A second lawsuit challenges plans to put ICE agents near polling places

<article class="content js-article" data-ad-unit="/617/govexec.com/section_management/content/pid_416116" data-authors="Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom" data-browser-title="A second lawsuit challenges plans to put ICE agents near polling places - Government Executive" data-categories="defense,federal-news,management" data-full-url="https://www.govexec.com/management/2026/09/second-lawsuit-challenges-plans-put-ice-agents-near-polling-places/416116/" data-id="416116" data-primary-category="management" data-sailthru='{"url": "/management/2026/09/second-lawsuit-challenges-plans-put-ice-agents-near-polling-places/416116/", "track_url": true, "spider": true, "horizon_domain": "horizon.govexec.com", "tags": "justice-department,homeland-security,fbi,immigration-and-customs-enforcement,homeland-security-department,department-of-homeland-security,usdoj,polling-places,voting-rights-act,trump-administration,doj,midterm-elections,2026-midterm-elections,channel-management,type-story,length-medium,site-govexec"}' data-suppress-drop-cap="False" data-title="A second lawsuit challenges plans to put ICE agents near polling places" data-topics="elections,homeland-security,immigration" data-url="/management/2026/09/second-lawsuit-challenges-plans-put-ice-agents-near-polling-places/416116/" id="second-lawsuit-challenges-plans-put-ice-agents-near-polling-places-416116">
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<p>A coalition of civil rights groups and union organizations Friday sued the Trump administration to prevent the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling locations during November’s midterm elections.</p><p>The suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is the second this month, following comments from top Trump officials citing a federal policy to allow ICE officers to enter polling locations in certain circumstances to conduct immigration enforcement.</p><p>The groups argue the policy violates the federal law that prohibits “armed men” at election sites, and also causes voter intimidation, which is barred under the Voting Rights Act.</p><p>Under federal law, “troops” or “armed men” are allowed at polling locations only if “such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” And the section of the Voting Rights Act the groups cite prohibits “intimidation,” “threats” or “coercion” against a person for voting or attempting to vote.</p><p>“The result is predictable: voters across the country — particularly Black, Latino and Asian voters, naturalized citizens, and members of mixed-status families — are afraid to vote, help others vote, and participate in civic life,” according to the suit.</p><p>Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin earlier this month noted that agents could conduct immigration enforcement at polling places. And before U.S. senators this week, FBI Director Kash Patel did not rule out sending FBI agents to polling locations, but said officers would “follow the law.”</p><p>The Department of Justice dismissed the idea that officers would be sent to polling locations.</p><p>“The DOJ has never said it would send federal law enforcement to polling locations,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement to States Newsroom. “Any suggestion otherwise is fearmongering.”</p><p>In a statement to States Newsroom, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said those “who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.”</p><p>“Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE,” the spokesperson said. “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”</p><p>The DHS spokesperson added that ICE was not planning any operations that targeted polling locations.</p><p><strong>NAACP among groups suing</strong></p><p>“We reject this administration’s attempt to desecrate our polling sites by converting them into militarized zones through the unlawful deployment of ICE or any other federal agent,” Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, said in a statement.</p><p>NAACP is one of nine groups that filed suit. The rest are Mi Familia en Accion, Asian Pacific American Advocates, the National Urban League, Minnesota 8, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Union of Painters and the United Food and Commercial Workers International.</p><p>“Turning the fundamental right of exercising our vote into a high-stakes encounter with the militarized strong arm of the current administration isn't protection and it isn't oversight; it's disenfranchisement, period,” Clarke said. “The NAACP calls on the court to reject this blatant attempt by federal officials to obstruct our elections through tactics pulled straight from the Jim Crow playbook.”</p><p>The nine groups are represented by the Legal Defense Fund, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Immigration Law Center, Protect Democracy and the Democracy Defenders Fund.</p></div></div>
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It's illegal for armed federal officers to be at polls. Lawsuits seek to ensure that

DOJ charges Russian agents with plotting attacks, including in the U.S.

Patel won’t say whether FBI agents will be at the polls this fall

FBI chief Kash Patel defends hiring policy changes on prostitution, bestiality at fiery hearing

