In September 2013, we reported on actions DHS has taken to align its programs abroad with its resource use and with other U.S. governmental strategic priorities. We found that DHS had taken actions toward increasing organizational and programmatic alignment for its resource use abroad consistent with requirements set forth in law. For example, we found that DHS had established an intradepartmental governance board to provide a formal organizational mechanism for DHS component heads and OIA to collaborate and coordinate crosscutting policy issues related to international engagement. We also found that DHS reviewed its international footprint—the complete set of resources and efforts DHS has deployed abroad—with the intention of enhancing organizational and programmatic alignment. This “footprint review” was led by OIA, in coordination with component heads, and it evaluated the placement of resources on the basis of DHS’s strategic mission areas, cost, and potential for engagement with host nations. Furthermore, in March 2013, the Secretary of Homeland Security signed DHS’s first International Engagement Plan to promote common international objectives and priorities across the department. The plan maps key activities abroad to DHS’s strategic mission areas, and includes specific strategies in separate international engagement plans for various regions of the world. Despite these efforts, we found that DHS could not provide overall assurance of alignment of its resource use abroad with department-wide and government-wide strategic priorities. Although DHS has a broad mission set and decision making about resource use abroad is decentralized to the components, we found that DHS had not established specific department-wide strategic priorities—such as specific types of activities or target regions to further combating terrorism goals—for resource use abroad to help promote organizational alignment in resource decision making. While DHS’s International Engagement Plan linked DHS’s strategic missions to the kinds of activities that DHS conducts abroad, we found that it did not establish specific priorities to help guide resource decision making. DHS officials from OIA and the Office of Counterterrorism Policy agreed that DHS’s International Engagement Plan did not represent a clear priority focus on countries with factors that represented more immediate threats to the homeland and did not necessarily serve to identify a clear set of priorities and principles that would help to guide future resource decisions. To address these concerns we recommended that DHS establish specific department-wide priorities for resources abroad. DHS concurred, and as of May 2015, has started to draft an international engagement strategy to identify specific department-wide priorities. According to DHS officials, OIA hopes to use the plan to help inform the department’s fiscal year 2017 budget request and intends to finalize the plan no later than early summer 2015. We also found that although OIA conducted a one-time exercise from 2011 to early 2012 to evaluate the department’s international footprint to try to bring it into better organizational and programmatic alignment, DHS had not established a routine or ingrained process that would continually assess the alignment between strategic goals and resource decisions. For example, we found each of the operational components that we interviewed, such as CBP and ICE, described different rationales and methods for deciding where and how many resources to deploy around the world. At the time of our review, OIA officials stated they had not devised an approach for implementing a routine, ingrained process with department-wide methods and metrics, but officials agreed that such methods and metrics that were meaningful to all of the components would help provide a coherent strategic overlay to give the department better assurance of alignment between resource use and strategic priorities. To address these concerns, we recommended that DHS establish a routine, institutionalized mechanism to ensure alignment of the department’s resource use abroad with the highest department-wide and government- wide strategic priorities. DHS concurred, and as of May 2015, OIA plans to use the international engagement plan as the foundation of a footprint review, starting with a specific international region, to identify opportunities to realign resources with priorities and to identify crosscutting management efficiencies for the department’s fiscal year 2017 budget request. In addition, in 2013, we found that DHS did not have comparable cost data for its programs and activities abroad and had not established a standardized framework to capture these data to help inform resource decision making and to achieve management efficiencies when addressing issues that are common across the department. We found that each of the components tracked its international expenditures differently, and according to OIA officials, the effort to collect comparable information that reliably informs management decision making had been challenging. According to OIA officials, a standardized reporting framework for the costs of conducting activities abroad—for example, salaries, housing, and fees paid to embassies to cover certain administrative and security costs—across the department could enable OIA to identify best practices that could lead to cost savings in international deployments and enhance the ability to assess the outcomes and cost-effectiveness of programs and activities carried out abroad. We recommended that DHS establish a common reporting framework to allow for the collection of reliable, comparable department- wide cost data for resource use abroad. DHS concurred, and, as of May 2015, had established a common cost framework. DHS conducts various programs and mission activities abroad to prevent people and cargo posing a threat to the United States from reaching the homeland. These include, among other things, efforts to ensure visa security, inspect international passengers prior to boarding a flight bound for the United States, and identify and target high-risk maritime containerized cargo shipments before being loaded onto U.S.