The disputes involve hundreds of types of cash outlays, including the computer work that ICE provides the other two agencies; and ICE's payment of rent and parking costs to the other agencies in some field offices. All three claim they should be repaid for various costs they incur for the other agencies, but ICE is by far the overall loser, officials said.
In merging the various parts of the old Customs and INS, Congress and the White House decided that the new Homeland Security entities should not create their own units to handle information technology, human resources, payroll, legal and other services, officials said. To economize, the three agencies were each assigned to handle some of the tasks for the others, and instructed to settle the costs later. But the task has turned out to be much more difficult and disruptive than anyone predicted, officials said.
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ICE has been plagued by employee discontent since it was formed, along with the Department of Homeland Security, in March 2003. Many former Customs agents, who prided themselves on high performance and esprit de corps, resented being put together with agents from the old INS and being forced to pursue sometimes humdrum cases involving alien smuggling rings and fraudulent marriages.
Many former Customs agents also express bitterness about using ICE's computerized budget- and case-tracking systems, which used to belong to the INS and had been criticized by outside auditors for years. A number of ICE employees and members of Congress say ICE's internal financial systems are one cause of ICE's current budget crisis -- an assertion ICE officials deny.
The Homeland Security appropriations bill approved earlier this month notes that lawmakers are "extremely concerned about the financial health of ICE, and whether it has the systems and management in place to support the functioning of the agency.
"The adverse impact of hiring and spending freezes and uncertainty on the operations of this critical agency and the morale of its personnel cannot be ignored," according to language in the law.
In tense bargaining over last fiscal year's budget, Homeland Security officials persuaded the three agencies to repay each other for various services. ICE was given $500 million, with CBP paying $215 million of that, and CIS providing $270 million. ICE also saved $120 million through cutbacks in the past fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30.
Now the three agencies are locked in negotiations for the current fiscal year, with each saying it is owed money, and ICE warning it might not be able to do its job under its current budget. The accountants are looking at such seemingly trivial cost-allocation questions as how much each agency pays for photocopiers in each field office and the share of copying by employees of each of the three agencies.
"This is incredibly complex," said a Homeland Security official briefed on the controversy. "But ICE's new budget [from Congress] has a huge projected hole in it. . . . This situation has to be resolved immediately."
