Modernizing the ICE Mission: A Conversation with Dustin Goetz Part 2

Welcome to “HSDF THE PODCAST,” a collection of policy discussions on government technology and homeland security brought to you by the Homeland Security and Defense Forum

In this episode, We break down how CTMS streamlines cyber hiring while outlining what industry partnerships must deliver to move the mission faster. We dive into AI automation, mobile-first operations, user experience, and the metrics that matter for reinvestment and scale.

Featuring:
- Dustin Goetz, Chief Information Officer, Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
- Luke McCormack, Former CIO, Departments of Homeland Security and Justice (moderator)

This discussion took place January 22nd, 2026, at HSDF’s Technology Innovation in Government Symposium

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Follow  HSDF THE PODCAST and never miss latest insider talk on government technology, innovation, and security.  Visit the HSDF YouTube channel to view hours of insightful policy discussion.  For more information about the Homeland Security & Defense Forum (HSDF), visit hsdf.org.

Transcript

CTMS Test-Based Hiring Explained

SPEAKER_03 0:00

How does the the hiring process work?

SPEAKER_05 0:02

That's different as well, right? Yeah, CTMS is test-based uh hiring. Uh if you go to USA Jobs uh slash CTMS, it'll pull up the portal and it will explain to you the process. But in a nutshell, uh you will test into one of the I think six or seven different categories. That's a very, very thorough test uh where they're going to ask you anything from you know port assignments on a firewall to policy and CNA controls, everything in between. We've actually had some feedback to say that's a little too broad. So we're going to try to narrow that down a little bit to be more specific for the type of individual that we're hiring. The benefit though is if you test into the process, your resume goes into a pool and you are an applicable candidate that can be used across any hiring manager within the organization, um, and they can just pull you right out of the pool. You're good for a year, uh, which is a big difference from Title V where you would apply, you'd make a cert list, and then if you didn't get that cert list, then you you would have to apply for another job. This cuts away a lot of that um bureaucracy and paperwork.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

And remember, cyber wide swath, right? This isn't just the folks working in the SOC. These are people that are, you know, in all the way up into the business applications and everything in between, right? So a big swath. When do you expect to have that out? So roughly when when will people see that?

SPEAKER_05 1:28

Well, CTMS has been out for around two years. As a matter of fact, I'm a CTMS executive, which is akin to the SCS, but I get paid a little more. So don't tell anyone.

SPEAKER_03 1:38

But the But as far as your announcements going out.

SPEAKER_05 1:41

The announcements are are going to hit the street relatively soon. I'm hesitant to give you an exact date because soon, right? Yeah. Soon. Well, and and the beauty is again, you you apply for one and you're applicable to all of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

So keep your eyes open for those that might be looking for uh some new opportunities in 2026. And by the way, it does go all the way up to executive level.

SPEAKER_05 2:01

So we're we will be considering um hiring executives as well as your senior cybersecurity specialists, cybersecurity specialists all the way down. And they'll actually go all the way down to um developmental.

Talent Pools And Year-Long Eligibility

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Let's talk about partnerships. You touched on how important that is, and you're in a unique situation. You played on both sides of the fence in different components, et cetera. So you understand this better than even most, I would say, uh, and have worked with a lot of different types of partners out there in your role at CBP, right? Everything from port authorities, right? They have their own kingdom to all the folks here that are supporting you in various ways, to everything in between, including other, you know, parts of the government. So talk about the partnership relationships, how those work, why are they important, you know, what's the leverage point there, uh, what works for you, and maybe what doesn't work, right? So everyone understands that too.

unknown 2:58

Sure.

Openings From Developmental To Executive

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Um by the way, if I may, I think May Megan mentioned it. We are gonna break break at about, I don't know, maybe five or so more minutes, and take some questions. We're gonna fire away on questions, and then uh we're gonna break on the questions, come back. He's got a couple more things he wants to close out with. So go ahead. I'm sorry. What was the question? The question was around hiring. Uh no, wait, partnership.