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<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — <a href="https://apnews.com/hub/kash-patel">FBI Director Kash Patel</a> defended Tuesday a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fbi-prostitution-recruitment-95e69779e41bd8f1bbc59d402a40222b">recent policy change</a> to allow some applicants who have engaged in prostitution and bestiality to be considered for employment, insisting that the move was made to enable victims of those acts to apply for a job without fear of automatic disqualification.</p>
<p>The subject arose during a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Patel clashed with Democrats over his <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fbi-patel-trump-justice-department-74958effbe23df23eccb33a960da4cc3">firing of agents who participated in investigations</a> of President Donald Trump and suggested that agents might be dispatched to the polls on Election Day amid Justice Department and White House concerns about voter fraud.</p>
<p>The hours-long hearing featured the name-calling and bitingly personal exchanges that have come to define Patel’s appearances on Capitol Hill, with Democrats characterizing the Trump appointee as unqualified, criticizing him for politically charged investigations into Trump’s enemies and highlighting travel that has included a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/olympics-hockey-fbi-director-kash-patel-8eb9ff9fcdf6ecd605643860fd1c18bf">trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy</a> in which he partied with U.S. hockey players and a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fbi-kash-patel-snorkel-hawaii-pearl-harbor-192a81cde7a5879aab747bc0ba4b78b9">snorkeling excursion at the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii. </a></p>
<p>“He’s an incompetent lackey. He’s like an 18-year old-kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of, doing keg stands and chugging with friends. He’s an embarrassment to the agency and wouldn’t qualify even to be an FBI agent,” said an exasperated Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, his voice rising in anger.</p>

<p>“What a mockery you are,” he added.</p>
<p>Patel shot back, “You are the biggest mockery in the United States Senate, and you’re sitting next to Schiff.” That was a reference to Sen. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and outspoken Patel critic.</p>
<h2>Patel was pressed on the FBI’s hiring standards</h2>
<p>The FBI quietly issued guidance this past spring lifting a categorical hiring restriction on applicants who had previously participated in prostitution. The bureau made a similar change with regard to childhood experience in bestiality.</p>
<p>Under questioning, Patel denied that the changes reflected a lowering of employment standards and insisted they were designed to prevent victims who’d been forced to engage in that conduct from being automatically disqualified.</p>
<p>“We did not want to punish victims of bestiality, victims who were trafficked. We did not want to make it an automatic disqualification for the FBI to consider you if you were a victim of these awful, heinous acts,” Patel said. “We are not going to target victims and prevent them from serving in their capacity to serve this country.”</p>
<p>The questioning spanned partisan lines, with Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana grilling Patel about the rationale for a change that the FBI director said was proposed to him by subordinates.</p>
<p>“When you saw bestiality, I say this with respect: The person who recommended it, why didn’t you just say what planet did you parachute in from?” Kennedy asked.</p>

<p>Patel conceded that was his initial response, but “they then explained to me and showed me cases in which people were forced into it and applied to the FBI and so I thought they should be considered. It’s not an automatic disqualification.”</p>
<p>The Associated Press reported last month that the FBI still intends to bar some applicants who are revealed to have previously engaged in prostitution, including if they’ve done so within the last 10 years.</p>
<h2>Patel did not rule out sending agents to polling places on Election Day</h2>
<p>The hearing took place two months before the midterm elections in November and at a time when the FBI has opened investigations related to the 2020 contest, including by <a href="https://apnews.com/article/why-fbi-seize-georgia-ballots-fulton-county-87300edb3ea86961c69132e6a2dfd6e8">seizing voter data in Fulton County, Georgia.</a></p>
<p>Trump regularly makes false claims that elections are rigged and riddled with fraud, especially in the months before an election. But there is no widespread fraud in American elections. Local election officials have detailed processes for auditing the accuracy of the vote after ballots are tallied. Even as he disputed his loss in 2020, audits, reviews and recounts in the battleground states where he challenged the outcome all affirmed Democrat Joe Biden’s win.</p>
<p>Those voter fraud claims, and the FBI’s efforts to investigate the 2020 race, have spurred Democratic concerns that Patel could plunge the bureau into the upcoming election.</p>
<p>Asked whether the FBI has the general authority to monitor elections, Patel replied that responsibility rests with the Department of Homeland Security. He said the FBI’s presence on Election Day will be “housed” with election crimes coordinators at each of the bureau’s 56 field offices, but under questioning, he declined to rule out that agents would be dispatched to the polls in the event of problems or reports of interference.</p>
<p>“Do you pledge that you will not in any way interfere in the will of the American people when they go to the polls in November?” asked Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in one of the hearing’s more combative exchanges.</p>
<p>“I pledge unequivocally that I will not participate in your charade of lies,” Patel said, later calling Welch a “total fraud.”</p>
<h2>FBI firings were also a featured topic of the hearing</h2>
<p>Patel repeatedly touted what he asserted was his record-breaking success at the FBI, proclaiming the “most prolific reduction in crime in U.S. history” <a href="https://apnews.com/article/homicide-decrease-trump-crime-rates-fbi-9d9e79bb71174a604c4ab068a6887c82">even though violent crime rates in American cities</a> had begun dropping well before Trump took office last year for reasons that are difficult to pinpoint.</p>

