Congress Gears up for Immigration Policy Overhaul – CQ Homeland Security
Congressional debate in the coming weeks is expected to center on efforts to change U.S. immigration policies. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reached an agreement Tuesday to make immigration a top legislative priority, CQ reported.
New Report Critiques Use of Police for Immigration Enforcement – CQ Homeland Security
A new report has added fuel to the fiery debate over a controversial program that delegates federal immigration-enforcement powers to select state and local law enforcement agencies.
Think you’ve heard it all? We beg to differ. For this special April Fools edition, we’ve collected recent news reports that the rest of the media somehow missed.
Here is a piece I wrote for The Daily Caller about effective immigration reform – Like many Americans, I believe that the current system has failed and, in my view, reform is essential. In looking to reform this system, we must make it easier for those who wish to come to our country legally to become productive members of society, and make removal more certain for those who choose to come here illegally.
DHS Officials: Removing Visa Overstays an Impossible Mission – CQ Homeland Security
Homeland Security officials told lawmakers Thursday that even if they manage to set up a system that could detect whenever a foreign national overstays a temporary visa, they would not be able to solve the problem of finding and removing all those people.
On Tuesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano halted further funding for SBInet, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program designed to create a virtual fence of sensors and cameras along the U.S.-Mexico border. This may be one of those confusing acts of alleged fiscal responsibility that is applauded by liberals and panned by conservatives. Given the current Administration’s previously established anti-enforcement tactics, this most recent scheme may be too much for a public disinclined to trust Washington with immigration reform.
Funds for SBInet Reallocated to Alternate Technologies – HS Today
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced Tuesday that she would cut off Recovery Act funding from the virtual fence initiative along the US southwest border, potentially signaling the final fate of the struggling program.
By Julie Myers Wood and Dawn Lurie
A recent report conducted on behalf of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) by Westat highlighted what some employers using E-Verify know all too well – when unauthorized workers roll the dice and try to get a job, far too often the E-Verify system lets them win. The report estimates that the inaccuracy rate for unauthorized workers on E-Verify is 54 percent. 54 percent! Those are incredibly tempting odds for those seeking employment. Considering all of the improvements made to the E-Verify system over the past two years, this report is disappointing but will surely serve as a motivator for the government to place additional focus on the number of false positives passing through the system.
Napolitano Faces Questions About Screening Technology Funding – CQ Homeland Security
Both the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday questioned a request for technologically advanced airport scanners in President Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget request, but for seemingly opposite reasons.
CBS News recently reported the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is down by about one million from 2008 to 2009. The DHS report CBS cited also shows a striking difference in the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. in two different periods. From 2000 through 2004, 28 percent of the current population of illegal immigrants entered the United States, and only 8 percent entered from 2005 through 2008. Having worked with these DHS statistics for a number of years, I am keenly aware of their limitations. I suspect the economy has played a role in this decrease, but I also think we need to give some credit to improved border enforcement and particularly to a little heralded but successful effort to end “catch and release.”
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