DHS components operate holding facilities at various locations nationwide. Border Patrol has approximately 203 holding facilities that are located at stations, checkpoints and forward operating bases. OFO has approximately 129 holding facilities located at land POEs. ICE has 137 holding facilities that are located at ERO field offices and sub-offices. The reasons why individuals are taken into short-term custody vary by component. Border Patrol apprehends aliens along the land borders and between POEs due to suspected criminal activity or violations of U.S. immigration law, such as illegal entry into the United States or presence in the country without lawful immigration status, and transports them to Border Patrol holding facilities, where they undergo processing before being removed, released, or transferred to ICE for long-term detention, among other scenarios. OFO inspects all arriving persons to the United States to determine their citizenship or nationality, immigration status, and admissibility. This inspection can lead to persons being taken into temporary custody at POE holding facilities while awaiting repatriation to a foreign country; transfer or referral to another agency, such as ICE; or completion of inspection and associated processing. ICE takes aliens into custody upon their release from jails and prisons through the Criminal Alien Program and other efforts or apprehends aliens for various reasons, including through the National Fugitive Operations Program, and transports them to ICE holding facilities. During fiscal years 2014 and 2015, Border Patrol apprehended 823,768 aliens and held them temporarily in holding facilities. Approximately 98 percent of aliens apprehended by Border Patrol during those fiscal years were apprehended along the southwest border of the United States with Mexico. Of the 810,704 aliens whom Border Patrol apprehended along the southwest border, about 49 percent were apprehended in the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas. Figure 1 shows the locations of aliens apprehended by Border Patrol along the southwest border during fiscal years 2014 through 2015. DHS officials at holding facilities conduct a number of activities in managing the short-term custody of aliens, including (1) processing, (2) care, and (3) monitoring. Processing. During processing, holding facility officials gather and record information from aliens. Specifically, holding facility officials collect and record information on aliens in agency databases; take fingerprints, if applicable; conduct records checks; and collect and maintain personal belongings. Holding facility personnel typically conduct these processing activities in a general area outside of the actual holding cells. Care. Once processing is complete, holding facility officials typically place individuals in a secure holding cell or room and provide them with various types of care, including meals and water, restrooms, hygienic supplies and medical care. Holding facilities maintain written or electronic custody logs to document care provided to individuals. Telephone access varies by holding facility; some facilities include a telephone in the holding cells, while other facilities maintain a telephone only in the processing area. Holding facilities and the conditions of confinement may vary by component, among other factors. For example, while all three components maintain secure cells, OFO sometimes places individuals in general waiting areas at POEs based on a risk assessment of individuals and facility space limitations. In addition, holding facility officials typically segment the population based on age, gender and other characteristics, such as risk. Figure 2 depicts a typical cell at DHS holding facilities. Monitoring. Holding facility officials monitor holding facilities primarily through video cameras and physical checks to help ensure that cells are kept clear of contraband and other potentially dangerous materials. For example, holding facility officials might conduct physical checks at various intervals throughout the day, which are designed for a number of purposes, including overseeing individuals in short-term custody, providing a deterrent for misconduct, and affording individuals the opportunity to communicate potential issues regarding their health or safety. Holding facility personnel may conduct more frequent monitoring activities for high risk individuals who might show signs of distress, hostility, or other unusual behavior. CBP and ICE have issued standards for the short-term custody of aliens that apply to their holding facilities nationwide. For example, CBP has established minimum standards that apply to both Border Patrol and OFO holding facilities, and each component also maintains a holding facility policy. In addition, ICE has a policy that governs the operation of ERO holding facilities. The Border Patrol, OFO, and ICE standards contain common requirements for holding facilities, including: Limiting aliens’ total time in custody: Process and then transfer, remove, or release aliens as soon as is appropriate and operationally feasible. Conducting periodic physical checks of holding cells: Monitor holding cells directly and regularly when individuals are in custody. Maintaining a detention log: Collect and preserve in written or electronic form general information from all individuals. Providing various accommodations to individuals: Offer meals and snacks at specified intervals, as well as access to drinking water and restrooms at all times to individuals. Safeguarding of individuals’ personal property while in custody: Collect, inventory, and safeguard funds, valuables, and