[Editor's note: This piece is part of Lawfare's collection "9/11 at 25: The Legal Architecture of the War on Terror, Twenty-Five Years On," examining how 9/11 remains—or doesn't—embedded in current legal and policy frameworks, a quarter century after the attacks. Read the full collection here.]***For my generation of Americans, Sept. 11, 2001, is the date that lives in infamy. It was a Tuesday. I was in Manhattan that day, my 44th birthday. The stark contrast of the black smoke billowing off the north tower of the World Trade Center against the crystal-clear blue sky is forever burned in my memory. When the south tower collapsed into a cloud of dust, my brain refused to register what my eyes were seeing. By the time I drove home to New Jersey that afternoon, the world had changed. A fighter jet patrolled the skies over Manhattan. The National Guard was posted on the George Washington Bridge. In just a few hours, New York City had become a war zone. I had worked at the Pentagon just nine months before as general counsel of the Air Force in the Clinton Administration. The Pentagon was also hit that day. On Sept. 11, 2001, I was a private citizen again, a mere observer of cataclysmic events. A feeling of helplessness enveloped me.Twelve years later, I found myself in the Rose Garden, standing between President Obama and then-Vice President Biden as the president announced he was nominating me to become the fourth secretary of homeland security. I had served as general counsel of the Defense Department in Obama’s first term, steeped in national security but from a legal viewpoint. By 2013, like 2001, I had returned to private law practice. In a surprise move to almost everyone, the president asked me to return to duty running a Cabinet department of 250,000 people and 24 components. Privately, I wondered whether I was qualified for the job, but I could not refuse it. Congress created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002 in direct response to the events of 9/11. Up until then, our nation, unlike others we know well, did not have any kind of national ministry of the interior or public safety. We indulged ourselves in the belief that we were separated by two oceans from most of the rest of the world and all the terrorists who populated it. Sept. 11 shook us to a new reality. The 9/11 hijackers were all from the Middle East and had entered this country legally by way of tourist, student, or business visas. In the aftermath of 9/11, our nation’s leaders therefore saw terrorism as an extraterritorial threat: Do a better job of securing our borders at the ports, on land, at sea and in the air and we can keep the terrorists out. Thus, DHS was created as one vast Cabinet-level department with oversight of the agencies that regulate all the different ways someone can enter this country by land (Border Patrol), sea (Coast Guard), air (TSA), and at the land, sea, and air ports of entry (Customs). To enforce our immigration laws in the interior, Congress added Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the mix. Congress also added to the mix the Secret Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In some respects, Congress went too far and in other respects not far enough. From the start, DHS has never been able to function as the U.S. government’s leader in the counterterrorism space. Then and now, the FBI is the well-earned dominant player in the area. Though our government is smarter and better at monitoring and regulating who enters our country today, terrorism has evolved from an extraterritorial threat to one that is also domestic based and domestic inspired. Increasing levels of mass shootings and gun violence by domestic perpetrators with a political motive can properly be classified as “terrorism,” but DHS has little role in this space.The politically volatile immigration (or, as some would say, anti-immigration) mission has overwhelmed DHS. The component of our government originally intended to “keep us safe” is viewed in many communities primarily as a pariah, an enemy of the people, a heartless deportation machine to be reviled for family separation, masked men snatching people off the streets at night, and the killing of innocent civilians for which there has been no apparent accountability. Mayors and city councils in blue cities don’t want to work with DHS at all, to the detriment of public safety. Twenty-five years after 9/11, it’s time to rethink homeland security.In the United Kingdom, France, and other nations, there is a Cabinet-level ministry for public safety, distinct from the justice ministry, which oversees national law enforcement, security, and immigration. Congress should consider a similar model to address our domestic security in an enduring way, in the face of an ever-evolving threat picture. Law Enforcement and CounterterrorismAt present, federal law enforcement is scattered largely, but not entirely, across the Justice, Treasury, and Homeland Security Departments. Still other federal departments and agencies, such as the Postal Service and certain IRS components, engage in law enforcement. Shuffled and reshuffled over the course of history, Americans should rightly question the configuration. Law enforcement across the federal government lacks clear dividing lines and overlaps; investigations and arrests often depend simply on who discovered the crime first. Meanwhile, a holy grail among federal agency heads is to never cede ground or resources to another agency; we all cling to our existing prerogatives. Congress should consider eliminating DHS as we know it and creating one new Cabinet-level department with a greater consolidation of federal law enforcement agencies—including the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security Investigations, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, the Marshals Service, the Federal Protective Service, and the Federal Air Marshal Service—led by a secretary empowered to deconflict and streamline their law enforcement missions. Certain law enforcement entities with highly specialized missions, such as the U.S. Postal Service Inspectors or criminal investigations division of the IRS, should remain where they are. In all, domestic law enforcement and domestic security in this country should be the responsibility of one Cabinet-level official, supported by competent, apolitical agency heads, as it is in other nations. We can and should allow each law enforcement agency to retain its culture, its heritage, and its brand, but with common oversight. There is virtue in multiple law enforcement agencies at the table together, reporting to one individual. The lack of common oversight invariably leads to duplicity, competition, a waste of government resources, and vital matters falling between the cracks. CybersecurityCybersecurity should be included in this newly created department. Security is closely aligned with law enforcement. The same is true of cybersecurity and cybercrime. Previously, cybersecurity was part of a directorate of DHS with