Security Debrief

Time to Grow Up – DHS Advances on Border Security and the 9/11 Commission Recommendations

As of January 31, 2008, all individuals seeking to enter the U.S. at land borders will have to present documentary proof of citizenship. Until this change in policy takes effect, any individual in the Western Hemisphere can enter the United States by attesting they are a United States citizen and presenting a driver’s license. This approach places entry into our country into the realm of the honor system – a concept that has failed in our immigration policies – and relegated DHS Inspectors to the realm of bartenders attempting to distinguish a phony driver’s license from a real one.

Immigration and Presidential Politics

And now the latest is Ron Paul, who has run a maverick campaign based on libertarian principles — except when such principles seem to get in the way of political expediency. He has now launched an ad proclaiming himself to be the tough-on-illegal-immigrants candidate, even going so far as to call for a ban on student visas from “terrorist nations.” (Would that include France?) For a guy who is supposed to embrace civil liberties, the idea of a blanket ban of any student who comes from any “terrorist nation,” no matter how deserving the individual student, is ironic to say the least.

Homeland Security: Five New Year's Resolutions for Congress

Congress has much to do to improve on its below-par performance on homeland security in 2007. These five priorities are good places to start: Consolidate congressional oversight of DHS; stop turning DHS grants into pork barrel grabfests; establish an Undersecretary for DHS; repeal the damaging mandate to scan 100 percent of all cargo; finish immigration reform.

Law Enforcement Needs Standards for Drivers Licenses

It continues to amaze me that over five years after the 9-11 Commission Report, we as a nation are still discussing the creation of a “national identification” document. As brought to light last week in Secretary Chertoff’s remarks on DHS’s accomplishments in 2007 and priorities for 2008, DHS is moving forward with a “retooled” REAL ID requirement. Despite the current multitude of state rules and standards that are inconsistent in the issuance of driver’s licenses, reality is and continues to be that a driver’s license is the most requested and recognized form of identification. If you don’t believe that, just ask Governor Spitzer of New York who recently advocated giving illegal immigrants the ability to obtain state driver’s licenses.

Immigration Laws Need to Be Enforced

I compare my experience in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws to pushing a broken-down car up a hill. Once you get a little momentum forward, it starts to roll backwards.

The job of enforcing our immigration statutes gets even harder when employers shirk their responsibilities to verify the employment eligibility of their workers, when advocacy groups run to the media sensationalizing the plight of the unauthorized worker, when Members of Congress send in scathing letters on behalf of their constituencies challenging DHS actions and now when states implement laws preventing cooperation with DHS.

Chertoff Assesses Obstacles to Homeland Security Enforcement

Most interesting in the Secretary’s speech were his uncommonly candid criticisms of groups that he says have made it difficult for the federal government to implement an effective homeland security strategy. He doesn’t hold back, taking aim at: Congress, state governments and private industry.

Homeland Security or Wildlife Security – Chertoff Decides

With all due respect to our friends championing the green cause and saving our planet, it sometimes seems as though their fight treats other, equally worthy issues too dismissively. Take, for example, this new lawsuit brought against DHS Secretary Chertoff. The complaint alleges that the REAL ID act is unconstitutional because it gives the secretary the authority to void any law that would impede construction of a border fence. Defenders of Wildlife filed this suit after Chertoff voided laws that would force an environmental impact survey of plans to build the fence across the San Pedro River. They argue that striking a law is the same as changing it, which thereby violates the principle of separation of powers.

Homeland Security Committee Chair Gives Myers Thumbs Up

With Lieberman and Collins both supporting Myers nomination, the nation’s chief immigration and smuggling enforcement officer wins the patina of bipartisanship. This will make it more difficult — though by new means impossible — for senators like Claire McCaskill of Missouri to rally enough opposition to block her nomination.

Critics of DHS's Immigration Crackdown Should Direct Their Ire at Congress

As DHS gets its feet beneath it and becomes increasingly more efficient at enforcing immigration laws, those who oppose those laws become proportionately more vocal in their criticisms of the Department. But DHS shouldn’t be the target. DHS didn’t draft the nation’s immigration laws. Congress did.

Giving Legal License to Illegal Immigrants

Politicians like Eliot Spitzer of New York prefer the politically popular tact of criticizing the federal government for not enforcing the nation’s immigration laws even while they keep attempting to pass other laws and regulations (like legal driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants) that undermine the federal govenrment’s ability to enforce the immigration laws currently on the books.