud to note, as the commissioner said, our partnership with CBP has already been effective in closing over 60 

cases. As we strive toward swift resolution of these cases, regardless of the outcome, we look forward to resolving the remaining 

cases as efficiently as possible. 

We are heavily invested in addressing all issues of misconduct to 

ensure that ICE upholds public trust and conducts its mission with 

integrity and professionalism. I am proud of the honesty of the 

overwhelming majority of ICE employees and assure you that the 

rare cases of employee misconduct are dealt with swiftly and fairly. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to address you today, and 

I welcome any questions you may have. Thank you. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Ragsdale follows:] 

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Mr. PLATTS. Thank you, Mr. Ragsdale. 

I will yield myself five minutes for the purpose of questioning to 

kick things off. 

General Edwards, I will start with you in the sense of just the 

overall big picture and the number of cases, as referenced in my 

testimony, the number of open cases that remain, now over 2,000 

for several years. 

In your written testimony, as well as here today, in talking about 

the demands on your workforce and a significant increase in the 

number of open cases in recent years, and there is a chart that 

shows the number of open cases kind of spiking up here; whereas, 

the number of closed cases is pretty level. Is it fair to say that one 

aspect of the number of open cases is related to the huge ramp up 

in border protection officers, customs, so we have many more personnel up there, and with more personnel comes greater risk, especially with the type of enemy that we are dealing with here, the 

drug cartels and terrorist organizations, what we are guarding 

against, that, first, the amount of increase in that workload is directly due to the increase in the size of these component entities? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Chairman. Let me start by saying 

that the vast majority of CBP employees are not having this corruption issue. Our border patrol has increased over 38 percent in 

the last several years and OIG has remained relatively flat. OIG 

is fully supportive of the President’s budget; however, we have been 

asking for resources over the last several years. 

As of July 15, we have 1,591 open cases. We have done a number 

of things internally, and also a number of things, based on Secretary Napolitano’s leadership, both Director Morton and Commissioner Aguilar and myself met to force multiply and get more resources to address the cases. Out of the 1,591, there are 661 employee corruption and there is about, non-employees, 473; and a 

majority of them, 457 of them, are unnamed subjects. 

We have done a number of things internally. One is when we 

have tried to vet this turnout the unnamed subjects to a potential 

lead and then we still kept holding on to it. What we have done 

now is when we cannot get any further with that, they close that. 

That was the 287 that we transferred to ICE on the second round. 

We have a holding it and trying to come up with some more information, but it is not getting us anywhere. So that was holding us. 

The other thing is also, the way we categorize our cases, we have 

open and closed. When you look at the number of cases that are 

open, a lot of these cases, well over 70 percent of these cases are 

open less than two years. But what we found was, or what we are 

finding is that a number of these cases we have done the investigative work and we are waiting for the U.S. attorneys for some judicial action. So now we are have categorized our system to better 

capture that. 

So these are some of the internal things we are doing, and also 

working with our partners, the commissioner and John Morton, we 

are able to force multiple and work the cases. So there is no backlog; we have this under control. 

Mr. PLATTS. Let me come back to that, about the backlog. So internally you have requested additional funds for more investigation 

related personnel, but that has not been included, ultimately, in 

46 

the decision, what is submitted up here as far as the President’s 

budget? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right. Every year since 2009 I have been requesting 50 investigators. 

Mr. PLATTS. Yes. As far as not having a backlog, with over 1500 

still open and, again, recognizing the limitation of your resources, 

there is only so many investigators you can assign to pursue these 

cases, what would constitute a backlog? If it is over 2,000 or at 

what point do you have a backlog that each of these cases—because 

I don’t think, of the ones that are open, are all 1,500-plus actively 

being worked? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. PLATTS. So none are sitting, waiting for attention? 

Mr. EDWARDS. No, sir. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. 

Mr. EDWARDS. What has happened, as you indicated earlier, out 

of the 2,061 open cases, our average caseload for an agent was well 

over 12 cases per agent. These are some of the most complex. If it 

is a FEMA disaster relief fraud case, an agent can hold up to 22 

to 25 cases. But every one of these cases were worked, but it was 

just the volume of it was too much for them to handle. And then 

we were also holding on these unnamed subjects. So working this 

partnership, we were able to transfer some of these. But there has 

not been any case that has been in a backlog or pending or not 

being investigated. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. 

