DHS, State Department wage visa war.

• Author: Pappalardo, Joe
• Position: SECURITY BEAT: Homeland Defense Briefs

The Department of Homeland Security's effort to place trained officers in embassies and other State Department posts has led to a falling out between the two agencies, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

As part of a larger security program, DHS is determined to place visa security officers, or VSOs, inside embassies and consulates overseas. Currently, the only facilities with these staffers are in Saudi Arabia.

DHS officials said they want the visa-security officers because they can delve more deeply into the background of subjects than the State Department's consular officers.

"VSOs have access to and experience using immigration and law enforcement databases that are not readily available to consular officers, who are not classified as criminal justice or law enforcement personnel," GAO said. "As law-enforcement agents, the visa security officers can access detailed criminal history records and immigration information" not available to embassy staff, who must route all such requests through Washington, D.C.

DHS planned to expand its visa security program to five locations in fiscal year 2005, with further increases to come. However, chiefs of mission at those posts delayed approval, said the GAO report. "Embassy and State officials attributed the delays to questions about the program's goals, objectives and staffing requirements, as well as DHS's plans to coordinate with existing law-enforcement and border-security staff and programs at post," the report noted.

Other problems were reported when staff at embassy posts wondered why their sites had been selected to receive the additional security agents, or asserted too many agents had overly broad mandates.

Embassy officials also questioned the reasoning behind the number of VSOs that DHS wanted to assign...