The creation and impact of homeland security laws and presidential directives

Homeland Security

The Impact of Homeland Security

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, the administration of former President George W. Bush responded with a sweeping overhaul of the national security, defense and intelligence communities. This overhaul was intended to create a single umbrella agency under which key agencies from these communities could better coordinate objectives and operations. This would lead to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, an enormous agency that more than a decade from its inception remains plagued by difficulties.

Indeed, while the agency was designed to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles preventing interaction between different security and intelligence groups, its mere creation would impose enormous practical and conceptual challenges on its administrators and agencies. The result has been an agency overrun by confusion, disorder, incompetence and corruption. These characteristics are all fundamentally tied to an absence of accountability.

Review of Literature:

Background:

According to Cordes et al. (2006), the creation and formation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been a massive economic undertaking at a time when the U.S. can scarcely afford it. In spite of its massive failures in contexts such as its role as the super-agency commanding FEMA during Hurricane Katrina, Cordes et al. report that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimates that in 2003, outlays for direct DHS costs were roughly $70 billion, with indirect expenses such as delay costing Americans an additional $12 billion. This prodigious price tag has come with few assurances of improved security or government efficiency but with a great many promises of heightened intrusion on the lives of Americans and immigrants.

Supporting Evidence:

One of the primary claims against DHS is its lack of accountability and a consequential vulnerability to corruption. Much of this, our research finds, relates directly to the over-emphasis on the 'immigration problem' in our Southwestern states. Accordingly, "over the last decade, the Department of Homeland Security has spent billions of dollars to boost border security, including a hiring surge of U.S. Border Patrol agents that has more than doubled the size of the agency. At the same time, officials report an uptick in corruption-related investigations. Since October 2004, 136 Customs and Border Protection employees have been indicted on or convicted of corruption-related charges." (Becker, p. 1)

And on a broader institutional level, there is significant evidence that DHS, constructed to respond to threats of terrorism, has been used to justify the use of military and federal resources for preventing immigration along our shared border with Mexico. According to Sols (2010), "Through Sept. 7 this fiscal year, 176,736 criminal immigrants have been removed from the U.S. By Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That surpasses the total for all of last year, when 136,343 were removed." (Sols, p. 1) These figures suggest that Homeland Security's focus is highly susceptible to the political pressures of the time as opposed to the prevention of potentially catastrophic terrorist attacks.

Beyond this, because DHS is so generally unaccountable, it possesses an undue amount of influence on individual border cases. According to Martinez (2008), "the federal Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative will require all citizens of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda to carry a passport that establishes identity and nationality when entering or re-entering the United States. But that legislation does not prevent DHS from using its broad authority to control admission by setting standards for what is acceptable for entry into the United States, said Brian Walsh, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas." (Martinez, p. 1)