• Hundreds of Tech Companies Want to Cash In on Homeland Security Funding. Here's Who They Are and What They're Selling.

    Whenever concerns grow about the security along the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration, the U.S. government generate dollars — hundreds of millions of dollars — for tech conglomerates and start-ups. Who are the vendors who supply or market the technology for the U.S. government’s increasingly AI-powered homeland security efforts, including the so-called “virtual wall” of surveillance along the southern border with Mexico?

  • U.S. States Shape Foreign Policy Amid National China Unease: Research

    State-level officials such as governors, state legislators and attorneys general are shaping U.S.-China relations as the two countries navigate a strained geopolitical relationship. While the U.S. Constitution clearly states that foreign policy is the responsibility of the federal government, it also leaves space for cities and states to have international relationships and even to enter into certain kinds of agreements.

  • Reports: DHS’ Parole Programs Allowed Inadmissible Violent Criminals to Enter, Stay in U.S.

    A wave of violent crime has befallen Americans nationwide connected to parole programs created by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, according to several reports. A pattern has emerged of single men illegally entering the U.S. who are considered inadmissible under federal law. Instead of being processed for removal, Border Patrol agents released them with a “notice to appear” before an immigration judge several years into the future.

  • Supreme Court Rules Platforms Have First Amendment Right to Decide What Speech to Carry, Free of State Mandates

    The Supreme Court last week correctly found that social media platforms, like newspapers, bookstores, and art galleries before them, have First Amendment rights to curate and edit the speech of others they deliver to their users, and the government has a very limited role in dictating what social media platforms must and must not publish.

  • Racist Slurs and Death Threats: The Dangerous Life of a Georgia Elections Official

    The lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have resonated with many Douglas County, Georgia, voters. Now many nonpartisan officials across the country are forced to face their ire. Ere is how one Georgia county official navigates the hatred inspired by election lies.

  • More Than 12 Million Illegal Border Crossers Since Fiscal 2021

    Of the more than 12 million people who have illegally crossed the border into the U.S. since 2021, 10,147,015 were apprehended or encountered, and the rest are estimated “gotaways.” The number of illegal border crossers since 2021 is greater than population of 44 states, 155 countries.

  • What Are Tariffs?

    U.S. Presidents Trump and Biden have both turned to tariffs to support local industries amid economic confrontation with China. Here’s how these taxes work and how they’ve been used historically.

  • Collaborative Research Effort on Digital Identity to Support Secure Delivery of Public Benefits

    NIST has launched a collaborative project to adapt NIST’s digital identity guidelines to support public benefits programs, such as those designed to help beneficiaries pay for food, housing, medical and other basic living expenses.

  • Fool’s Gold: Overhyped Tech Startups Distract from Military Innovation

    Technology startups almost never live up to all the hype they generate. Much of this innovation is fool’s gold. Often, these solutions are not developed beyond an initial concept. It’s a missed opportunity for the U.S. military. Startup companies often present the Pentagon with more cost-effective, swift, and adaptable solutions compared to the weapons systems typically provided by the handful of major contractors the Pentagon usually turns to.

  • Biden’s Unlawful Border Executive Order Is Bad Policy

    President Biden should not be ignoring US laws. He should not be seeking to stop people from coming to the United States. Instead, he should be working to let them enter this country legally and orderly so they can contribute to it. America is a great country, and people want to join it. That’s a good thing. We should let them do so legally.

  • Feds Should Leave Campus Unrest to Others

    The federal government should not inject itself into debates largely occurring in civil—free—society. It is not the proper federal role, and it threatens to reduce rather than promote harmony. Some of the things said during the pro-Palestine protests might well be horrible, inaccurate things to say. Those who say them might have antisemitic motives. But it is extremely dangerous to put such speech off limits.

  • U.S. Department of Education Opens Investigation into Anti-Semitism at Berkeley K-12 Public Schools

    The U.S. Department of Education has opened a formal investigation into a complaint that the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) failed to address non-stop “severe and persistent” bullying and harassment of Jewish students in classrooms, hallways, schools yards, and walkouts since October 7, 2023.

  • Cyber Safety Review Board Releases Report on Microsoft Online Exchange Incident from Summer 2023

    On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the Cyber Safety Review Board’s (CSRB) findings and recommendations following its independent review of the Summer 2023 Microsoft Exchange Online intrusion. The review detailed operational and strategic decisions that led to the intrusion and recommended specific practices for industry and government to implement to ensure an intrusion of this magnitude does not happen again.

  • USCIS Springs Unseasonable Costs and Demands on American Employers

    With spring approaching, U.S. businesses that sponsor noncitizen workers for employment‐based immigration benefits are accustomed to weathering seasonal changes. Most employers are likely ready for the initial FY 2025 H 1B lottery registration season. American businesses, however, now face particularly inclement headwinds stirred up by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) component tasked with deciding immigration‐benefits requests.

  • What Biden Can Do After Another Failed Border Deal

    It’s no surprise that before any actual text of the bipartisan immigration bill became public, Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate said they would oppose the bill. Republican senators and the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board say that Trump believes an immigration deal would help Biden win re‐election. To get the politics right, Biden must get the policy right first. He should bet on policy, not politics, to neuter the apocalyptic border rhetoric. Allowing more immigrants to arrive legally will curb the chaos at the order – and it is the only chance to break out of a decade of failed immigration deals.