GAO and DHS OIG tell House panel DHS faces management, cybersecurity and disaster-aid weaknesses; FEMA added to GAO high-risk list

Witnesses for the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability that the department continues to face systemic management, information-technology and cybersecurity problems and that federal disaster assistance needs major reform.

Chris Curry, director of Homeland Security and Justice at the Government Accountability Office, told the panel that GAO currently has 459 open recommendations for DHS and has identified about $19,000,000,000 in potential financial savings if DHS implements those changes. “Right now, there's 459 open recommendations that we have to the department,” Curry said, adding that 37 are high-priority recommendations that span IT procurement, financial management and disaster assistance.

The GAO witness described two high-risk areas tied to the committee’s jurisdiction: weaknesses in DHS management (including IT security and financial systems) and the delivery of federal disaster assistance. He said FEMA manages hundreds of long-running disaster declarations and maintains multiple legacy procurement systems that do not interoperate. “FEMA itself has six different procurement systems that can't talk to one another,” Curry said. He also told the committee GAO recently added strengthening the delivery of federal disaster assistance to its high-risk list because the overall federal disaster assistance enterprise is fragmented across many agencies.

Kristen Bernard, DHS Office of Inspector General deputy inspector for audits, told the committee that OIG work has repeatedly identified recurring problems across DHS components, including gaps in tracking migrants, multiple cybersecurity weaknesses and billions in questioned costs for FEMA. “Collectively, our oversight has identified more than 4,000 security vulnerabilities over the past 3 years,” Bernard said. She told lawmakers OIG has identified about $12,000,000,000 in questioned costs across recent years and previously notified FEMA and Congress of $7,000,000,000 that could be put to better use because of delays and problems closing disaster programs.

Erica Lang, DHS assistant inspector general for inspections and evaluations, detailed OIG reviews of immigration and border operations and the department’s handling of evacuees. Lang said OIG found problems tracking Afghan evacuees resettled in 2021: about 11,700 evacuees independently departed U.S. military bases and the department had no single component designated to monitor parole expirations. Lang told the committee DHS struggled to track individuals who “independently departed the bases” and did not have a consistent process for monitoring parole expiration.

OIG and GAO witnesses also described shortcomings in screening and watch-list matching. Lang reviewed a case in which Customs and Border Protection released an apprehended individual without providing information requested by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center; she attributed the failure to ineffective processes, limited staffing and paper-based practices. Bernard added that biometric screening capabilities are not available at all land crossing lanes and said CBP sometimes foregoes passenger screening when ports experience backlogs.

Committee members asked witnesses about the implications of staffing shortfalls and about implementation of GAO recommendations. Witnesses stressed the need for sustained attention to legacy IT systems, hiring and targeted reforms to FEMA’s grant and disaster-management processes to reduce complexity and duplication across federal disaster assistance.

The subcommittee asked the witnesses for follow-up written responses; the hearing record was kept open for additional questions and the panel dismissed the witnesses.