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Introduced March 3, 2026 by August Pfluger · Last progress March 3, 2026
The bill decentralizes DHS analytic capacity to improve regional responsiveness, coordination, and oversight but at the cost of higher taxpayer-funded personnel/training expenses, potential career disruption for analysts, and risks of uneven intelligence quality and privacy exposure across regions.
State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners (and local law enforcement) will have embedded federal I&A analysts/dedicated IOs/IAs in their regions for real-time analytic support and improved coordination, increasing operational responsiveness.
IOs/IAs must receive civil rights, civil liberties, and Privacy Act training before assignment, which reduces the risk of privacy violations and protects individual rights during regional intelligence activities.
Regular staffing plans and annual reports to congressional committees increase transparency and create greater oversight of decentralization, helping hold DHS accountable for regional analytic placements.
Decentralizing analysts risks inconsistent analytic standards and uneven intelligence quality across regions, producing coverage gaps that could weaken threat detection for some communities (including border and Tribal areas).
Shifting analytic functions to the field will raise taxpayer costs due to additional personnel, relocation, and training expenses associated with regional placements.
Field placements and rotational rules could disrupt federal analysts' career paths, impose relocation burdens, and reduce morale or retention among I&A personnel.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Requires DHS I&A to decentralize analytic functions and place intelligence officers and analysts in each regional fusion center and key task force, with staffing, training, rotation, and reporting rules.
Shifts DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) from a centralized headquarters model to a field-based model by requiring DHS to place intelligence officers and analysts directly in regional fusion centers, joint task forces, and other strategic locations. It sets staffing, training, assignment length, rotation, reporting, and plan/reporting deadlines to guide the transition and maintain coordination with other DHS components and SLTT partners. Requires DHS to decentralize primary analytic functions within two years, assign at least one Intelligence Officer and one Intelligence Analyst to each fusion center and key task forces, provide civil rights/civil liberties and Privacy Act training before deployment, establish multi-year rotation rules with staggered terms, and submit staffing/resource plans and periodic reports to Congress on implementation and operational impacts.