Mr. Ragsdale, of the 270 or 280 or so cases that were transferred 

back most recently that were the ones that were unnamed and ICE 

kind of ran the distance on them, couldn’t find anything, transferred back, where do those stand now with ICE? Are they still 

being looked at to see if you can identify other leads or are they 

being closed out? What is the status? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. Well, that is exactly right. We are obviously looking at every case to make sure that there is no investigative steps 

that are outstanding, but as the inspector general said, at least in 

the IG’s view, those cases should be closed, so we will obviously do 

just a quick independent look to see if there is any logical next 

steps that could be gleaned from our vantage point and, if not, then 

they will be closed. 

Mr. PLATTS. Quick final question. I am way over my time before 

I go to the Ranking Member. To all three of you, are you aware 

of any cases that because of the volume and the increase, without 

the increase in staffing to account for the increase in volume, that 

statute of limitation on a possible criminal charge has run because 

of just the inability to get all the way through that case in a timely 

fashion? 

Mr. EDWARDS. No, sir. It is the agents’ responsibility and the 

manager at the local office to make sure that they work with the 

U.S. Attorney’s Office to make sure that the statute of limitations 

does not run out. If there is a potential for that to happen, we all, 

working with our components, we always start working the HR 

piece of it so the administrative action can take place. We haven’t 

gotten anywhere where the statute of limitation has run out. 

47 

Mr. PLATTS. So when you talk about open cases with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and kind of waiting, it is not to the point where you 

are waiting and, while you are waiting, a statute is running? You 

are tracking that so that, if you are getting close, it gets a higher 

attention, trying to make sure that charges are properly filed and 

the statute is told? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Absolutely, sir. Another thing we have done internally with our case management system is an agent is supposed to 

submit a memorandum of activity when he meets with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to get an update of the case, to see where it is. That 

information needs to be uploaded into our case management system and his or her immediate supervisor should also be approving 

that. We also have the ability at headquarters in DHS OIG now 

to randomly go and select, and we also have alerts in place so we 

are aware of this and make sure that we take active steps. 

But also one point, sir, is while we are working, because many 

times the U.S. attorney would require us to get multiple transactions to prove an intent, but just in case the U.S. attorney does 

not accept it, we get the components involved early on so the HR 

piece of it can start so we are not waiting to the tail end to do that 

part of it. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. 

And Commissioner Aguilar, Mr. Ragsdale, as far as your knowledge of any cases where the statute has run, are you familiar with 

any? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. From the ICE OPR perspective, we have not seen 

any cases where the statute of limitations has run in the criminal 

context. And as the IG said, the administrative context does not 

have an applicable statute of limitations, so, from our perspective, 

we have not seen any cases that have become stale because of the 

statute. 

Mr. AGUILAR. My response would be the same. We count on the 

case management and our two partnerships. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. Thank you. 

I yield to the Ranking Member for the purpose of questions. 

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me just ask all of you how have the MOUs improved the 

working relationship and information sharing between your organizations. Has it helped? Right down the line. Mr. Edwards? Right 

down. Yes. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you, sir. Absolutely. There is absolutely no 

turf battles between OIG, CBP, or ICE or the Bureau. Sitting up 

at the component head level, we have excellent working relationship. We need to put that in writing and make sure that the agents 

at the field office level work well together; we just have to have a 

process in place. And getting this MOU to work together, because 

if you look at it, it is a DHS problem and we have to address this 

together. 

If you don’t have the resources, you have to use the force multiplier. And having this MOU signed with CBP really has enabled 

CBP agents to work under our supervision, but also have given the 

commissioner meaningful information that he was looking for, because getting rid of an employee is not just the immediate solution. 

For example, if you have a weed, just pulling out the weed isn’t 

48 

going to help; you need to get to the root of the problem. And working jointly with us and sharing that information with the commissioner has been very fruitful. 

Mr. TOWNS. So duplication is not a problem? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, there is no duplication, sir, because we are 

trying to avoid that. That is why we are working together, we are 

working the same case. There is well over 90 cases, as the commissioner talked about, that we are working together. They are not 

working independently or we are not working independently; we 

are working jointly together under our authority. So, one, the IG’s 

independence is never sacrificed. We are transparent. At the same 

time, the commissioner gets meaningful information on where the 

cases are. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Congressman, I would answer your question in the 

following manner. The current relationship that we have between 

our three organizations is unprecedented. The level of transparency, both on the quantity, the type of issues that we are facing, 

the cases that we are facing, and the qualitative efforts ongoing between us we have never seen before. 

As to the duplicity duplication effort, because of the relationship 

that we have, it provides for de-confliction at the lowest level and 

at the earliest time in any one of these cases. So it gives me, it 

gives us in CBP an insight that we have never had before, gives 

us the ability to act as quickly as possible in support of removing 

any possibility of integrity lapses, ethical lapses and things of that 

nature. So I am very happy to report that we are at a level that 

is tremendous. I think all of us would agree that we have some 

challenges ahead of us, but with the processes in place, we have 

good processes in place to continue chipping away at the things 

that may challenge us in the future. 