a cumbersome name, the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD). In 2018, NPPD was officially renamed and transformed by Congress into an agency within DHS, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Given the growing and evolving cyber threat to the country, this was a step in the right direction. Though it has had some capable leaders since its creation, CISA has had difficulty getting off the ground. It has yet to win wide public credibility, and the Trump administration has hobbled it with massive budget cuts and layoffs. Meanwhile, multiple other federal agencies—domestic, financial, and military—have also taken on a cybersecurity mission. The public is rightly confused about who to look to as the federal government’s primary watchdog for cybersecurity. CISA should be retained, strengthened, and included within the newly created Cabinet-level department. Aviation SecurityTSA is not a law enforcement agency, but like CISA and the Secret Service, it has a closely aligned security mission. Aviation security—preventing bad people from doing bad things on aircraft—is distinct from aviation safety, the province of the FAA. Despite its vital mission, TSA has been crippled by low morale, departures, and government shutdowns. When it comes to aviation security, we should never be lulled into complacency. The risks are too high. TSA benefits as an agency part of a larger security department of the government. It should remain so. Local airport authorities should be aware that aviation security can be privatized at airports, so long as it is subject to TSA oversight. IntelligenceIn a larger, newly created Cabinet department with most federal law enforcement agencies under its umbrella, a centralized intelligence directorate to support the mission is critical. DHS currently has an Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) directorate to support its missions, led by an under secretary. Administratively, I&A is housed in DHS, but is part of the U.S. government’s overall intelligence community, subject to the oversight and budgeting of the director of national intelligence. Under the capable leadership of a seasoned professional, an intelligence directorate can consolidate and deconflict information and capabilities, and the directorate can ensure that the right law enforcement agencies receive the right intelligence at the right time.The LawyersThe Department of Justice must be retained, but limited to the legal function. Across many foreign governments, and state and local governments in this country, the separation of the prosecutors from the police force is the norm, not the exception. In New York City, for example, the New York Police Department is separate and distinct from the district attorneys in the five boroughs and the city’s corporation counsel. There is virtue in placing some distance between government lawyers and the agency clients they represent, including law enforcement. While government lawyers are bound like other attorneys to zealously represent their clients, some degree of independent judgment by the lawyers who appear in court in criminal and civil cases is warranted. And, under such an arrangement, “weaponization” of the law to go after perceived political enemies would require the buy-in of two Cabinet-level officials, not one. (There is a separate debate ongoing about the degree to which the Department of Justice should be free of political pressure from the White House, which is not addressed here.) OPLAWithin ICE is the Office of Principal Legal Advisor (OPLA), a group of about 1700 attorneys charged with representing ICE in prosecuting removal cases before immigration judges. OPLA is therefore part of DHS. Like other federal civilian prosecutors, these attorneys who represent the U.S. government in court should be part of the Department of Justice, not ICE and DHS, and trained like assistant U.S. attorneys in the ethical, independent, and lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion.Immigration JudgesImmigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice and therefore under the attorney general’s supervision. In other words, a court system under the control of the nation’s top prosecutor. The flaws in such a system should be self-evident. The attorney general can fire immigration judges en masse (and has, as recently as 2026). Under the current system, immigration judges are also bound to follow the politically-appointed attorney general’s legal interpretations of immigration law, which can (and have) shifted from administration to administration. The American Bar Association and other organizations have long called for shifting the immigration courts to an independent Article I court system similar to the U.S. Tax Court. Legislation has been pending in Congress to achieve this.FEMAGiven its vital and unique disaster mission in times of global warming and increasingly severe weather events, FEMA should be elevated to an independent agency of the U.S. government, not subordinate within a security or law enforcement department. USCISUSCIS is an agency within DHS. Though there are security aspects to its mission, it is best known for naturalizations, managing visa and asylum applications, refugee resettlement, and administration of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. I have observed that USCIS’s culture is more like that of the State Department, which issues passports, and not of a law enforcement or security agency. For the sake of efficiency and symmetry, USCIS should be part of the State Department. Privacy and Civil LibertiesFinally, a large and powerful Cabinet department that includes most, if not all, federal law enforcement is bound to raise privacy and civil liberties concerns. DHS currently has an Office for Privacy and an Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. These offices are currently understaffed and lack real authority and stature. To bolster public confidence in a large, newly created national public safety arm of the U.S. government, these functions should be transformed into a semi-independent directorate overseen at the under secretary level, with independent reporting obligations to Congress. * * *Government policymakers, with the best of intentions, too often respond to the circumstances of the moment. Twenty-five years after 9/11, the homeland security threat environment and capabilities have changed significantly. The DHS constructed in 2002 is now outdated, reviled by many, and was imperfect from the start. The task now is to rebuild a national public safety apparatus responsive to the present day, agile enough to respond to an evolving future, which will inspire confidence and not scorn. This set of recommendations should not be read as an “abolish ICE” or “abolish DHS” rallying cry. Each of the missions DHS pursues—to one degree or another—is essential to a civilized society. But through realignment, the government can perform these missions more efficiently and effectively to meet present day and future challenges.