OAM resources are divided among 70 air and marine locations across three regions (southeast, southwest, and northern); the National Capital area; and National Air Security Operations Centers (NASOC) throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands as shown in figure 1. OAM also has mission support facilities including those for maintenance, training, and radar-tracking to detect and direct interdiction of illegal aircraft and maritime vessels. OAM strategic assumptions in deploying its resources include the ability to provide a 24- hour, 7-day a week response to border penetrations anywhere along the U.S. border, with a 1-hour response time for areas designated as high priority. Considerations in OAM allocation decisions include historical location, congressional direction, and differences in geography and relative need for air and marine support to address threats. As of May 2011, OAM had placed about half of its air assets on the southwest border region and the remainder on the northern and southeast regions, while marine resources were distributed fairly evenly across the northern, southwest, and southeast regions. OAM has 23 branches and 6 NASOCs across these regions, and within the branches, OAM may have one or more air or marine units. OAM performs various missions in response to requests for air and marine support from other DHS components—primarily Border Patrol and ICE; as well as other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. In addition, OAM is a representative on the Joint Interagency Task Force- South, located in Key West, Florida, a unified command sponsored by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy that facilitates transnational cooperative counter-narcotic and counterterrorism efforts throughout the South America source zone and the Caribbean, eastern Pacific, Central America, and Mexico transit zone. OAM’s NASOCs perform specialized missions nationwide and in the Caribbean, eastern Pacific, and Central America, using unmanned aircraft systems, long- range patrol aircraft, and other aircraft. Control of OAM resources to respond to these support requests differs by location. For the northern and southwest regions, OAM branches and units are under the tactical control of the local Border Patrol sector chief, who has authority to approve, deny, and prioritize requests for air and marine support. In contrast, OAM branch directors have the authority to control how air and marine resources are used in the southeast region— where there is less Border Patrol presence, as well as in the National Capital area and in NASOCs. The majority of OAM operations is in support of customer or self-initiated law enforcement missions.patrols to detect illegal activity; search for illegal aliens; surveillance; and transport of Border Patrol, ICE, and other law enforcement officers and their equipment. OAM also performs non-enforcement missions including those to support maintenance, training, public relations, and to provide humanitarian aid. Over the last 3 years, the proportion of air and marine mission hours (flight hours or hours a vessel was on duty) for law enforcement related missions has increased, as shown in table 1. The percentage of OAM air and marine support requests met differed by location, customer, and mission type, with unmet air support requests primarily due to aircraft maintenance and unmet marine requests due to adverse weather in fiscal year 2010. In addition, OAM, Border Patrol, and ICE officials reported that OAM resources were constrained in some locations. Further, although OAM has taken actions to address challenges in providing air and marine support, its efforts to increase aircraft availability have not been fully realized. OAM met 73 percent of the 38,662 total air support requests that it received in fiscal year 2010, according to our analysis of AMOR data.OAM tracks its ability to meet air support requests by location, customer, and mission in its AMOR system. Our analysis of these data showed that the percentage of air support requests OAM met differed by region or branch location, and to a lesser extent, by customer and mission type. Specifically, the percentage of air support requests met ranged by 29 percentage points across regions (from 60 to 89 percent) and ranged by over 50 percentage points across branches (from 43 to 96 percent), while the percentage of requests met across customers ranged by about 14 percentage points (from 76 to 90 percent) and the percentage of requests met across mission types ranged by 24 percentage points (from 61 to 85 percent). OAM air support requests met differed by up to 29 percentage points across five different OAM regional areas of responsibility (i.e., regions). The highest percentage of support requests met was provided to OAM’s NASOCs and the lowest percentage of support requests met was provided to the U.S. southeast region, as shown in figure 2. The percentage of air support requests met across branches and NASOCs showed greater differences than across regions, particularly across branches in the southwest region, as shown in table 2. There were smaller differences in OAM’s ability to meet requests for air support across customers than across locations. The overall percentage of air support requests met across customers ranged