<p>Even as the Republican-led panel tried through its questioning to keep the focus on Patel’s crime-fighting efforts from his perch at the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency, Democrats seized on the tumult inside the FBI over the last year — including <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-patel-fbi-firings-classified-documents-investigation-932c7c68e22cc36e01990659a8cc2807">sweeping firings</a> of agents who participated in investigations of Trump, the bureau’s aggressive efforts to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-nyt-air-force-one-qatari-jet-e2c798a95a1e41077d2cae969774df91">investigate media leaks by serving subpoenas</a> at reporters’ homes and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/fbi-kash-patel-snorkel-hawaii-pearl-harbor-192a81cde7a5879aab747bc0ba4b78b9">Patel’s travel schedule</a> that has blended private leisure with professional responsibilities.</p>
<p>Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut pressed Patel on the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-patel-fbi-firings-classified-documents-investigation-932c7c68e22cc36e01990659a8cc2807">firing of national security agents</a> with expertise in Iran shortly before the U.S. launched attacks on the country last February. He noted that the agents had participated in an FBI investigation into Trump over his <a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6">retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.</a></p>
<p>“Do you think firing the president’s political opponents is more important than retaining the decades of experience and expertise monitoring intelligence threats from Iran?” Blumenthal asked.</p>
<p>“I think what’s most important is to not have a weaponized FBI, and I will endeavor every single day to make sure we have no one there that is doing that,” Patel responded. He did not say why their participation in the Mar-a-Lago investigation represented “weaponized” law enforcement.</p>
<p>Patel later suggested that the scope of firings had been overblown, saying many agents had retired on their own. And he defended his personal travels by pointing to numbers that he said showed that two recent predecessors, Chris Wray and James Comey, had traveled more.</p>
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Education Department shutdown plans face a new hurdle

Feds in Film: When Hollywood nailed government—or whiffed

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<p>Hollywood loves a government thriller. Secret agents. Nuclear missiles. Plane crashes. Pandemics. Mass casualty decisions made in windowless rooms.</p>
<p>But how much of what we see on screen realistically represents government and the feds who work for it?</p>
<p>That’s the question we drilled down on for this episode of <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/fed-thread-podcast/"><em>Fed Thread</em></a>, where Kuya P., entertainment critic, Navy veteran and host of Nerds Rule the World, and Rachel Cohen, Federal News Network DoD reporter, delivered their unvarnished critiques with matching popcorn and Fed Cred scores.</p>
<p>We watched five films through two different lenses: are they worth watching (popcorn score), and how well do they capture the federal workforce and the work it does (Fed Cred score)?</p>
<h2><strong>When Hollywood gets it right</strong></h2>
<p>Some of the most believable moments weren’t the dramatic ones. Take <em>Breach</em>, the 2007 FBI thriller about the investigation into agent Robert Hanssen. Cohen said the movie’s depiction of interagency territory wars struck a chord. She felt the problems of having systems and people that don’t communicate and agencies developing their own subcultures was true-to-life and time-period appropriate.</p>
<p>The film also gets surprisingly close to the mundane realities of federal work, she says: color-coded reports, dreary corridors, career ambitions and petty office politics.</p>
<p>Hollywood, apparently, doesn’t always need to exaggerate.</p>
<h2><strong>When the drama is the exaggeration</strong></h2>
<p>That doesn’t mean filmmakers always get federal processes right. In <em>Sully</em>, the National Transportation Safety Board investigation is portrayed almost like a hunt to cast blame on a national hero. But Cohen, who has covered NTSB investigations, explained that the agency’s real job is to be extraordinarily thorough—not to manufacture a villain.</p>
<p>There’s a similar problem in <em>House of Dynamite</em>, where the stakes are appropriately enormous, but some of the nuclear response scenarios take dramatic license. The movie’s portrayal of a missile defense system with a roughly coin-flip chance of success oversimplifies a much more complicated reality, Kuya P. and Cohen both explain. That may make for better cinema, but it doesn’t necessarily make for a better civics lesson.</p>
<h2><strong>People, not just characters</strong></h2>
<p>Often the most compelling parts of these films had little to do with government mechanics and more to do with character development. In <em>House of Dynamite</em>, Cohen appreciated seeing federal employees and military personnel portrayed as relatable, three-dimensional people—those who had sick kids, tough divorces, fraught relationships and recognizable families waiting for them at home.</p>
<p>That human element seems to be what Hollywood can more consistently get right. As Cohen put it, most federal roles simply don’t lend themselves to Hollywood drama. The federal workforce is largely made up of normal people doing their jobs, often in very specialized fields, with a lot of otherwise slow administrative processes and procedures.</p>
<p>Government may be more complicated, more bureaucratic and considerably less cinematic than Hollywood would have us believe, but behind the acronyms, the agencies and the high-stakes missions are real, flesh-and-blood people trying to do difficult jobs as best they can. Sometimes the most realistic part of the movie is simply that.</p>
<p>Curious how each movie stacked up in our chat? Listen to the full <em>Fed Thread </em>episode and let us know what you think.</p>
<p><em><strong>Catch more conversations on podcast platforms, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLnQCkOnZR8I">YouTube</a> or on the <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/fed-thread-podcast/">Fed Thread hub page</a>.</strong></em></p>
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On 9/11’s 25th anniversary, modernizing government starts with remembering our past

