5. Department of Homeland Security · Notable
Fold CRCL and the Privacy Office into the Office of the General Counsel
Printed page 164 5. Department of Homeland Security
“The organizational structure of both CRCL and the Privacy Office should be changed to ensure proper alignment with the department's mission. The Office of General Counsel should absorb both CRCL's and PRIV's necessary functions”
What has happened
- Not started
Neither office has been folded into the Office of the General Counsel. Both were cut hard in the March 2025 reduction in force, but after litigation DHS posted notices saying each “continues to exist and will perform its statutorily required functions”, and the department's organizational chart published 2026-05-19 still shows the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Privacy Office as boxes of their own alongside, not inside, the Office of the General Counsel. A reduction in force is not an absorption of functions.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
For an ask to eliminate or transfer an office, the test is what happened to the functions, with the org chart as evidence rather than a substitute. Here both point the same way: CRCL still runs its complaint program (DHS submitted the CRCL Complaint and Privacy Waiver Form, OMB control 1601-0035, for renewed OMB clearance on 2026-07-22) and the Privacy Office still has a Chief Privacy Officer.
- Trail: #278 and #286, researched earlier on the same March 2025 RIF, both partial and both about a different question (whether the supporting components are being dismantled at all).
- One negative search covered CRCL, the Privacy Office and the two ombudsmen together. Section 513 of Public Law 119-86 now bars DHS from spending appropriated money on section 872 reorganizations without new authorization, which is the legal obstacle to doing this by directive.
- Action
- transfer
- Object
- Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Privacy Office
- ID
- 437