Who you callin’ a teenager, punk?

As DHS marks the first anniversary of the “Unity of Effort” initiative launched by Secretary Johnson in April 2014, it’s important to take some lessons from the past. Famously combining 22 agencies and offices into one sprawling Department in 2002, DHS is entering its teenage years grappling with internal changes common to any adolescent, and an organizational version of that burning question — Who Am I? There are still a lot of seams to smooth over.

DHS Mobile

The centerpiece of the Unity of Effort picture is the Southern Border and Approaches (SBA) Campaign. The campaign is an ambitious attempt to capitalize on the capabilities of multiple DHS components to “enforce our immigration laws and interdict individuals seeking to illegally cross our land, sea, and air borders; degrade transnational criminal organizations; and decrease the terrorism threat to the Nation, all without impeding the flow of lawful trade, travel, and commerce.” Sounds simple enough!

In touting the success of the SBA campaign, Secretary Johnson’s Chief of Staff Christian Marrone recently noted “Before, you had components like customs and border protection and ICE who were doing great work, but within customs and border protection and ICE…what we’ve done is brought it all together’’ (emphasis added). To which Eagle Eggs would say — Be careful, we’ve heard that before. What agencies have done very well in the past, working with natural partners, may not result in a “greater than the sum of their parts” result when hastily wed to other components. Exactly how will CBP, ICE, USCIS, and the Coast Guard be more effective when portions of their missions are organized into Joint Task Forces? What risk is incurred by the missions left behind in preference for the sexy new JTFs? How will the JTFs’ mission and command structure be de-conflicted with elements already in theater, such as the Joint Interagency Task Force South (Hey! Remember us)? What did the JTFs “take over?” Here we go again…a mini me.

SBA Campaign Ready Car

Also noteworthy to our Eagle eye is the lack of mention of resource support in the campaign. Presumably expenses related to the SBA campaign will be painlessly absorbed by the participating components — a charming fairy tale. In reality, where most of us live, the components will have to stop doing other missions in order to support the SBA Campaign. Funding matters. For most agencies, the budget belt continues to tighten…the President recently directed an additional 5% reduction in the FY 2017 budget, noting that cuts should be aimed at ongoing efforts to reduce “fragmentation, overlap and duplication.”

Eagle Eggs is all about Unity of Effort, and the initiative may certainly bear fruit, but the youngster that is DHS needs to carefully consider the next steps that it takes with clumsy teenage feet.