Representative Luis Gutierrez (D – Illinois) is stepping up his attacks against Alabama’s immigration law by seeking to enlist DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano; this week Gutierrez and other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with Secretary Napolitano to request that top federal immigration officials make it clear that immigration enforcement is a federal matter and out of states’ jurisdiction

The Obama administration has agreed to provide information requested by House Republicans regarding its Secure Communities program and the process it uses to determine which illegal immigrants should be deported

House Republicans want to know how the Obama administration decides which aliens to deport and which aliens to allow to remain in the United States. DHS says it will comply with a congressional subpoena seeking DHS records on the issue.

Representative Luis Gutierrez (D – Illinois) is wading into South Carolina politics by fighting to prevent a local worker from being deported by federal immigration authorities. On Wednesday Gutierrez appeared in a Charleston Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on behalf of Gabino Sanchez, who had been arrested on a traffic violation and found to be an illegal immigrant

The cross-border trucking pilot program with Mexico is entering its sixth week and DHS has yet to issue official enforcement guidelines to law enforcement agencies

Terry Goddard, the former attorney general of Arizona, argues that to curb illegal immigration effectively the federal government must target drug cartels and smugglers, aggressively cutting off funding and freezing assets; Goddard argues that current measures to bolster border defenses are costly and ineffective as cartels will continue to find ways to smuggle drugs and immigrants across the border because it is simply too lucrative a practice

As the United States has stepped up its efforts to secure its southern border, drug cartels have been forced to become increasingly ingenious in sneaking their cargo into the country; in an effort to avoid border agents, radars, and fences, cartels have increasingly gone underground

More and more, smugglers are using tunnels between the United States and Mexico to smuggle drugs and people into the United States. Washington is investing considerable resources searching for a high-tech solution to the problem. There are different technologies to detect tunnels, but all have their limitations. Experts say that old-fashioned investigative work may well be more effective.

With the U.S. economy in a tail spin and violent Mexican drug cartels raging out of control, immigration from Mexico into the United States has fallen to all-time lows; Mexican census figures show that net migration is close to zero with few Mexicans immigrating to the United States and many returning home