ODNI’s role, future still up for debate 25 years after 9/11

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<p>The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is among the most significant institutions established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, yet the DNI’s role and effectiveness continue to be up for debate more than two decades after it was established.</p>
<p>Now, 25 years after the attacks, lawmakers are looking at how to address persistent shortcomings in the DNI role and advancing bipartisan recommendations aimed at strengthening it. But the future of ODNI remains unclear following controversial workforce cuts by the Trump administration.</p>
<p>The DNI role was created by Congress at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. The position was established to serve as the president’s principal intelligence advisor and coordinate the sprawling, oft-disjointed intelligence community.</p>
<p>A key reason the 9/11 attacks succeeded, the commission found, was due to a lack of information sharing between intelligence agencies, principally the FBI and the CIA.</p>

<p>In late August, Republican and Democrat leaders on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released <a href="https://intelligence.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/HPSCI-Final-9.11-Report.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank">a review of the 9/11 commission’s report</a>, including an assessment of ODNI.</p>
<p>The panel found “the case for a DNI remains as compelling today as it did in the wake of 9/11,” while also identifying concerns “regarding the DNI’s efficacy.”</p>
<p>“The DNI’s role must be strengthened to ensure that the IC can align collection, analysis, operations, and resources to match the highest priority threats our nation faces while bringing to bear integrated authorities,” lawmakers write in the report.</p>
<h2>‘Unnecessary bloat’ and ‘un-strategic cuts’</h2>
<p>A frequent criticism of ODNI in recent years is that it had grown too large. The office had established a growing series of “mission centers” and often relied on staff detailed from other intelligence agencies.</p>
<p>Mike McConnell, who served as the second DNI from 2007 to 2009, said he believes the office had outgrown its usefulness.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t get rid of it completely because I do see some value, but it’s not worth the resources being spent on it, and it’s not worth the resources that were taken away from all the agencies to create it and to build it over time,” McConnell told Federal News Network.</p>
<p>Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at the George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, echoed that sentiment during a May 20 House Intelligence Committee hearing, telling lawmakers, “ODNI has gotten way bigger than I think we ever expected it to be.”</p>

<p>“I think narrowing it down and focusing it on a couple of things – budget, authorities, integration – those should be its core rather than all the other things it’s got its hands in … It ought to be a tighter team: smaller, tighter, more focused on integration,” Jaffer said.</p>
<p>The Trump administration has already moved quickly to reduce the size of ODNI.</p>
<p>Former DNI Tulsi Gabbard advanced a plan to cut 40% of ODNI’s workforce before she stepped down in May. Then acting DNI Bill Pulte <a href="https://federalnewsnetwork.com/intelligence-community/2026/07/acting-spy-chief-says-odni-has-made-another-round-of-cuts/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">oversaw a series of “layoffs” that he publicly touted on social media platform X.</a></p>
<p>ODNI’s workforce now sits at a little more than half the roughly 2,000 employees that were there at the start of the second Trump administration, according to the Washington Post, citing congressional aides.</p>
<p>National security experts have raised concerns that the Trump administration has quickly slashed staff without offering any plan to improve the office. The office has also been wrapped up in President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about targeting the “deep state” and the intelligence community.</p>
<p>McConnell said “cutting is not necessarily improving” without a plan.</p>
<p>“How do you improve the performance? How do you improve the value added of the DNI to the country? That cutting comes at the end of the process, not at the beginning,” McConnell said.</p>
<p>The bipartisan House Intelligence Committee’s report also raises worries about the administration’s cuts.</p>
<p>“There have been attempts at rightsizing ODNI, but questions have emerged about whether recent downsizing efforts will have a detrimental effect on key oversight and integration functions of ODNI, which go beyond curtailing unnecessary bloat,” the report states.</p>