Partnerships Across Government And Industry

What Industry Should Bring To The Table

SPEAKER_05 3:25

Partnership. Um I'll I'll just because I know we're limited in time, I'll just uh probably fine on time. Yeah. Okay. Um as I mentioned, partnerships are gonna be play a key role in how ICE moves forward. Uh, because we're moving so fast, uh, we really rely on our partnerships with industry to come in and as best possible. You're not gonna be successful in every uh portion of ICE, but look at what how we're set up and how we're established and help us identify you know those blind spots. Um we are a relatively large organization. We're nationwide, we do operate in some silos, and I would I think everyone here knows that, so I'm not saying anything that's brand new. Um so we don't have visibility into the you know every single corner of operations. Typically, industry does. You guys know where some of the bones are buried that we don't know. Let's talk about those, bring them to us, let's figure out how we can work together to bolster down on ICE capabilities. You're probably aware of some of our operational requirements better than ICE OCIO is, although probably give me another two months and I'll challenge anyone that because I'm I'm in the trenches. I went to St. Paul and I'm trying to run you know shoulder to shoulder with some of these guys. But you may have a different perspective on how technology can help advance their capabilities. Uh, talk to us. Let us let's see what you have to offer. The request, though, that I have is um time is limited. So when we talk, we want to get right down to brass tags and we want to know how your technology is meeting a very unique and specific requirement to ICE. Um and as much as I would love to sit down and talk with almost everyone here, the reality is it's a finite amount of time. And the days where you came in and you say, This is our technology, you tell us how we can fit in, it's not there anymore. And I apologize in advance, but uh I'm gonna help have to request that industry help us clap some of this out and say, This is what we have, this is your requirement, this is how they can we can marry the two together, and that would speak volumes. Um, also, our we were talking a little earlier about data management and AI, kind of closing the loop with that. Uh, we are trying to automate as many of our business functions as possible. Uh anything that's uh, and these are not targets, but uh examples, you know, lower level cybersecurity positions, lower level network operations positions, lower level service desk positions, administrative functions, a lot of these things can be automated with the data that we currently have, we just have to train models to help us. So we have a chat capability and AI uh team inside of ICE. Uh we'll call we're calling it Stella. And it's uh we have a chief innovation and AI officer who's leading the charge. If your technology is something that you think we can leverage to help automate some of those lower-level functions, let me know. I'll get you in touch with the right team. And um, and we'll make sure that you have an opportunity to see what we're doing, what capabilities we have. And if you can build something within our the confines of our platform, it makes life a little bit easier for us. If not, then he'll at least be able to ferret it out and understand what you guys are offering and help you guide uh your capability into our architecture. But key takeaways there, uh AI automation, cost uh cost reduction is a big one, but that's a topic for a whole other event. Um uh third one. Yeah, make making sure that your technology matches, because I I can't help you guys connect all the dots all the time.

AI Automation Priorities And Stella

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Yeah, and speaking of partnerships, I should have brought this up with the uh the CTMS and the uh, and I really want to thank uh Dustin in public here for uh his uh unwavering uh uh support in the partnership of the U.S. Cyber Challenge. You know, that's something that we we do every year, uh, where we're taking about, you know, probably about 200 students this year and putting them through a cyber boot camp of sorts. Uh we always reach out to the CIO community and to the CISO community to help us give real-world examples, getting all the way to the point now where we're gonna get some of them involved with CTMS and hopefully become some of those CTMS candidates. So we appreciate the sponsorship that uh many of you provide for that. Really important. That's some, you know, that's the emerging talent coming out of these universities that we want into these capability areas. And I think that's a real good win-win and another different type of partnership, if you will. But certainly do appreciate that. Um let's talk about user experience. I'm I'm so sad that Martha Doris isn't here because she is uh Mrs. CX, as many of you know in the Federal Service, and has has really led the charge there. And I know that's super important to you as well about making sure that uh, you know, whatever it is you're putting in that operator's hand uh is gonna be a good experience, right? So there's internal employee experience, right? The whole dex play, and then there's this external, right? I need to find where this person is or what have you, and that kind of experiences. Talk about sort of how you all focus your attention on that, how you think about that as you're incorporating and building these environments.

