GAO: DHS Took More Than Three Years on Majority of Closed Whistleblower-Retaliation Cases

The Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general took more than three years to finish 39 of the 73 whistleblower-retaliation investigations it opened and closed from fiscal 2018 through 2025. That is 53 percent of the closed file. Eight cases finished in a year. Nineteen took more than four years. Just the News reported the findings after GAO released report GAO-26-108106 on Sept. 17.

The average time from complaint to closed investigation was about three and a half years. The range was 14 days to about six years. As of Sept. 30, 2025, 42 more investigations were still open. Six of those had already passed three years. Two had passed five.

OIG’s Office of Investigations logged about 236,000 wrongdoing complaints in that span and sent 3,025 retaliation allegations to the Whistleblower Protection Division. The division opened 115 investigations. CBP, ICE, and TSA accounted for 69 percent of the complaints WPD reviewed.

Of the 73 closed cases, WPD substantiated 11. Eight of those 11 were Coast Guard matters. The Homeland Security Act and related statutes give the secretary 30 days after an OIG report to decide on corrective action. GAO said the secretary missed that deadline on every substantiated case.

As of May 2026, the secretary had ordered corrective action in five cases and had not decided six. Those 11 files sat four months to more than two years awaiting a decision. DHS officials told GAO there is no designated official or process to force a timely review.

GAO wrote that delays “could undermine whistleblowers’ confidence in their protections” and that faster work “could lessen the personal, financial, and professional hardships on complainants.” OIG officials said complexity and limited staff slowed some files and that they emphasized thoroughness over speed. GAO said OIG policy calls for timely review but does not define timeliness in measurable terms and does not track it.

The report made three recommendations: OIG should set and measure investigation deadlines; the secretary should decide the six pending cases; and the department should assign an official and write procedures so future substantiated cases do not sit. DHS told GAO the secretary decided one Coast Guard case on July 22, 2026, after OIG sent it in March 2024. The other recommendations remained open. GAO did not name individual complainants.