Mr. TOWNS. It is encouraging. 

Yes? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. And I would just add that what the MOUs do is 

balance very nicely some competing interests. If either the IG or 

ICE OPR has a criminal case open on an employee, we certainly 

want to balance the integrity of that investigation to make sure 

that it is secure in itself. Having said that, there has to be transparency to CBP and ICE managers to make sure that the extent 

that employee’s ability to damage border security is limited. So we 

see a very nice balance in these MOUs that balance those competing interests. 

And certainly from the ICE perspective, as we know that employee corruption does not exist in a vacuum, and as we look at 

transnational border crime, ICE homeland security investigations 

often has paralleled investigations that may in fact be an umbrella 

of a criminal strategy of which the employee misconduct was only 

one piece. So we are seeing a very good level of coordination among 

us, as well as sort of a very integrated strategy to make sure that 

the employee misconduct is not allowed to sort of damage border 

security. 

Mr. TOWNS. Let me put this properly out. Have you evaluated 

overall trends or patterns of corruption that could lead to problems? Have you looked at that in any way, the overall pattern? I 

guess to you, Mr. Edwards. The overall pattern in terms of the 

49 

trends that have led to corruption that you could point to something specific. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, if you look at the CBP or the border corruption, the drug cartels have the resources, the money, and they have 

the technology, and they want to infiltrate DHS employees. Not 

only just getting to one corrupt employee, and corrupting the employee could be for—the employee could be going through financial 

difficulties, gambling debts, or sexual infidelity, and the drug cartels know this, so they target this one employee. 

So just by getting rid of that one employee is not a deterrent, because you need to make sure these law enforcement officers, there 

is a process in place, and if there is corruption, the penalty is you 

are going to be, hopefully, serving time. So just getting rid of the 

employee is not going to be helpful. 

Also, like I indicated earlier, we need to get to the root of the 

problem and see what is causing that and get rid of that. So as we 

are looking at—but at the same time it is just a small percentage 

of the entire CBP workforce, so I don’t want to say that the entire 

CBP is a problem; there is just a very small number, and these 

small numbers are getting influenced by the drug cartels. 

Mr. TOWNS. Do you think any kind of special training would 

make a difference? 

Mr. AGUILAR. Congressman, you have asked some very, very important questions here, and, if I might, and this goes to one of the 

questions that the Chairman asked. The successes that we have 

had in hardening the borders to the degree that we have and making them as safe as they are today, which, by the way, they are 

safer today than they have been in decades, has caused some of the 

situations that we are looking at. The Chairman’s question as to 

the escalation, in my years of service, it used to be that what we 

used to worry about the most was the dopers, the alien smugglers, 

the coyotes basically walking around us, getting around us because 

there was just not enough of us in physical presence, in technological capability, investigators and things of that nature. 

As a Country, we have ramped up our capability tremendously 

over the last eight, nine years, especially over the last two to three 

years. What that has caused now is because they can no longer go 

around us, below us, over us because we are in the water, we are 

in the air, we are actually have tunnel detection and thing of that 

nature, now they come at us, directly towards our employees, trying to corrupt us. So that is one of the reasons. So our success is 

part of the issue here, so we need to recognize that. 

And then every time that we take a look for developing trends, 

we look at the stats, we look at the numbers, we look at activities 

and things of that nature. Some quick stats that we have looked 

at: of the 141 cases, the average time in service of the officers that 

have fallen by the wayside is about 9.2, 9.3 years in service. We 

took a look at the time frame of the so-called hiring surge, between 

2006 and 2009; a total of 21 employees hired during that time 

surge are part of that 141. Very small compared to the over 9,000 

border patrol that we hired. So we take a look at those trends all 

the time. 

One of the most important things that we do, which goes to the 

latter part of your question, as to training or anything else that we 

50 

take a look at, is we now take a look and de-construct at every opportunity every one of these corruption cases, looking to whether 

it was a failure of the individual to go corrupt and, if so, was there 

a failure on the part of leadership on procedural processes that we 

need to take a look and make adjustments in order to tighten up 

a process, or is it an organizational process that we need to take 

a look at. So we are constantly looking for those trends and for 

ways to address it. 

One of the things that we often do is focus on what I would call 

the obvious. When we take the actions that we take on investigating allegations, we need to do that and we need to do better 

and we need to do more. That is what I refer to as the reactive portion of our responsibility. Again, I reiterate, do better and do more, 

as we are doing today. 

