“I would go home and tell my mom and cry,” Kodra, 43, said during a recent interview at a Newark coffee shop. “I felt scared. I felt disgusted.”
DHS and ICE officials declined to comment on Kodra’s allegations because the lawsuit is pending. ICE said the agency takes misconduct seriously and refers allegations of improper behavior for possible internal investigations.
Kodra filed the federal lawsuit after DHS rejected her allegations about harassment by her supervisor and other DHS employees, after she filed a formal complaint with the agency. The department said in a written decision last year that the text messages appeared mutual and that managers transferred Kodra after a female employee accused her of unprofessional conduct, which Kodra denied in interviews and court records.
Labor lawyers say cases such as Kodra’s illustrate how difficult it can be for workers to pursue, let alone win, a harassment complaint in the federal government. Employees must show they were targeted because of their sex and that the treatment they experienced created a hostile work environment. Even then, there is no guarantee that a harasser will be disciplined.
Researchers say sexual harassment is especially pervasive in law enforcement, where women make up just 12 percent of sworn officers. The Department of Homeland Security has the largest law enforcement population in the U.S. government, and the lowest share of female officers at 9.8 percent.
DHS has faced recent scrutiny over its response to harassment cases, with reports that the Coast Guard and the Border Patrol — agencies that, like ICE, are housed within DHS — have covered up misconduct or allowed employees to retire without investigating allegations against them.
DHS spokesman Luis Miranda said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has strengthened discipline procedures in response to public concerns about harassment and made clear that misconduct of any kind will not be tolerated.
“There’s no question there are pockets of severe problems inside of DHS,” said Nick Schwellenbach, a senior investigator at the Project on Government Oversight, the nonprofit that in 2022 disclosed that the agency’s inspector general had failed to publish a major internal survey on sexual harassment. “Some of those pockets include agencies that are heavily male-dominated like ICE and CBP, especially out in the field.”
The nonprofit found that in many cases, DHS failed to properly investigate complaints or discipline offenders, even when the complaints led to settlements totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In 2022, Mayorkas ordered officials to centralize the discipline process at each of the department’s 20-plus agencies, ensuring that immediate supervisors would not handle allegations of serious misconduct against their employees. He also ordered officials to ensure that the department’s guidance for disciplining workers for serious misconduct is consistent throughout the agency.
Kodra said she had to file a lawsuit the next year because DHS said she failed to prove that she suffered harassment and discrimination, though she had evidence showing that one of her supervisors sent her sexually explicit text messages.
Advocates say one way to try to reduce harassment and other problems within law enforcement agencies is to hire enough women to make up 30 percent of the workforce, based on…
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