Developing Emerging Talent With U.S. Cyber Challenge

User Experience And Cutting Processing Time

SPEAKER_05 8:49

Yeah, we're we're definitely knocking off some dust from the the um the old school, you know, let's have let's practice the ancient art of conversation, right? And we're taking that same approach with um user experience. We want to bring user experience back into the mix um for different reasons. Uh the key reason is that if you if you run through a simple operation with with ICE officers, obviously our primary customer, uh their processing time for manage or for booking a detainee is approximately 45 minutes. That's 45 minutes that they're sitting down, typing the data in from one application into the next application, and for every minute that ticks by that they're not back out on the streets is time lost in trying to apprehend the next person, uh sex offender, child trafficking, you know, human trafficking, stuff like that. You know, so it's very important to us to try to figure out how we are going to reduce that um processing time, and that comes through an understanding of what is the user experiencing in the utilization of their applications. And there's the when we developed the app, it was perfect at the time. But now the technology is we're trying to push it further and further out into the hands of the officers and the agents. So now we're talking about what information can we give them on their phone that they can start filling out the the booking, and then by the time they get back into the detention center, they're just transmitting the file over to a low to an administrative person that is specialized in those services and take that burden off the officer. So that starts with understanding how they how they process from the very edge and all the way through. We were spending a significant amount of time and we just started in trying to map out those business processes. Um I know for some of the folks here there may be a legacy term, but you know, Six Sigma, lean Six Sigma. There's a real place for that right now and trying to uh get rid of all of the unnecessary steps. We have another application that uh by the way, side note, you'd never give an IT person the opportunity to develop an application without really good requirements because we built this application that I will not name by name that had every bell and whistle on it that you could possibly think of. And for the developing team and the program, this thing was the bee's knees and the cat's meow. It was the best. You give it to an operator, and like, what in the Sam heck are you giving me? And they didn't understand how to use it. So uh we just took over that application and we're getting ready to go through the whole experience of revamping, you know, not the tool, but well in concept, we're revising the business process, and we're gonna take something that took someone 20 minutes a day to go out and fill out a simple form down to about 30 seconds. That is revolutionary for these guys. And they they said, Oh, I'm gonna challenge them into this, I'm gonna kind of hold it to them, that if I could solve that problem and one other problem, that they would make a bronze statue out in front of me of ice, I'll be sitting next to you.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Hey, listen, 20 minutes a a day times, you know, a hundred times a thousand times five thousand. Boy, I tell you that uh that adds up to horsepower that you can go reuse if you haven't listened to James McCamin and Janet Pence talk about sort of, you know, getting that uh those hours back to the workforce. Uh this is all about that, you know, that digital experience, if you will. Speaking of that, let's talk about metrics and measuring and how does one understand and ensure that, hey, you hit the mark, right? You've done all this work, you've delivered it out there. We don't want to find out when the operator's screaming at us that, hey, we didn't hit the mark. How do how does how are you doing your measuring and what is the sort of instrumentation process to make sure you're you're answering the mail?

Mapping Processes And Lean Methods

SPEAKER_05 12:48

Uh it goes without saying that it's all ties back to data. But uh the SLAs, the metrics, and how we're managing business has kind of been another thing that we've lost. And they're baked into a lot of our contracts with you, and and we certainly appreciate you reporting on those metrics. But at the end of the day, we have to use, we have to define better metrics on how we're doing business, how we're baselining business, how we're performing against the baseline, and then what are the benefits to both sides in meeting those goals? In some situations, it may be to move the mark up higher because we didn't set it right to begin with. In other cases, we're gonna have to bring it down or get you additional resources. It's a quid pro quo tool that we should openly negotiate and talk about, even post-contract award, which will obviously I know that will have some implications on cost, but that we're starting to take metrics um more seriously, and we are going to ensure that whatever metrics we um put in place is going to be able to answer the mail of so what. You know, I don't want to see legacy metrics, I don't want to see metrics that don't really help me make business decisions. These metrics have to be tied to something that's going to have a ramification, positive or negative, um, so that we can make adjustments as we go along. Furthermore, the metrics that we developed at the start of the contract may no longer be relevant or important to us as the contract matures. So we're gonna have to have a partnership there in figuring out what the new metrics are. Um, and then ultimately it's going to be about what did we deliver? Did we deliver it correctly on time and on schedule? And you and everyone knows about that. But, you know, uh, how are we operating? Can we be more efficient? Or some of those key metrics that I really want to start targeting. There are a few folks here that I've talked to um earlier about if we meet metrics and we enable automation within a contract, we don't want to we'll divest pieces of that contract and but we want to reinvest in that same contractor. Um you know, we don't want we're not in the business to put anyone out of business. We're in the business to make sure that our partnership and our operations are are moving forward and fast. Um, and again, partnership and flexibility are part of that. So when we find opportunities to reduce costs in one area, we're going to work with you to reinvest those costs into other areas on the same contract so that we can rinse and repeat an agreed upon area. So it's it it's that again, partnership and that quid pro quo that we want to maintain and manage.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

Stretch that dollar, if you will, and get more value out of it. Sounds awesome. All right, let's take some questions. This gentleman had his hand up first. Let's see if we can get a mic to you. Ladies and gentlemen, General Ragland.

