The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs a security check. Since 2004, there have been a staggering 2,527 employees and co-conspirators convicted of corruption and other criminal misconduct. And there will be more; as of July 15, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) was dealing with 1,591 open criminal cases. The majority of those cases were opened in the last three years.
Roughly 65% of the convictions come from Federal Emergency Management Agency-related investigations: 14% from those linked to the Customs and Border Protection agency, 7% from Immigration and Customs Enforcement-related investigations, 5% from the Transportation Security Administration. Another 9% are miscellaneous.
Those employees who can be prosecuted are any who committed the crime while they were appointed, contracted, or officially engaged under authority of law in the performance of a Federal function on behalf of DHS. These include contractor employees, interns, Coast Guard military personnel, Coast Guard Auxiliaries, and employees sent by other Federal agencies to work at DHS.