They maintain that the patrol hopes to win a new contract, and a larger homeland security role, by trying harder to become more professional.
While there is no plan to do so now, those agencies could someday form the basis for a large homeland security intelligence collection unit.
While the two men were variously rivals and allies, they were linked in the same project of using a violent campaign to drive away anyone not a Serb from parts of Bosnia and Croatia and thus create a larger homeland only for Serbs.
The contract, awarded this week and the largest federal homeland security bid on the market, includes a $14.5 million, 90-day assessment period with options over five years worth $491.1 million.
The nation's largest tribal homeland, encompassing parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, contains about 1,000 abandoned uranium mines and four old processing mills.
Ms. Nielsen has faced questions about her lack of experience running a large organization — Homeland Security is the third-largest department in the federal government — but has defended herself as up to the task.
He has said there is "no doubt that a large portion" of homeland funds actually toughened urban defenses.
Manufacturing here is making a comeback, driven in large part by homeland security contracts and the manufacturing efficiencies provided by a new generation of automated factory equipment.
The rebuff may be a rocky prelude to the convention, but Mr. Ney had it coming, as did all the lawmakers who are from places known to be low security risks but still grab large chunks of homeland security money.
Large sums of Homeland Security money, critics complain, have been propelled by pork barrel politics into the backyards of the congressionally connected.