But more importantly to me, from an organizational standpoint, 

is taking a look at what we can do preemptively, what we can do 

proactively to constantly be persistent in trying to prevent integrity 

lapses or corruption situations, do more of the reactive and then do 

a heck of a lot more in the area of sustaining a culture that is just 

not accepting of any lapses in integrity and corruption. 

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you very much. Thank you. 

Mr. PLATTS. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Ragsdale? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. The only thing I would add is I think one of the 

things that we have seen is we look at border crime and sort of 

transnational criminal organizations. One of the reasons why we 

are particularly effective at locating what is, thankfully, a very 

small number of employees is the folks in ICE OPR come from 

homeland security investigations, where they are trained or ready 

to investigate border crimes. 

So we see a technique here to exploit employees, as the commissioner said, because of the hardening and security that exists on 

the border now. So as we look at sort of drug trafficking organizations’, nailing smuggling organizations’ ability to move both contraband and people across the border, we see this as a technique and 

we see these robust misconduct investigations in the larger strategy to combat transnational crime. 

Mr. TOWNS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your generosity. 

Mr. PLATTS. You are welcome. 

I now yield to the distinguished gentleman from Texas, Mr. 

Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. I would like to first 

start and ask Mr. Edwards kind of a Texas based question, but it 

also has huge national implications. The DHS OIG is under grand 

jury investigation for falsifying documents out of the McAllen Office. Can you give us an update, understanding that there is obviously litigation involved, as to what is happening there and what 

has happened to the personnel in that office? 

Mr. EDWARDS. There is a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice and I am not at liberty to comment on that, sir. 

I would be glad to come by and talk to you in a private setting. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Can you tell us what has happened to the 

agents there? The Center for Investigative Reports has said, I 

51 

think, 11 of them are on administrative leave and others are being 

transferred. Can you tell me if that report is accurate? 

Mr. EDWARDS. There are 8 people on administrative leave. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, my concern is you have to be very worried when the watchdog organization is having some problems. Do 

we have an issue where there is such a pressure to get cases 

turned out that we are doing sloppy work or there is something encouraging employees to take shortcuts? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Without getting into specifics of that investigation, sir, I want to point out that there is not an overload, there 

are not too many cases that an agent has to work. I have and we 

have put effective processes in place to ensure that the integrity of 

our cases are maintained. We have policies and procedures both 

from an agent perspective and also from a case management and 

a review process that there is integrity in the work that we do. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Well, with the number of investigations going 

on, not just within your organization, but within the government 

in general, you see the length of time it is taking getting longer 

and longer, and in a lot of instances employees under investigation 

are on administrative leave, and we are basically paying them to 

sit at home. So obviously the delay is costing the taxpayers some 

money. 

Can you talk a little bit about the decision-making process, about 

what the OIG determines they are going to investigate versus what 

they refer back to the various internal affairs or professional responsibility departments of other agencies? What are the guidelines there or the general principles that are in place? 

Mr. EDWARDS. According to the IG Act and Homeland Security 

Act and our internal management directive, all employee corruption criminal investigation comes to the OIG and OIG opens these 

allegations and works these cases not by themselves; we work 

jointly with many of our partners. For instance, in the 1,591 cases 

I talked about that are open, we have about 18 cases we are working with the BCTF even though we haven’t signed a MOU there; 

we are working with the FBI on 142 cases; and we are working on 

a number of cases internally with ICE OPR and with ICE HSI and 

with CBP IA. So we open the case and if there are cases that we 

are not going to work them, we transfer them over to ICE OPR. 

But we still have very strict and stringent internal controls and reporting process to report back to us. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Now, does that leave you the resources? I always envision the way it should work is the Office of Inspector 

General is a big picture organization that is looking for waste, 

fraud, and abuse almost on an institutional basis, while the internal affairs is more towards an individual agent or officer. Do you 

have the resources to do investigations of the big picture? Is there 

enough resources for you or people in your office to be looking at 

the forest, instead of just focusing on the trees? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Absolutely, sir. That is why we have taken a number of internal steps to better and streamline our processes internally, and also working with our partners within DHS, but at the 

same time looking at the big picture, that is what our audit function does; they look at systemic issues, they look at programmatic 

issues, and that is also what our inspections division does. So apart 

52 

from looking at a specific individual and allegation that an investigation looks, the overarching for audit function and there is not 

just at CBP or TSA or ICE, we look at DHS as a whole, and our 

audit function does a number of reports on that. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. I see my time has expired. 

Mr. PLATTS. I thank the gentleman. 

I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 

Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank you. 

Mr. Ragsdale, your title is Acting Deputy Director? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. It is. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Why are you Acting? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. I am a member of the Senior Executive Service. 