<p>Jenny Mattingley, vice president for public policy and stakeholder engagement at the Partnership for Public Service, said the cuts at ODNI are part of a broader trend of the Trump administration targeting staff with critical national security expertise.</p>
<p>The Partnership’s latest <a href="https://ourpublicservice.org/know-the-facts/resource-library/reports/ill-prepared-how-we-have-unlearned-the-lessons-of-9-11" rel="noopener" target="_blank">report</a> argues the national security lessons of 9/11 are being “tested” by the administration.</p>
<p>“As we’re seeing these un-strategic cuts and the loss of expertise and networks, that lesson of connecting the dots, of having being able to challenge assumptions, being able to have this big view, that’s what we’re seeing erode under the changes that are going on right now,” Mattingley told Federal News Network.</p>
<p>Lawmakers are now probing how the staffing cuts may be damaging national security. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gary Peters (D-Mich.), in a <a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/dems/ahead-of-25th-anniversary-of-9-11-peters-demands-trump-administration-preserve-records-on-the-dismantling-politicization-of-nations-counterterrorism-infrastructure/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">letter</a> to new DNI Jay Clayton this week, wrote that there has yet to be an accounting of “who was fired or for what purposes by Pulte during his short tenure.”</p>
<p>Peters directed Clayton him to “preserve all existing and future records and materials on counterterrorism activities and efforts, including all decisions about personnel, resource allocation and prioritization and any data backing the administration’s counterterrorism priorities.”</p>
<h2>Tensions and budget authority</h2>
<p>Clayton previously served as U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York and as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has kept a low profile since being confirmed in August. But during his Senate nomination hearing, Clayton said ODNI should serve as a “focal point” for the other 17 U.S. intelligence agencies.</p>
<p>“There needs to be a place of oversight, a place to resolve conflict. I look at it as a ‘board of directors’ role,” Clayton said. “And to the extent that the ODNI has gotten into operations or started to play the roles of some of those other agencies, it probably should pull back because it’s difficult to be both operations and oversight, but I think an oversight role is important.”</p>
<p>The DNI role replaced the director of the CIA’s responsibilities to both manage the intelligence community and serve as the president’s top intelligence advisor.</p>
<p>Yet since its inception, tensions between the DNI and the CIA director have raised persistent questions about who really serves as the president’s principal intelligence advisor.</p>
<p>“At times, the DNI had not been properly empowered to carry out full oversight of the IC or did not take full ownership of the role, creating power vacuums that were oftentimes filled by the [director of the CIA] or other leaders,” the House Intelligence Committee’s report states. “These tensions have been present in nearly every administration and have led to a fractured culture within the IC and a DNI role that has not been carried out as originally intended.”</p>
<p>McConnell said before the DNI was created, the CIA was able to control what went into the president’s daily brief. But the DNI now facilitates that preeminent analysis being coordinated across the intelligence community.</p>
<p>“I think it’s good when the president is told there are differences of opinion on an important issue,” McConnell said.</p>
<p>ODNI’s role over intelligence community budgets and personnel has also been ambiguous, leading to further challenges in how the office manages other spy agencies.</p>
<p>The Defense Department also still plays a significant role in managing military intelligence agencies, like the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency.</p>
<p>The House Intelligence Committee’s new report proposes giving the DNI “greater budget authority across the IC.”</p>
<p>“Full budget authority would allow the DNI – at the direction of the president of the United States – to better align resource allocations with national intelligence priorities, incentivize the IC to be force multipliers within a joint structure, and ensure that agencies are not protecting legacy programs or institutional status quos,” the report states.</p>
<p>The report adds that “reforms to strengthen ODNI should avoid adding bureaucracy. Instead, reforms should be targeted towards ensuring that the IC can act as a unified enterprise directed against strategic threats that do not align neatly with specific agency and department lines but rather operate within jurisdictional and authorities’ seams, giving an advantage to our adversaries.”</p>
<p>The path forward for the House Intelligence Committee’s proposals is murky. And Senate lawmakers have yet to weigh in with any ODNI reforms of their own.</p>
<p>Regardless of where such reforms land, Mattingley wants to see Congress conduct “more rigorous oversight regarding the agencies and the erosion of capability.”</p>
<p>“We’re really hoping that right now people are watching how the intelligence community is able to coordinate on our national security, because we need that long-term investment in these agencies to make sure that they can work together with the White House and with Congress to keep us safe,” she said.</p>
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What does 9/11 mean for young public servants who hardly remember it?

Decides which products and services federal agencies must buy from nonprofit agencies that employ people who are blind or have significant disabilities: it maintains the Procurement List published in the Federal Register and sets the fair market price for everything on it. Orders are distributed through two designated central nonprofit agencies.

AbilityOne Commission

Chairperson of the AbilityOne Commission

The Administration for Children and Families is an operating division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It administers federal programs that promote the economic and social well-being of children, youth, families, and communities, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Head Start, child care, child support enforcement, foster care and adoption assistance, refugee resettlement, and services for Native Americans. It was established in 1991 through a reorganization of the Department.

