Disputing Citizenship's Role for Hispanics in Government Service

Manuel Mirabal , president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition, said: "What this report will accomplish, unfortunately, is that federal agencies will take it to mean that they don't have to do anything, that it is okay. It is not okay."

Gilbert Sandate , who heads the Coalition for Fairness for Hispanics in Government, said the GAO report "minimizes the magnitude and impact of the Hispanic employment crisis and fails to provide a clear assessment of the problems affecting Hispanic employment in the federal workforce."

The GAO, Sandate said, did not consider discrimination as a factor in Hispanic employment. Too many Hispanics in government are clustered at the lowest grade levels, and the percentage of Hispanics at the top of the career civil service appears to be declining, he said.

Last year, the government employed 125,419 Hispanics in full-time civil service jobs, with 557 in "senior pay" positions, according to the OPM. Customs and Border Protection officer and customer-service representative were among the leading occupations in government for Hispanics, data collected by the GAO showed.

In its report, the GAO said it did not analyze whether discrimination against or attitudes toward Hispanics affected workforce representation. The analysis also did not seek to explain differences by grade, pay level, agency and other categories, the GAO said.

A part of the GAO report focused on how the OPM, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other agencies make workforce comparisons. The databases used by those agencies do not divide the nation's labor force into citizens and noncitizens and, as a result, do not show how citizenship affects federal employment practices, the GAO said.

The GAO recommended that the OPM and the EEOC include citizenship in their annual comparisons on the demographics of the federal workforce and the nation's labor force. In their reviews of the report, the GAO said, the EEOC and the OPM did not comment on that recommendation.

John M. Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, will discuss the challenges of federal recruitment on Federal Diary Live at noon Wednesday on washingtonpost.com. My e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.