I am permanently in a different job at ICE, but I have been Acting 

since June, early June. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But why isn’t there a permanent deputy director? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. The last permanent deputy director just left the 

post and we are looking to see when the job will be filled permanently. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Aguilar, your title is Acting Commissioner. 

Mr. AGUILAR. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Why are you Acting? 

Mr. AGUILAR. My answer is very simple, sir: the commissioner 

that was nominated was not confirmed. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. By the U.S. Senate. 

Mr. AGUILAR. By the U.S. Senate back in the December, and the 

Secretary asked me to step in; I did back in January. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And, Mr. Edwards, you are an Acting Inspector 

General. Why are you Acting? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, having a permanent inspector general is desirable, but I can tell you, even as Acting, I have not taken this 

job as Acting for a day; I have ensured and made sure that I act 

very independent. The secretary, deputy and all of the component 

heads treat me as being very—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. No, Mr. Edwards, absolutely true. By all accounts, all three of you have sterling reputations and are doing a 

great job in service to your Country and to the respective agencies. 

I am asking a different question, though. Why don’t we have a permanent, an inspector general, as opposed to an acting inspector 

general? 

Mr. EDWARDS. There is no nominee yet, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. There is no nominee. Had there been one? 

Mr. EDWARDS. There was one, yes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. And what happened to that? 

Mr. EDWARDS. The Senate did not confirm. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Senate did not confirm. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Let me take back. The Senate had a confirmation 

hearing and they did not vote on it. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Did not vote on it. They must be very busy over 

there, that distracts them from their advise and consent role. 

I just want to ask each of you to comment on the relationship 

you have with the intelligence sections of your respective agencies. 

How would you characterize the relationship between, for example, 

53 

DHS, Mr. Edwards, OIG investigators and the intelligence sections, 

various intelligence sections of DHS? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Sir, I just want to go back. You asked me the 

question about the nominee. One last point I wanted to add to that 

question. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Sure. 

Mr. EDWARDS. The nominee to the press reporting withdrew herself. That is the latest on that. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Sometimes, though, somebody—I mean, I can’t 

judge the merits of the case, but a reasonable human being at some 

point is unwilling to put their life entirely on hold for months and 

months and months and years and years and years, and may very 

well decide to get on with their life and withdraw their nomination 

because it is just more than a mortal can bear. 

Mr. EDWARDS. Answering your question about working with intelligence within DHS, I am also part of the intelligence IG form, 

so we do a number of inspections on the intelligence portion of 

DHS, but I am also among the 15 or so IC committee members, I 

am an active member of that as well. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. But I guess I am asking a little different question, and I welcome Mr. Aguilar and Mr. Ragsdale to also comment 

on this. In theory, if I am doing highly classified intelligence work 

that needs to be carefully guarded in terms of what we are trying 

to do and the mission is very important, I may not want some pain 

in the neck IG staffer coming into my shop and mucking around 

and perhaps, like an elephant in a china shop, stepping on very 

fragile glass that we worked so carefully to protect or create or 

whatever, and my cooperation might just be culturally wanting, for 

reasons I think are good. Maybe you don’t, but—I don’t mean I, the 

congressman, but if I were in that situation, you could see how that 

mentality might develop. Is that a problem, in getting cooperation 

from intelligence sections in respective agencies? Mr. Ragsdale? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. Well, from my perspective, we understand our obligation as a component to respond to the IG. Certainly, the IG, 

like ICE employees that have security clearances, in fact, make 

sure that those are appropriate at the appropriate levels to make 

sure the information flows freely. Again, the inspector general sits 

in a unique place in the department, and we have an obligation to 

respond. So I know of no problem in that regard. 

If I may also just add to your first question. This job is not a political appointment; it is not a Senate confirmation job. 

Mr. AGUILAR. To your question, sir, specific to intelligence, I 

think all of us recognize the importance of intelligence to any kind 

of enforcement work that we are responsible for carrying out. In 

Customs and Border Protection, we actually took the affirmative 

act of not only creating, when we created our office of intelligence, 

but we created our office of intelligence and investigative liaison 

because of that recognition. So our head of intelligence has basically, I am going to say, daily, ongoing contact with our investigative partners in order to ensure that any kind of intelligence that 

is gleaned either by us or by them is instituted in carrying forth 

our responsibilities, to include ethics, integrity, and corruption. 

54 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Just a final point. I am over my time, but, Mr. 