Metrics That Drive Decisions And Contracts

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Dustin, because of the mobility of your workforce in ICE, can you share any observations about your pushes to support because between ERO and the HSI workforce, we're all aware of the mobility of your workforce. But any insights or any comments, thoughts as far as where you are now, where you're reaching to go?

Audience Q&A: Mobility And Modernization

SPEAKER_05 16:15

Mobility is a big thing. Uh, we are trying to we're we're level first, we have to focus inside the building, right? And ICE traditionally hasn't gotten a lot of infrastructure funds. We have some infrastructure funds, so now we're moving away from your traditional landline pools, and we're moving almost exclusively to Wi-Fi and all of our new um locations, which there are going to be a lot of them. Uh, but we're uh so that's inside the building, but now you're talking about outside the building, and a lot of the applications that we're building uh and developing, sorry, employing um uh Eagle, Mobile Fortify, Mobile Identify, they're all going to be mobile applications. So we're looking at our mobile platforms, making sure that they're robust enough to be able to handle those applications, that it means it's it's doing something for the operator, um, and we're bringing technology and pushing as far as we can, Tom. Um that of course takes some scrutiny from the cybersecurity team because we're still in this legacy mindset of the desktop being the first port, and yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never gotten that. Um but we're I'm trying to bring our teams together and say, look, these devices, these mobile devices, tablets, mobile phones, even to some of the um uh thin clients, we should not be treating them any different than we are with desktops. And for some reason we keep going back. And I have two infrastructures now, I have a mobile infrastructure and I have a you know legacy infrastructure, and I need to bring those together. So yeah, we're it's multi-pronged. So cybersecurity, working with the application developers with uh the Stella chat that we talked about earlier. Uh the very first idea is that we're gonna get an analytical tool that is great when you use it on the computer, but that's not where these guys are going to use it. They need to use it on the phones, be able to snap the picture, process that through AI, give them some indication of what they're looking at. Um, and by the way, side note, when I reference AI, they're completely separate. They're a tool. There's always going to be human intervention between AI capability and what we're processing. And what we're processing. So uh I just want to make sure that clip somehow makes it into everything. Next question.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

Got somebody over here. Looks like. Yeah. Two people there. We'll try to keep speeding them up here because we want to get as many as we can. Good morning.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

Mark McGee with Akama. Thanks for your time. Um given the one big beautiful bill, resources that have come to ICE, uh, my understanding is ICE is going from a roughly a$10 billion organization annually to something around$25,$30 billion annually. That has to put strain, I would assume, on the IT infrastructure and uh other systems that you run. My understanding also is that there's maybe$500 million for IT modernization. Um just curious as to how you're planning to use that and possibly address any strains that more officers, et cetera, are going to place on things. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 19:27

Well, thank you, Mark. Uh so it's I we're renegotiating the amount of money that we have for OCIO and infrastructure costs, but I can tell you that the lion's share of that's going to be absorbed by equipment, licensing, um, in some cases infrastructure, but then go back to my earlier note where we're going to lower costs for infrastructure and really leverage Wi-Fi. Back end infrastructure, uh, we we're pretty scalable as we are right now. Um I'm not going to say with any uh degree of certainty that we're where we are now is where we're going to be in the next three years. So our security and I'm sorry, um our engineering team is looking at that, constantly looking at that. Um if you haven't met with them, um India is our division chief there. I'm sure she would be more than happy to talk with folks that have ideas on how to reduce our costs and make sure that we're maintaining mission in a scalable way.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

I think you're you were talking about uh re negotiating. There's a lot of money in the building with the other programs, right? You're trying to pull some of that in to make sure that you're supporting them. How much of the business applications that you were talking about earlier that are going to get, you know, uh refactored or, you know, modernized, et cetera, through this big, beautiful bill, how much of that do you think will get accomplished sort of at the tail end of that? The majority of it?