-bound vessels. According to DHS’s Office of Operations Coordination and Planning data, as of May 2015, DHS OIA and DHS operational components had approximately 1,800 full-time equivalents (FTE) in almost 80 countries to help combat terrorism and achieve other mission CBP had 801 FTE employees stationed in 43 countries and ICE goals.had 380 FTEs in 45 countries. In September 2013, we reported that DHS seeks to identify security vulnerabilities and interdict threats at the earliest possible point in the travel, trade, and immigration lifecycles, such as prior to visa issuance. CBP, which operates the National Targeting Center (NTC), supports DHS’s efforts by providing tactical targeting and analytical research of people and goods prior to their departure to the United States. NTC monitors the movement of potential terrorists and containerized cargo and works to prevent them and any weapons of mass destruction or other contraband from entering the country through land, air, and sea ports. According to CBP program officials assigned to NTC, NTC staff analyze various sources of government data, including lists of known terrorists; data on foreign visitors whose official authorization permitting entry into and travel within the United States has elapsed; passport, criminal, and other law enforcement information; immigration records; and cargo manifest data. Through CBP’s Automated Targeting System (ATS), CBP officers identify and target passengers and cargo container shipments for inspection. Among other things, ATS uses a set of rules that assess different factors in the data to determine the risk level of a passenger or shipment. According to CBP program officials assigned to NTC, CBP makes available information from its databases and ATS to ICE and CBP officials deployed abroad, among others, to assist with in carrying out their respective missions as they relate to passengers and cargo, and to reduce the vulnerabilities associated with the global supply chain. In March 2011, we reported on ICE’s efforts to strengthen visa issuance procedures. We found that ICE, through the Visa Security Program (VSP), works to prevent terrorists and otherwise inadmissible travelers from attempting to enter the United States by screening visa applicants before the travel process begins. Specifically, we reported that VSP is intended to prevent terrorists, criminals, and other ineligible applicants from receiving visas. Under VSP, ICE deploys personnel to certain U.S. embassies and consulates to assist the Department of State’s consular officers with security reviews of visa applications and investigations of passport and visa fraud, among other things. ICE is also responsible for training consular officers regarding specific security threats relating to the adjudication of individual visa applications or classes of applications. As of May 2015, ICE reported that it had established 21 visa security units in 15 countries. When reviewing applications for visas under VSP, ICE agents screen applicant information against CBP immigration data and ATS targeting and intelligence data to identify applicants that potentially match records of individuals who are known or suspected threats to the United States or have immigration violations or derogatory information related to their criminal histories. In March 2011, we reported, among other things, on DHS’s efforts to expand VSP and challenges to VSP operations overseas. In general, we found that ICE and the Department of State had limited guidance regarding interactions between consular officers and ICE officials for the screening and issuance of visas, and that training of consular officers by VSP agents varied from post to post, with some consular officers at some posts receiving no training. We also found that ICE lacked performance measures to accurately evaluate VSP mission objectives. Moreover, we found that VSP agents performed various investigative and administrative functions beyond their visa security responsibilities, a fact that at times slowed or limited visa security activities, and ICE did not track this information in the VSP tracking system, making it unable to identify the time spent on investigative and administrative functions. Finally, we found that ICE’s plans to expand VSP did not cover 11 of 20 additional diplomatic posts identified by ICE as high-risk. We made several recommendations to help DHS better manage VSP at posts overseas. First, we recommended that DHS issue guidance requiring ICE to provide training for consular officers. DHS concurred and has issued guidance to enhance the training of consular officers by VSP offices abroad. Second, we recommended that DHS ensure that ICE collects reliable data to allow ICE to accurately evaluate VSP performance and report to Congress on progress toward the VSP mission objectives. DHS stated that the VSP captured all the required performance metrics.