Administration for Children and Families

Alex J. Adams

The Administration for Community Living is an operating division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It administers programs that help older adults and people with disabilities live independently and participate in their communities, coordinating aging and disability services authorized largely by the Older Americans Act. It was created in 2012 by consolidating the Administration on Aging with offices serving people with disabilities.

Administration for Community Living

Administrator of the Administration for Community Living

Runs the aging services network created by the Older Americans Act: it funds state and area agencies on aging, which pay for congregate and home-delivered meals, in-home services and caregiver support. It also houses the long-term care ombudsman program and elder-rights protection work.

Administration on Aging

Mary Lazare

Sets policy and oversight for the federal child welfare and youth programs run by its two bureaus: the Children's Bureau, which administers foster care, adoption and child abuse prevention funding to states and tribes, and the Family and Youth Services Bureau, which funds runaway and homeless youth services and adolescent pregnancy prevention.

Administration on Children, Youth and Families

Cody Inman

The Administrative Conference of the United States is an independent federal agency that studies the administrative procedures of federal agencies and develops recommendations to improve the fairness, efficiency, and transparency of regulatory, benefit, and other government programs. Its members are drawn from federal agencies, academia, and private practice. It was established by the Administrative Conference Act of 1964 and operates under 5 U.S.C. 591 and following.

Administrative Conference of the United States

Presides over the Administrative Conference of the United States and is its chief executive, hiring and supervising the staff, preparing the Conference's budget estimates and serving as its official spokesman to the other branches. Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate for a five-year term (5 U.S.C. 593(b), 595(c)).

Chairman of Administrative Conference of the United States

The Administrative Office of the United States Courts is the central administrative and support agency for the federal judiciary. It provides budget, human resources, technology, statistical, program, and management support to the United States courts and serves as the staff for the Judicial Conference of the United States. It was established by the Act of August 7, 1939, and operates under Chapter 41 of Title 28 of the United States Code, headed by a Director appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States.

Administrative Office of the United States Courts

Robert J. Conrad Jr.

Issues the government-wide procurement policies that bind executive agencies and oversees how agencies buy and the federal acquisition workforce. Appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy

Kevin Rhodes

Has authority over and responsibility for all NNSA programs, including the weapons laboratories, production plants and nonproliferation work. The office is held by the Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security, appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.

Administrator for Nuclear Security

Brandon Williams

Administrator of General Services, the institutional head of General Services Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (40 U.S.C. 301); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of General Services

Edward C. Forst

Administrator of the Administration for Community Living, the institutional head of Administration for Community Living. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Department of Health and Human Services reorganization (2012); programs under the Older Americans Act of 1965; directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Directs the agency's national research programs and its network of laboratories and research centers, and decides which lines of in-house science USDA pursues. Selected within the Department rather than appointed by the President, reporting through the Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics.

Administrator of the Agricultural Research Service

Joon Park

Administrator of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the institutional head of Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Appointed under Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296), 116 Stat. 2135; directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau

Mary G. Ryan

Directs BPA's power marketing, transmission operations and rate-setting, and makes the arrangements for the sale and disposition of the federal power the agency sells to Northwest utilities. Appointed by, and responsible to, the Secretary of Energy.

Administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration

John L. Hairston

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the institutional head of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Social Security Act, Titles XVIII and XIX (42 U.S.C. 1395, 1396); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Mehmet Oz

Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the institutional head of Drug Enforcement Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973; directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration

Terrance C. Cole

Directs the government's central energy data and forecasting program and, by statute, publishes its statistical and forecasting reports without any other official's approval. Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, from people specially qualified to manage an energy information system.

Administrator of the Energy Information Administration

Tristan Abbey

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the institutional head of Environmental Protection Agency. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970; directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Lee M. Zeldin

Runs the agency's commodity, farm loan, disaster and conservation programs and its state and county office network. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture; the post is not Senate-confirmed.

Administrator of the Farm Service Agency

William Beam

Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the institutional head of Federal Aviation Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Federal Aviation Act of 1958 (72 Stat. 731); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration

Bryan Bedford

Runs FEMA and is the principal advisor to the President, the Homeland Security Council and the Secretary of Homeland Security on emergency management. Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, from candidates with demonstrated emergency management ability and at least five years of executive leadership experience.

Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

Cameron Hamilton

Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, the institutional head of Federal Highway Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Department of Transportation Act (49 U.S.C. 104); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration

Sean McMaster

Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the institutional head of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999 (113 Stat. 1748; 49 U.S.C. 113); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

Derek D. Barrs

Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, the institutional head of Federal Railroad Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Department of Transportation Act of 1966 (49 U.S.C. 103); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration

David Fink

Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration, the institutional head of Federal Transit Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1968 (5 U.S.C. app.; 49 U.S.C. ch. 53); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration

Exercises the Secretary's authority under the Federal Meat Inspection Act, Poultry Products Inspection Act, Egg Products Inspection Act and Humane Slaughter Act, and directs the inspection workforce. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture and reporting through the Under Secretary for Food Safety.

Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service

Justin Ransom

Runs the Foreign Agricultural Service and, by statute, also oversees the General Sales Manager and the Agricultural Attache Service, making the Administrator USDA's senior official on agricultural trade. The post is filled by the Secretary of Agriculture and is not Senate-confirmed.

Administrator of the Foreign Agricultural Service

Daniel Whitley

Administrator of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation, the institutional head of Great Lakes Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. Appointed by the President under Saint Lawrence Seaway Act of May 13, 1954 (33 U.S.C. 981-990); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation

J. M. (Mike) McCoshen

Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, the institutional head of Health Resources and Services Administration. Appointed under Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 201 et seq.); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration

Thomas J. Engels

Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the institutional head of National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (Public Law 85-568); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Jared Isaacman

Awards and administers the office's grants and judges whether states comply with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act's core protections. The Administrator is appointed by the President from among people with experience in juvenile justice programs.

Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

Eileen M. Garry

Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the institutional head of Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Norman Y. Mineta Research and Special Programs Improvement Act of 2004 (49 U.S.C. 108); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration

Paul J. Roberti

Directs the federal crop insurance program and also serves as Manager of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Risk Management Agency

Patricia Swanson

Directs the agency's rural business loan, loan guarantee and grant programs under the Under Secretary for Rural Development. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Rural Business-Cooperative Service

J.R. Claeys

Directs the agency's rural housing and community facilities loan, guarantee and grant programs under the Under Secretary for Rural Development. Appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Rural Housing Service

George Kelly

Directs the agency's electric, telecommunications and water and waste lending programs. Appointed by the President; no Senate confirmation required.

Administrator of the Rural Utilities Service

Karl Elmshaeuser

Administrator of the Small Business Administration, the institutional head of Small Business Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Small Business Act of 1953 (15 U.S.C. 631 et seq.); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Small Business Administration

Kelly Loeffler

Runs the power marketing administration: negotiates its wholesale sales contracts, sets rates that repay the federal investment in the dams, and directs generation scheduling with the Corps. Appointed by the Secretary of Energy.

Administrator of the Southeastern Power Administration

Virgil G. Hobbs III

Runs the power marketing administration: negotiates its wholesale contracts, sets rates that repay the federal investment in the dams, and oversees its transmission system. Appointed by the Secretary of Energy.

Administrator of the Southwestern Power Administration

Mike Wech

Directs federal security screening at airports and security regulation across all transportation modes, and receives and distributes transportation security intelligence. Appointed by the President with Senate confirmation for a five-year term; the statute requires experience in transportation or security.

Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration

David P. Cummins

Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, the institutional head of Wage and Hour Division. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 204); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division

Andrew Rogers

Runs WAPA's power marketing, rate setting and transmission operations, exercising on the Secretary's behalf the power marketing functions transferred from the Bureau of Reclamation. Appointed by the Secretary of Energy.

Administrator of the Western Area Power Administration

Tracey A. LeBeau

Funds high-risk energy research that industry will not finance on its own, awarding cost-shared projects to companies, universities and national laboratories and cutting them off when technical milestones are missed. Its targets are set by statute: energy imports, emissions, efficiency, nuclear waste, and the resilience of energy infrastructure.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy

Conner Prochaska

Runs the Section 106 process, under which a federal agency must consider how a project it funds, permits or carries out would affect historic properties and consult states and tribes before proceeding. It writes the regulations for that review, joins the hardest cases itself, and advises the President and Congress.

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality is an operating division of the United States Department of Health and Human Services within the Public Health Service. It produces evidence and funds research to make health care safer, higher in quality, more accessible, and more affordable, and works to ensure that the evidence is understood and used. It was established in 1999 under the Healthcare Research and Quality Act, succeeding the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, and is codified at 42 U.S.C. 299.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Roger D. Klein

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is a public health agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It evaluates and works to reduce human exposure to hazardous substances from waste sites, spills, and other releases, conducts public health assessments, and studies the health effects of toxic exposures. It was authorized by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980.

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Aaron Bernstein

Runs the Department of Agriculture's own laboratories: its scientists work on crop and livestock production, plant and animal disease, food safety, human nutrition and natural resource management. Results are published for public use rather than sold, and much of the work is done with land-grant universities.

