Last week’s terror attacks in Paris have increased concerns of DHS officials that terrorists may be looking to attack U.S. targets. For many members of Congress, the Paris events are proof that DHS operations should continue to be funded, but opponents of the president’s immigration executive order appear ready to freeze funding for DHS altogether unless such funding does not include funds for the implementation of the president’s executive orders. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) warned fellow Republicans to be cautious: “Defunding that part of the bill that deals with enforcing the executive order makes sense but we can’t go too far here because look what happened in Paris. The Department of Homeland Security needs to be up and running,” he said.

An unprecedented scandal continues to unfold within Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Fueling this scandal are allegations by James F. Tomsheck about the U.S. largest federal law enforcement agency. Further investigation suggests that the “July Amnesty,” initiated in Tomsheck’s CBP IA’s Integrity Programs Division (IPD) headed by Director Janine Corrado and Assistant Director Jeffrey Matta, casts doubt on Tomsheck’s allegations against his CBP superiors. Along with the July Amnesty in 2011 and the alleged discrimination and firing of Navy Lieutenant Commander (Ret.) J. Gregory Richardson in March 2014, there appear to be a number of other events calling Tomsheck’s leadership at CBP IA into question.

The last few years have seen the influence of armed border militias, such as the Minuteman Project, on immigration matters, diminish. A combination of dwindling financial resources, bad publicity, and anti-immigration measures passed by conservative legislatures in border states caused the influence of these groups on the immigration debate to decline, as was their ability to sustain a presence along the Southwest border. President Barack Obama’s recent executive order to provide work permits to roughly five million undocumented immigrants who have been in the country illegally for years, has caused a resurgence of border groups.

The United States has always been known as a nation of immigrants and a top destination for scientists and other highly skilled professionals. That ability to attract the world’s most educated and innovative people to its shores has often been credited with powering the U.S. economy. Strikingly, a new study of worldwide migration patterns suggests the United States is losing its reputation as a mecca for professionals as its global share of the most highly educated migrants declines. The result raises the question of whether the country can remain competitive in attracting top talent in an increasingly globalized economy.

President Barack Obama announced the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability(DAPA) initiative on 20 November, and a day later, USCIS began to publish job postings seeking individuals to help with the rollout. Applicants who qualify for DAPA still have until May 2015 before they may apply, but immigration officials are taking a proactive approach and anticipating a large number of applications in order to avoid the mistakes made during the Obama administration’s launch of HealthCare.gov.

An internal memo from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notes that the federal government is seeking to fill 1,000 full-time permanent and temporary positions at a new “operational center” in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia, in response to the Obama administration’s executive actions to allow some five million undocumented immigrants have their deportation deferred, apply for driver’s licenses in most states, and apply for two-year work permits.

Janine Corrado and Jeffrey M. Matta are leaving CBP IA to assume other positions outside of CBP IA.Corradowill receive a promotion to the position of Chief of Staff for Gregory Marshall, Chief Security Officer at DHS. Matta will take a position in the Office of Field Operations at CBP. J. Gregory Richardson, who worked at CBP IA, complained that Corrado and Matta ignored his status as a disabled veteran despite extensive documentation of his medical condition.

Leaders of the U.S. tech industry hoped President Barack Obama’s recent immigration speech would unveil specifics on how his executive action on immigration would affect the number of highly skilled foreigners who would be granted American work visas. Instead, Obama just mentioned that he would “make it easier and faster for high-skilled immigrants, graduates and entrepreneurs to stay and contribute to our economy, as so many business leaders have proposed.”Since Obama did not announce specific plans for the H-1B visa program, tech industry leaders will now push for more congressional support – even though the House did not bring to a vote a bi-partisan Senate bill which would have increased visas for skilled workers to at least 115,000.

While the details and implications of President Barack Obama’s immigration reforms continue to be closely scrutinized, an unprecedented scandal unfolds within the federal agency charged with providing security and control at our Mexican border. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a law enforcement agency of 65,000 employees, is potentially facing alarming charges fostered by its former assistant director of Customs and Border Protection Internal Affairs (CBP IA), James F. Tomscheck. Tomscheck, who turned federal whistleblower last summer, lambasted his superiors with multiple accusations. Allegations, however, have arisen against Tomscheck that he knowingly discriminated against a disabled military veteran within CBP IA, then fired him.