Funding, Scalability, And App Refactoring

SPEAKER_05 20:52

Yeah, we have some really good leads. Uh we're closely, we're working closely with HSI and ERO. They have some wonderful leadership. Some of you may have met them at Edge, uh, Matt Elliston and Sean Fitzgerald, both are uh Leo types, and um, they're driving uh the requirements. We're executing the requirements, and we work closely with these guys. Um I would love to say that I'm you know 90% confident, but it I have to say we're going to be 100% successful. Uh we were not an opportunity to fail. Next question, right here.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Good morning. Um, Brianna from Vannavar. Thank you so much for your time. Um we're a small agile company building agentic workflows. Um, and I'm wondering, I'm I really appreciate you going through your top three priorities and talking about the modernization of existing systems. And I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit more to how you're thinking about bringing new tech into the building and and how you're maybe breaking down some of the barriers of the complex bar process. And what advice you might have for smaller companies?

SPEAKER_05 22:04

Yeah, that again, that's a partnership thing. Uh, we can't do homework for every company that comes in. When you talk to us about your technology, the usually the second or third question that I ask is, how do we do business with you? So you're gonna have to do the upfront work with GSA to get yourself on contract vehicles or through strategic partnerships with your with the partners that have prime contracts in and negotiate that deal. Um we typically try not to get into the business of telling primes what to do with their subs, but um yeah, I that that's my big and and by the way, the I I don't know what the FAR looks like right now. I don't know what the state of the FAR is. I I've been briefed on it a few times.

Advice For Small Tech Firms And Barriers

SPEAKER_03 22:44

I know it's changing, but we're gonna hear a little bit of that this afternoon. Sarah's gonna give us uh a top line on that. Next question. Got a couple more in here before we let you close it out. Yeah, back here I see. What's that? Where's Megan? Oh, there she is. We got how much one more? Okay. Yeah, because you got uh uh one or two things you want to say here.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Yeah, Dale Parchett from uh Mantec. Regarding uh the authoritative source, what is ICE and really the at the larger scale, what is uh DHS doing to with the data owners to help open that up and so they will share their data with all these other applications? Because that usually tends to be some of the challenges getting uh access to that authoritative source because a lot of them want to keep hold of it because they're afraid to get changed or lost or some other challenges.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

Yeah, there are some we've structured more MOAs and ISAs in the last six months than we probably have in the last seven, eight years. Um there are there's a willingness to share. Uh there are limitations to what can be shared because of PII, um, data access sensitivities, case data sensitivities, but a lot of the bureaucracy that was previously encountered isn't there, or it's still there, but it's being ram or not RAM right. It's an easier process. People are motivated to get these agreements in place now. Um so, but it still involves conversation with the CDOs and with the program or the data owners. And once we get the two of them to agree, the CDOs come in, talk about the data, CISOs come in, they talk about the agreement and the partnership and connectivity. Um, and we've seen that revised process work very, very well for us internal to DHS uh from component to component, but also um outside of DHS with other federal organizations like the Department of Justice, the Department of State, and a few others.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

So yeah, two other things you wanted to wrap up with.

Quarterly Industry Days And Big Data Focus

SPEAKER_05 25:03

Uh yeah, so uh maybe if we all play a drinking game and everyone takes a shot when I say partnership uh with industry, we would all have be really laughing right now. But um I do take that seriously, and uh to kind of show you and extend the first opportunity. Uh ICE is going to be uh hosting quarterly industry days. They're gonna be target focused on a specific technology set. Uh the first one's going to happen, I think, in the second week of February, and it's gonna focus on big data type of products. So when we talk about big data, we're talking about what are the data sources that we can tap into or the analytical capabilities that will help us refine our case management, our um uh uh uh uh law enforcement initiatives, and how to increase um the value of the data that we have so that we can get out to the targets with high fidelity and confidence that when when someone goes somewhere, they know that something's going to be there. So the industry day is going to be our first initiative, focus on on big data uh through prioritization internal to ICE with our HSI ERO and OPLA partners. Uh, we'll come up with some other themes that we'd like to focus in on. That's not to say that you're still not welcome to engage uh OCIO directly, uh, but it just gives you a larger or an easier um vehicle to get into us with a very targeted audience. And in person. And in person.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

I figured you all would like that, right?

SPEAKER_05 26:44

Yes, as much as we all love public speaking in person.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

The bell has rung. It's time to go, Dustin. I can't pr tell you enough how much I really do appreciate this, and I'm sure the uh the audience will.