from a low of 76 percent for Border Patrol and OAM to a high of 90 percent for all other federal agencies, as shown in figure 3. Border Patrol has control over OAM mission support priorities in the northern and southwest regions, and OAM has control over its priorities in the southeast region. To increase transparency of ICE support requests, OAM, Border Patrol, and ICE established a process requiring that ICE requests that are denied at the field level be elevated to management. Finally, our analysis of AMOR data showed that there were few concurrent support requests that resulted in denial of one agency’s request to support another agency. For example, of the 38,662 requests for air support in fiscal year 2010, 2 percent (915) could not be met due to a competing mission request from the same or another agency. OAM headquarters officials gave the following possible explanations as to why state and local, and all other federal agencies had higher support rates than Border Patrol or OAM. State and local support frequently involved OAM diverting a flight already in progress; in such cases, aircraft availability challenges were not an issue. As a result, OAM was able to provide the support to the state and local agency resulting in higher support rates. Federal agencies (as in the “all other federal agencies” category in figure 3) and state agencies (as in the “state and local agencies” category in figure 3) often require types of aircraft that have greater availability in general. Standing, daily requests—which were most common to Border Patrol—were more likely than ad hoc requests to be canceled as a result of adverse weather, maintenance, or aircraft and personnel restrictions. As a result, Border Patrol may have more unmet requests than other agencies. The difference in percentage of support requests met across mission categories ranged from 61 to 85 percent, with higher levels of support for miscellaneous enforcement activities such as reconnaissance, photography, or information. The percentage of air support was lower for mission activities classified as search, interdiction, or radar patrol, as shown in figure 4. OAM officials told us that there were too many variables, such as budget and resource constraints, weather, and conflicting mission priorities, to explain why there were differences in percentages of support requests met for different mission types. OAM was unable to meet 27 percent, or 10,530 of the 38,662 air support requests it received from customers in fiscal year 2010. The primary reason for unmet requests was the unavailability of aircraft in maintenance, but adverse weather and unavailable aircrew were also factors, as shown in figure 5. OAM survey respondents were generally satisfied with the type and number of air assets they had to perform various missions; however, some survey respondents and field officials we interviewed identified capability gaps, such as the lack of maritime patrol aircraft. In addition, survey respondents and field officials reported general dissatisfaction with the number of personnel to perform air operations. Finally, OAM has taken actions to increase aircraft availability—including creating an aircraft modernization plan and conducting an aged-aircraft investigation—but these efforts have not been fully realized. The majority of officials that responded to our survey questions from 18 OAM air locations across the southwest, northern, southeast, and National Capital regions, and NASOCs generally reported that they were either satisfied with, or neutral—neither satisfied nor dissatisfied—toward the type and number of OAM aircraft they had at their locations to perform various mission activities. For example, 16 of 18 respondents reported satisfaction with the type of aircraft available for surveillance; and 12 of 18 respondents reported satisfaction with the number of aircraft they have to perform information gathering. A majority of respondents also expressed satisfaction or neutrality toward the type and number of aircraft they have to perform 12 other mission activities. Some respondents, however, identified capability gaps and resource limitations for certain mission activities. For example, officials from 7 of the 14 air locations that perform air-to-water radar patrols reported that they were very dissatisfied with the type of aircraft available to conduct these missions.respondents from 7 of the 17 air locations that perform interdictions expressed dissatisfaction with the number of aircraft available to conduct these missions. One respondent reported that his/her location had no maritime or air radar interdiction capabilities, despite having a border that was entirely water. See appendix IV for a summary of survey results by location for respondents’ satisfaction with the type and number of assets for various mission activities. The Northern Border Regional Director said, among other things, he would like to see an additional interceptor aircraft placed in one branch location, but that the runway is too short—the current runway is 4,000 feet and a Citation needs at least 7,000 feet. OAM headquarters officials said that the branch is routinely required to get additional support from neighboring branches. the maritime environment and that two branches needed more maritime patrol aircraft.