Edwards, would you concur it really hasn’t been much of a problem, cooperation? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, at the highest level the cooperation is there, 

at the best level. I don’t want to sit here and say that it is a perfect 

marriage. That is why we have IGs. IGs will go and say they are 

there to help and, really, some people may not like that part of 

they are there to help. At the same time, if there are instances that 

there is not cooperation, we have a resolution and de-confliction 

process. So, overall, it has been working very well in my tenure at 

DHS OIG. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you very much. 

My time is up, Mr. Chairman. Thank you again for holding this 

hearing. 

Mr. PLATTS. I thank the gentleman and thank him for his participation. 

I am going to yield to myself again for a second round, a couple 

follow-up questions. One is initially, I guess, more of a comment. 

Inspector General Edwards, you had stated earlier absolutely no 

turf battles today, and that is, I think, an important message to be 

heard today, which probably two years or so ago might have been 

very different, and that is an important part of this hearing; where 

are we, where have we come from, where are we heading, and that 

is, I think, critically important. 

And then related to that, Commissioner Aguilar, you referenced, 

again, the positive interactions and MOUs and the cooperation and 

kind of more unprecedented understanding of cases that you have 

because of that cooperation. But you also said yet we have challenges ahead of us. What would you, and then if I could ask the 

other two as well, each of you to identify, what are the greatest 

challenges, as we go forward, to maintain and further enhance the 

cooperation that is ongoing so that, two years from now, we are not 

back to where we have department personnel, IG personnel saying, 

hey, there is no real relationship here, there is no cooperation, and 

that we don’t revert back? So what are those challenges and how 

do we guard against going back? 

Mr. AGUILAR. I think one of the challenges that we have at this 

point in time is making sure that we do everything that we can to 

institutionalize what we have now come to recognize the right way 

of doing business. I lived this two years ago, and two years ago it 

was not a good way of doing business. When the component heads 

got together, decided to move forward, we started making some 

strides immediately. The advancements that we have made have 

been tremendous. 

There is a recognition on the part of us; more importantly, I 

think, there is a recognition on the part of our people on the 

ground, the boots on the ground that really do the work. So it is 

continuing the relationship; it is building the institutionalization of 

these processes to ensure that we do not step back, regardless who 

is sitting at these chairs five, ten years from now. 

Mr. PLATTS. And before the others answer, in reference to Mr. 

Connolly’s question, identifying all three of you as Acting, given the 

direction we are heading with all three of you as Acting, maybe we 

don’t want permanent. Maybe Acting is good. Because we seem to 

55 

be heading in that right direction and that cooperation. The three 

of you aren’t just here at the table today together, but are interacting on a regular basis, and your subordinates. And I think that 

is an important aspect, is putting in place the structure so, as you 

well stated, whoever will be in these seats in the coming years, if 

it is not you, that we still have the same level of cooperation. 

General Edwards? 

Mr. EDWARDS. I totally agree with what the commissioner said. 

Having these MOUs solidifies that. We have to continue in that direction; we cannot go back. But also within DHS we know it is inherently DHS’s problem and we are trying to address it. My hope 

is that I need to have an MOU with the Bureau. 

Mr. PLATTS. I am sorry, say that again, with the Bureau? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. I have been working for the last several 

months meeting with officials from FBI, and I am hopeful. We have 

agreement in the majority of areas, and as long as IG independence 

and transparency is attained, I am really, really hopeful that we 

will have a signed MOU that we all can work together jointly and 

get this, because it is a problem that we all need to address, and 

everybody’s heart is in the right place and we just need to move 

forward. 

Mr. PLATTS. Mr. Ragsdale? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. I would just add, also, as the commissioner and 

the inspector general said, what we certainly want to see is a complete codification of sort of the business practice that has led to an 

appropriate level of workload at each of our various components at 

the front end. As we all staff the Joint Intake Center, or as we 

know it, the JIC, we want to make sure that at the earliest possible stage the cases are assigned out for early action. 

From the ICE OPR perspective, we complete most cases, or at 

least for the year, about 80 percent in about six months, and we 

are actually doing a little better so far in fiscal year 2012. We want 

to make sure that we can continue to do that, and the way to do 

that is obviously to have sort of the cases separated as early as 

possible. 

Mr. PLATTS. And that goes to, I guess, a follow-up about the challenges that none of the three of you referenced, and that is the 

caseload and that early identification. Is it safe to say, IG, that the 

roughly 600 or so, the two turn-backs combined, that going forward 

there is probably going to be an effort to better identify them up 

front or more quickly to go back, versus holding them and then 

turning them back at a latter date? Is that a fair statement about 

the approach? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Absolutely. I mean, we have given more authority 

to the SACs in the field. For instance, if there is a SAC and they 

have 10 agents, and there is an average of about nine cases a person, and the more allegations that come in, rather than adding to 

the inventory, the SAC needs to make a quick, immediate judgment and assess it, and then look at the case details and transfer 

it over to ICE OPR. So, system-wise, we have put processes in 

place and also this cooperation that we are venturing towards and 

want this to happen. I think this is a good way of addressing the 

cases now and in the future. 

