A federal judge has ordered DHS to release the names of thousands of criminal immigrants who were allowed to stay in the United States because their home countries refused to take them back. Two years ago, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a list of more than 6,800 criminals, including 201 who were convicted of murder and other serious offenses, but the agency refused to provide names, saying that doing so would be a violation of the immigrants’ privacy. A judge ruled that the public interest in knowing how ICE handles aliens convicted of crimes is more important than the privacy concerns of the immigrants. The list of released criminal aliens now contains more than 8,500 names.

A border security amendment to the immigration reform bill, offered by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), was defeated by a 57-43 vote last Thursday. Republican senators who supported Grassley’s amendment said they were concerned about a repeat of the 1986 scenario: the Reagan administration pushed through Congress an amnesty for illegal immigrants then residing in the United States, but without bolstering security along the U.S.-Mexico border, prompting millions of illegal immigrants to cross the border in the following decades. Several GOP lawmakers are offering their own border security amendments to the immigration overhaul bill.

An internal DHS study says there was no legal problem with U.S. border agents searching a traveler’s laptop, cellphone, or other electronic devices based solely on a hunch. The study says that the searches do not violate the First and Fourth amendments, and that a 1986 government policy allowing only a cursory review of a traveler’s documents was insufficient.

Researchers have successfully demonstrated for the first time that laser-generated neutrons can be enlisted as a useful tool in the war on terror, as Los Alamos shows first nuclear material detection by single short-pulse-laser-driven neutron source.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a nonprofit organization critical of U.S. policies toward both legal and illegal immigration, says the Gang of Eight bipartisan immigration reform bill will not solve the U.S. illegal immigration problem, but rather exacerbate it. FAIR notes that in 1986, the Reagan administration pushed a bill through Congress which gave amnesty to nearly three million illegal aliens — but the problem of illegal immigration has only grown worse.

According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, and 21 May 2013 Hill testimony by Rebecca Gambler, director of the Homeland Security and Justice for GAO, DHS, since 2011, has identified 1,901 “illegal overstays of concern.” As of March 2013, 14 percent of them, or 266, are still missing.

DHS, in its 2014 budget proposal, asked for permission to conduct a study about imposing fees at U.S. land border crossings. The proposal is bitterly opposed by both businesses on the northern border, which make most of their money from Canadians who cross into the United States just to shop, and lawmakers from states along the U.S.-Canada border, who say such fees will hurt both commerce and relations between the United States and Canada.

The immigration bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee is picking up Republican support. Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) removed a major obstacle to the bill’s passing the Senate by withdrawing his own amendment to it, an amendment which would have given the American spouse in a gay relationship the right to sponsor the non-American partner for legal status in the United States. The bill also added provisions conditioning the beginning of the path-to-citizenship process on proven bolstering of border security. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) told reporters he will not block the measure from reaching the senate floor.

The Senate Judiciary Committee reached a compromise which would make it much easier for American tech companies to hire foreign workers. Most U.S. high-tech companies would not be required to offer tech jobs to Americans before they are able to hire foreign workers. The only companies required to do so are companies which depend on foreign workers for more than 15 percent of their workforce.