baggage, and other personal property. Within these common elements, however, the Border Patrol, OFO and ICE standards for the short-term custody of aliens vary. For example, the Border Patrol and ICE holding facility policies state that, whenever possible, an individual should not be held for more than 12 hours while the OFO holding facility policy states that the detention of a person in a holding facility at POEs shall be for the “least amount of time necessary” to complete processing but generally less than 24 hours. The policies also vary with respect to conducting physical checks of cells. The OFO and ICE holding facility policies require that personnel conduct physical checks of individuals placed inside of holding cells at least every 15 minutes, while the Border Patrol policy states that personnel must physically check holding cells on a regular basis for all individuals and every 15 minutes for individuals deemed to be high risk (e.g., an individual exhibiting unusual behavior such as signs of distress). Border Patrol, OFO, and ICE holding facilities may also use local standard operating procedures to augment agency standards for holding facilities. For example, an ICE holding facility that we visited maintained four local standard operating procedures on areas such as controlling and safeguarding personal property. Similarly, we learned during our site visits that other Border Patrol, OFO, and ICE holding facilities have local standard operating procedures. Agencies have also established processes for monitoring holding facilities for compliance with standards. Within CBP, the Management Inspections Division and designated officials from Border Patrol and OFO headquarters manage the annual Self-Inspection Program (SIP), which is designed to assess internal controls in all CBP operations, including holding facilities. The SIP varies from year-to-year and typically incorporates elements of holding facility policies. For example, the 2015 Border Patrol SIP covered the extent to which holding facilities maintained detention logs on aliens, including meal service, medical care, and other pertinent information. Border Patrol and OFO holding facilities reported in the SIP results for 2015 that they were generally compliant with holding facility standards. Besides the SIP, Border Patrol and OFO officials told us that holding facilities monitor compliance with holding facility standards through daily activities. We learned from discussions with agency officials and observations during our site visits that these daily activities include: maintaining continuous surveillance of individuals through video cameras, conducting periodic physical checks of individuals, and having shifts overlap to allow independent personnel to review and verify actions taken to care for individuals. Moreover, regional Border Patrol sectors or OFO field offices may also undertake monitoring activities. For example, a senior OFO official stated that his field office conducts periodic spot-checks of holding facilities in its jurisdiction to verify compliance with holding facility standards. Within ICE, holding facilities monitor compliance through daily activities. According to ICE officials, some of these daily activities include maintaining continuous surveillance of individuals through video cameras, as well as conducting periodic and end of day physical checks of detainees. During our site visits to ICE holding facilities, we also observed video cameras and written logbooks that notated the date and time ICE personnel inspected individual holding cells. In addition, ICE headquarters is currently developing a holding facility self-assessment tool intended to capture the level of compliance in ICE holding facilities nationwide with ICE’s holding facility policy, such as standards related to providing meals and water and managing personal property. ICE headquarters provided us with the draft self-assessment tool and a project plan for its completion. ICE is currently in the final stages of reviewing the tool and expects to begin using it by June 2016. CBP and ICE do not have a process or processes in place to fully assess their time in custody data, including the quality of the data, and the extent to which holding facilities are adhering to agency standards for time in custody and the factors affecting the length. CBP and ICE maintain data systems that record information on various elements for short-term custody of individuals, including time in custody. Time in custody represents the time between when an individual is “booked in” and “booked out” of a holding facility. CBP and ICE holding facility policies include standards for the number of hours that an individual should be held in short-term custody. According to agency officials, these standards are in place because holding facilities are not designed to hold individuals for long periods of time and thus generally do not have features such as beds and showers. However, based on our review of time in custody data, Border Patrol and ICE do not have a process to completely assess time in custody data and OFO has only recently initiated efforts to collect such data. Border Patrol has taken some steps to monitor time in custody data. For example, we learned during our site visits that a Border Patrol sector in Texas generates a detention dashboard report that tracks aliens’ total time in custody by station and a Border Patrol sector in Florida disseminates a regular report to stations with time in custody information on individuals. In addition, Border Patrol incorporated time in custody as an inspection item for individual stations in the 2015 SIP.