56 

Mr. PLATTS. With the caseload that has come back, the number 

of cases that have come back, certainly it has increased significantly the caseload that your entities are handling. Do you envision, at your level, making requests for additional staff investigators, as well as the IG has been making at the department level? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. One of the things that does make ICE somewhat 

unique in this situation is because we have between 6,500 and 

7,000 special agents in homeland security investigation, ICE OPR 

is able to, internally within ICE, get extra investigative support 

sort of internally. In sort of an era of sort of limited resources, we 

have to be very careful about sort of balancing requests for additional personnel, but we do have the luxury at least for what I 

would say a built-in surge capacity at ICE that will let us sort of 

deal with this both now and going forward. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. 

Mr. AGUILAR. In the case of CBP, Chairman, we have a total of 

about, as of this morning, 199 investigators assigned to these types 

of cases. At the present time, I think between both entities here, 

we have probably close to 50 officers; of those officers assigned to 

either one of these entities on either side of me. They serve as force 

enhancers to ICE and to IG. I believe that we could add some more 

to ICE and IG from within the ranks of the ones that we have now. 

So at the present time I think we are in good shape. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. Thank you. 

Inspector General Edwards, you talked about the 140-plus cases 

that you are currently working with the FBI, and then also about 

working to try to get an MOU with the Bureau. How would you 

describe that relationship, where it is today versus a year ago? You 

have been in your position about a year and a half, maybe from 

when you came in to where it is today, and where you are trying 

to get with that MOU? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Right after I signed the MOU with Commissioner 

Burson, my next step was to work with the Bureau, so I met with 

officials there and talked to them about the IG independence and 

also having an agreement with them, because in March of 2010 we 

didn’t sign the BCTF MOU because it didn’t take into account IG 

independence. So I expressed my desire to work with them and 

they seemed very interested and willing to do as well. But as we 

have progressed over several months, there are key issues that 

they are working, and I am hopeful that we will get that resolved. 

I am hopeful before my tenure is up that an MOU is signed. 

But at the same time, at the field level, the 142 cases, whether 

it is the Bureau, DEA, ATF, ICE, or CBP IA, at the field level the 

agents really work well together, because when you look down, 

there are only a few agents; they have to work together. The relationship is great. Even though we haven’t signed the BCTF MOU, 

there are a number of places we are working cases together. It is 

just in the headquarters level we need to come to an agreement so 

we set a precedence in place that, going forward, we are going to 

work this way, have a signed MOU, and I am hopeful of that. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. Thank you. 

My colleague from Texas talked about the McAllen situation. I 

realize you can’t go into the details there, but also how it relates 

at headquarters with the top two officials at the Office of InvestigaVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:14 Aug 31, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\75642.TXT APRIL
57 

tions being on leave as well. That is related to those ongoing investigations and the grand jury that is currently seated, is that correct? I think the approach of transparency as those investigations 

are concluded, then the more information you will be able to share, 

what did transpire at that specific center and then how the Department has responded to those allegations. 

A specific question as the type of investigations, just so I have 

a better understanding, criminal versus administrative. Each of 

you or if one of you can appropriately explain what is the difference 

in level of misconduct and how, when we talk about in the testimony there is a lot about the number of investigations, this many 

that were criminal and being pursued, but this many that are administrative. Where is that dividing line between administrative 

wrongdoing and criminal? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, let me start out, sir. When we get an allegation, either through our DHS OIG hotline or any sources through 

the JIC, the Joint Intake Center, when we look at an allegation, 

essentially if it is of administrative in nature and we are not going 

to work it—we call it box 1, box 2, and box 3—we will send it to 

the component level and ask them to work it administratively—— 

Mr. PLATTS. And what would constitute that type of case? 

Mr. EDWARDS. Let’s say somebody is cheating on a T&A, time 

and attendance. It is more of an administrative nature that the 

component needs to deal with. So they will have their internal affairs component look into that, work it. But if it is something of administrative in nature but it is at a higher level, the threshold is 

higher, than we will ask them to investigate it administratively 

and then report back to us what the closure, what the outcome 

was. 

If it is criminal in nature, then we will take the case and then 

looking at the location where we are, suppose we are in south 

Texas and it is something to do with ICE HSI, then we will work 

jointly with them, because for that particular matter ICE Homeland Security is better equipped because they are the subject matter expert, so we will work with them jointly. 