Agricultural Research Service

Flies the aircraft and crews the vessels that Customs and Border Protection uses to detect, track and interdict smuggling and other unlawful cross-border activity. It is CBP's air and sea arm: the Border Patrol covers the land between ports of entry and the Office of Field Operations staffs the ports.

Air and Marine Operations

Jonathan P. Miller

Reviews court-martial convictions from the Air Force and Space Force, sitting in panels of at least three appellate military judges. It can affirm, modify or set aside findings and sentences, may hold a sentence inappropriately severe, and its decisions can be taken on to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals

Provides graduate and professional education to Air Force and Space Force members and Department of the Air Force civilians: its graduate school awards master's and doctoral degrees in engineering, science and management, and its continuing-education schools train civil engineers, logisticians and strategic-force specialists.

Air Force Institute of Technology

James C. Bowers

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury. It collects federal excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and ammunition and regulates the production, labeling, advertising, and importation of alcohol and tobacco products. It was established on January 24, 2003, under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which split the former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and retained the tax and trade functions in the Treasury.

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau

Serves as the principal cyberspace policy official within State Department senior management and as the Secretary's adviser on cyber and digital issues, leading the Department's cyber diplomacy. Appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, with the rank and status of ambassador.

Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy

Adam Cassady

Designs, builds and maintains the permanent American military cemeteries and memorials outside the United States - the graves, chapels, monuments and grounds where American war dead are buried or commemorated. It also controls the erection of other United States war memorials and monuments on foreign soil.

American Battle Monuments Commission

Chairman of the American Battle Monuments Commission

The American Printing House for the Blind is a private nonprofit corporation that holds a federal charter and serves as the official national source of educational materials for students who are legally blind and enrolled in programs below the college level. It produces and distributes braille and large-print textbooks, educational aids, and assistive technology, funded through an annual federal appropriation administered by the Department of Education. It was chartered by Congress in 1879.

American Printing House for the Blind

Craig Meador

The President of the American Printing House for the Blind leads the Louisville nonprofit that manufactures and furnishes braille, large-print and tactile materials for the instruction of blind students, distributed to schools each year under a federal per-pupil quota (20 U.S.C. 101, 102). Its Board of Trustees selects the president.

President

Funds economic development in the Appalachian counties of thirteen states, approving grants for broadband and water infrastructure, workforce training and business development, mostly delivered through local development districts. It is run jointly by the governors of the member states and a federal co-chair.

Appalachian Regional Commission

Gayle Conelly Manchin

The Architect of the Capitol is a legislative branch agency responsible for the maintenance, operation, development, and preservation of the United States Capitol, the congressional office buildings, the Library of Congress buildings, the Supreme Court building, the United States Botanic Garden, and the grounds of the Capitol campus. The title refers to both the agency and the official who heads it. Permanent statutory authority for the office dates to the Act of August 15, 1876.

Architect of the Capitol

Thomas E. Austin

The Architect of the Capitol has the care and superintendence of the Capitol and maintains the buildings and grounds of the Capitol campus (2 U.S.C. 1812). A commission of congressional leaders and appropriations and administration committee members appoints the Architect to a renewable 10-year term and can remove the holder at any time (2 U.S.C. 1801a).

Archivist of the United States, the institutional head of National Archives and Records Administration. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under National Archives and Records Administration Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-497); directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Archivist of the United States

Bradford Pentony Wilson

Arctic Research Commission

Chairman of the Arctic Research Commission

Operates the two homes for retired and former enlisted members of the armed forces, Armed Forces Retirement Home-Washington and Armed Forces Retirement Home-Gulfport, providing residences, meals and graduated levels of health and long-term care. Eligibility is statutory, turning on length of service or wartime service.

Armed Forces Retirement Home

Stephen T. Rippe

Hears and decides contractors' appeals from the final decisions of Department of Defense and NASA contracting officers - disputes over payment, delay, termination and contract interpretation. Its full-time judges must have at least five years of experience in public contract law and are selected the way administrative law judges are.

Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals

Reviews court-martial convictions from the Army, sitting in panels of at least three appellate military judges. It can affirm, modify or set aside findings and sentences, may hold a sentence inappropriately severe, and its decisions can be taken on to the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.

Army Court of Criminal Appeals

Heads the National Security Division and is the Justice Department's primary liaison to the Director of National Intelligence. One of the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorneys General, designated for the role by the President (28 U.S.C. 507A).

Assistant Attorney General for National Security

John A. Eisenberg

Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, the institutional head of Office of Justice Programs. Appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, under Justice Assistance Act of 1984; directs the agency's staff, budget, and statutory functions.

Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs

Maureen A. Henneberg

Heads CBP's intelligence office and reports directly to the Commissioner, with responsibility for the agency's intelligence enterprise, its counterintelligence operations and its intelligence-sharing agreements. A career official, not a presidential appointee.