Lisner Auditorium played host to a ceremony Tuesday that marked the transition of several agencies to the newly created Homeland Security Department, a part of the largest reorganization of the federal government since World War II.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge was among two Cabinet members present as more than 200 federal agency representatives witnessed the transfer. Three Treasury Department enforcement agencies moved to the newly created Homeland Security Department while one is now under the Justice Department.
Treasury Secretary John Snow passed ceremonial flags representing the U.S. Customs Service, Secret Service and Federal Law Enforcement Training Center to Ridge while the directors of these departments looked on. The agencies will officially move to the department March 1.
President George W. Bush called for the creation of the Homeland Security Department in the wake of September 11 with the mission to protect U.S. borders and prevent terrorist attacks. Bush signed a bill in November creating the department, which officially began work Jan. 24. The Homeland Security Department will eventually bring 22 government agencies together.
Ridge recognized the challenge of bringing more than 175,000 personnel into the new department but said the agencies do not need additional training because they have been protecting the country for years.
“At the end of the day, it’s the same team, same fight … protecting the homeland and securing the liberty and freedoms that we enjoy,” Ridge said, noting that some agencies, such as the U.S. Customs Service, have existed since the nation’s founding.
Other agencies are also moving to the Homeland Security Department, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency, but Tuesday marked Treasury Day and strictly recognized the transfer of Treasury Department enforcement agencies.
Ridge said communication and candor will be vital to resolve many of the “predictable, unavoidable challenges associated with merging 175,000 people into one new department.”
“These men and women have to be right over a billion times a year,” Ridge said, calculating the number of visitors, cargo containers and ships that enter the country.
Snow, an alumnus of the GW Law School, said the Treasury Department recognizes a “sense of loss” but said this is an extremely rare opportunity for the agencies to create new traditions.
Bradley A. Buckles, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, was the fourth agency representative in attendance. He will oversee the split of the agency into two departments. A new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will be based in the Justice Department while a new Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau will be run out of the Treasury Department.
University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg opened the event by declaring a “particularly robust embrace” for Snow because of his GW past. He quipped that Ridge is not an alumnus.