So a lot of these cases OIG is not working independently; they 

are working jointly with each one of the components or other law 

enforcement partners. 

We also have—we need to notify the Bureau within 30 days, the 

OIG and the Bureau, according to the attorney general guidelines, 

when we open a case at the district that this case is being opened. 

So when we notify them, many times they will want to work with 

us, or they will get the lead and they will ask us if they want to 

work with us. So the relationship was not the best, but it is getting 

better, and I am hopeful that just like we are sitting here together 

and saying that we are working well, my hope is that the Bureau 

will be sitting with us and say we all are working well together. 

Mr. PLATTS. Is it fair to say that line between administrative 

case being investigated and a criminal, it is a judgment call by 

your investigators that pilfering supplies may be handled administratively, but if it got to a point where they are embezzling not just 

supplies, but large amounts of equipment or something to get to a 

level that it would rise to a criminal? Is that a fair statement, that 

there is a subjective determination here? 

58 

Mr. EDWARDS. And based on our experience and cases in the 

past, there is a certain amount of judgment call one needs to make. 

Also, at the end of the day, is the U.S. attorney going to accept it? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. I would add that is exactly right. If the investigation may not be, clearly on its face, either administrative or criminal, the special agent would take the case to the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office for a charging decision, and recognizing that the Department 

of Justice, like every other agency, has limited resources, while the 

facts may sound both administratively or in a criminal violation, 

the resolution just based on sort of the gravity of them may sort 

of favor one or the other. 

Mr. PLATTS. And my follow-up, there is probably a good number 

of cases that maybe could be pursued criminally, but they are at 

a level where that is not going to happen, but you still do pursue 

them with administrative punishment or repercussions internally? 

Mr. RAGSDALE. That is exactly right. Just like there is a range 

of sort of ability to investigate and sort of prosecute the conduct, 

it could either be through, again, a criminal prosecution or an administrative resolution that could lead to firing or a suspension. 

Mr. PLATTS. Okay. 

Mr. TOWNS. No further questions, Mr. Chairman, but I want to 

thank them because it is very encouraging to know that they are 

working together, because I think in government, as you know, a 

lot of times we waste resources because we just don’t have a working relationship; we don’t talk to each other. So sometimes we are 

involved in duplication and, of course, you seem to have been able 

to sort of work that through and work it out. 

And sometimes you have agencies that they don’t want to share 

and they just want to do whatever they are doing and don’t want 

anybody to—and a lot of times they are not even in the best position to even follow through or to carry it out. To come this morning 

and to hear you are working together and that your Memorandum 

of Understanding is something that all of you respect, I want you 

to know that I am really encouraged by that. 

However, when I look at the fact that 220,000 employees and 

only 219 investigators, I think I get a little nervous when I look 

at that. I understand you said that you support the budget, but 

sometimes we support when it is not really the proper thing to do. 

But I think that is something that needs to be talked about, Mr. 

Chairman, and to see whether or not that is adequate for the 

220,000, only to have 219 investigators. That seems to me to be inadequate. But here again I think it is something that needs to be 

explored and looked at further. 

I understand your position, Mr. Edwards. It is very clear to me 

that you support the budget. I understand that. I do understand 

it, but sometimes we have to go beyond that. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. PLATTS. I thank the gentleman. 

I will wrap up with one, again, thanks to each of you for your 

testimony here today, your written testimony, but, most importantly, day in and day out your leadership of your respective components and the importance of what you are doing in a broad sense 

and as you are focused on that more rare bad apple, and not just 

59 

holding them accountable, but also because of the importance of 

what your department and component agency missions are. 

So when that individual who is, unfortunately, corrupt is letting 

products come through that shouldn’t, and they may think it is less 

of a threat, but it might be weapons; if it is persons, it might be 

terrorists, not what they think, just somebody, an illegal alien, but 

it may be an enemy of our Nation. So all the more what you are 

doing is critically important. 

And, Mr. Towns, just well captured the message that you conveyed in our interactions, both staff and members, prior to the 

hearing and today, is, I think, a very important message and, most 

importantly, a most important direction that you are following, and 

that is let turf battles be on the football turf or the soccer turf, not 

in public service or government, and to truly work hand in hand 

with each other; and that is clearly what you are seeking to do. As 

the commissioner said, that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges 

yet to institutionalize this approach so it is pervasive and continuous. That is something we all up here, we certainly know the 

challenge of working to improve our cooperation. 

But I commend you for the approach you are taking and very 

much thank you for your dedication to our Nation and our citizens. 

We will keep the record open for seven days for any other materials. This hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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