• Automated security kiosk to shorten lines at airports, border crossings

    Researchers have developed a next-generation automated screening kiosk which uses an algorithm of “yes” or “no” questions delivered by a computer-generated avatar, quickly and efficiently to assess the potential threats passengers may pose to others. the screening can be completed in less than four minutes with a 90 percent success rate.

  • Mexico’s Southern Border Program lacks “structure and a clear-cut road map”

    Mexico’s Programa Frontera Sur (Southern Border Program or PFS) is not meeting its goals of containing the mixed migration flows from Central America to Mexico and the United States, a new study found. “Despite the fact that PFS was conceived as an instrument of state policy intended to foster development and reinforce border security while mitigating migrants’ vulnerability, the program’s results so far raise deep concerns as to whether it has complied with its stated spirit,” says one researcher.

  • Immigration does not raise crime: Studies

    Immigration has no effect on crime, according to a comprehensive examination of fifty-one studies on the topic published between 1994 and 2014. The meta-analysis is the first on the relationship between immigration and crime. The reviewed studies most frequently found no relationship between immigration and crime. But among those that did find a correlation, it was 2.5 times more likely that immigration was linked to a reduction in crime than an increase.

  • Attorneys spar over Texas immigration law in federal court

    Monday was the first day of what could be a lengthy legal battle over Senate Bill 4, which has been billed as the toughest state-based immigration bill in the country. Opponents of Texas’ state-based immigration law told a federal judge that allowing the controversial measure to stand would pave the way for a nationwide police state where local officers could subvert the established immigration-enforcement powers of the federal government.

  • Cuomo pardons 9/11 ground zero worker facing deportation

    Governor Andrew Cuomo has pardoned an undocumented immigrant who worked on to help clean up ground zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The pardon would help Carlos Cardona fight deportation proceedings. Cardona was convicted in 1990, when he was 21-year old, for attempting to sell a controlled substance.

  • Economic benefits of admitting, settling refugees outweigh costs

    Although working-age adult refugees who enter the United States often initially rely on public assistance programs, a new study indicates that the long-term economic benefit of admitting refugees outweighs the initial costs. The researchers analyzed the costs and benefits of resettling an average refugee who entered the United States between 1990 and 2014, and found that within eight years of their arrival, adult refugees begin paying more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

  • DHS investigating questionable basketball recruiting practices at N.J. school

    The basketball recruiting scandal at Paterson, New Jersey Eastside is going to occupy the headlines for a while yet. State criminal investigators were looking into recruiting improprieties at the school, and now federal immigration authorities have opened their own investigation. At least eight Eastside players have been brought to Paterson from Nigeria and Paraguay since 2011, with many living with coaches and others connected to the basketball programs in some form. This was done even though the district was unable to issue proper immigration documents for foreign students, which placed the athletes at risk of being deported.

  • Lawyers convention leaves Texas over state's new immigration law

    A 15,000-member association of attorneys and law professors said on Wednesday that it is relocating its 2018 convention out of Texas in response to the state legislature passing Senate bill 4, a sweeping and controversial immigration enforcement measure. About 3,000 people were expected to attend the event.

  • New training to improve operational security at U.S. border

    Drug smugglers, human traffickers, illegal immigrants, and even potential terrorists crossing the United States border do their best to, literally, cover their tracks. It is the responsibility of the United States Border Patrol (USBP) to pursue and apprehend these individuals. Without proper training, tracking people who do not want to be found is a nearly impossible task, and it can be extremely difficult even with training. S&T’s First Responders Group (FRG) has developed training to assist in increasing tracking abilities.

  • Germany failing to use language and dialect recognition tech to ID asylum-seekers, extremists: Critics

    Critics in Germany say that the country’s immigration agency has failed to use a language recognition software which would have helped immigration agents identify the country of origin of asylum-seekers who have no other ID documents. German authorities could have also identified Islamist and far-right terror suspects earlier if available language recognition software was used, these critics say.

  • “Migrant work ethic” exists, at least in the short term

    The received wisdom that migrant workers have a stronger “work ethic” than U.K.-born workers is proven for the first time. New research shows that migrant workers are over three times less likely to be absent from work than native U.K. workers, a measure which economists equate with work ethic.

  • 739,478 visitors to U.S. in FY2016 overstayed their visas – and 628,799 are still in U.S.

    DHS earlier this week released the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Entry/Exit Overstay Report. The report provides data on departures and overstays, by country, for foreign visitors to the United States who entered as nonimmigrant visitors through an air or sea Port of Entry (POE) and were expected to depart in FY16. CBP processed 50,437,278 in-scope nonimmigrant admissions at U.S. air and sea POEs who were expected to depart in FY16—of which 739,478 overstayed their admission, resulting in a total overstay rate of 1.47 percent. Of the more than 739,000 overstays, DHS determined 628,799 were suspected “in-country” overstays, resulting in a suspected in-country overstay rate of 1.25 percent. An individual who is a suspected in-country overstay has no recorded departure, while an out-of-country overstay has a recorded departure that occurred after their lawful admission period expired.

  • Border walls may pose serious challenges to biodiversity, but smaller challenges to humans

    With the prospect of a U.S.-Mexico border wall looming, research and reporting on the ecological impacts of walls is both important and timely. Reporting in BioScience on such barriers’ known effects on wildlife, science journalist Lesley Evans Ogden describes the potential effects of the proposed structure along the 2000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. “If the wall is completed, it will create a considerable biodiversity conservation challenge—one unlikely to disappear anytime soon,” she writes.

  • ICE-led anti-gang campaign nets 1,378 arrests nationwide

    A six-week nationwide gang operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) concluded this weekend with 1,378 arrests across the United States – the largest gang surge conducted by HSI to date. The operation targeted gang members and associates involved in transnational criminal activity, including drug trafficking, weapons smuggling, human smuggling and sex trafficking, murder and racketeering.

  • ACLU issues Texas “travel advisory”

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a “travel alert” informing anyone planning to travel to Texas in the near future to anticipate the possible violation of their constitutional rights when stopped by law enforcement. The ACLU says that the alert comes amid the passing of a Texas law known as SB4. The law gives a green light to police officers in the state to investigate a person’s immigration status during a routine traffic stop, leading to widespread racial profiling, baseless scrutiny, and illegal arrests of citizens and non-citizens alike presumed to be “foreign” based on how they look or sound.