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Aviation security
As of 1 November, all domestic airlines will collect passengers’ names, dates of birth, and gender of passengers at the time of booking a flight; international carriers will do the same by the end of the year; passengers who do not enter all information at least seventy-two hours prior to departure will not be able to print out boarding passes
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Border security
A coalition of Mexican mayors say the United States is contributing to the increase in violence in Mexican border towns by busing repatriated Mexicans who committed crimes in the United States to these border towns — where they join the ranks of the drug cartels — rather than drive or fly them back to their home towns
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Aviation security
After a six-month test, Italy is giving up full-body scanners for security checks in airports; officials said it takes longer to check a person by scanner — about thirty seconds — than by hand, and privacy measures reduced the scanners’ effectiveness
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Mexico: descent into chaos
Mexico’s violent drug war — which, in the last four years, has claimed nearly 30,000 dead — is fought with American guns; in a sweeping operation aimed at uncovering “straw buyers” blamed for funneling high-powered guns to Mexican drug cartels, federal agents have arrested dozens of Arizonans and seized a large amount of weapons
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Border security
Mexican drug cartels have been using ultralights — slow-moving, low-flying aircraft, not much more than a hang glider equipped with an engine — to smuggle drugs into the United States; DHS wants to buy off-the-shelf systems to track these hard-to-detect craft
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Detection
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported Wednesday that the $4 billion program to install radiation detectors at U.S. border crossings yielded few tangible results; the detection machines were too big for border inspection lanes, and the software for the Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography Systems also was not up to the task; DHS: “We are mindful of getting something delivered that has a credible basis for the implementation plan that follows”
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UAV update
The use of UAVs in border security missions around the world is expanding rapidly from very little activity today; this expansion will create new markets and new business opportunities, particularly for integrated capabilities guided by an operating concept and turn-key packages that include equipment, training, operations, and maintenance
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Border security/biometrics
DHS is beginning a 2-week trial of iris scanning technology at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas, where they will be used on illegal immigrants; a new generation of cameras that capture images from six feet away instead of a few inches; DHS will test cameras that take photos from 3 or 4 feet away, including one that works on people as they walk by; the ACLU is raising objections, saying the cameras could be used covertly
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The deal is valued at £191 million, and the government says it will save tax payers £50 million. or nearly 20 percent, from the contract price with IBM by cutting aspects of the planned system that were no longer needed
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NEC shows a tablet computing device for biometric identity enrollment and verification using multiple biometrics — and which can also read travel documents; the company says the device will be sold to border control agencies
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Mexico: descent into chaos
The Obama administration sees the drug-related violence sweeping Mexico as a growing threat to U.S. national security and has launched a broad review of steps the military and intelligence community could take to help combat what U.S. officials describe as a “narcoinsurgency”; one problem with increased intelligence collaboration: U.S. agencies have been wary of sharing some intelligence because of concerns that some of their Mexican counterparts may be on the payroll of the cartels
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Immigration
Passage of the House-introduced Birthright Citizenship Act, which would deny U.S. citizenship to children born to parents who are both unauthorized immigrants, would increase the unauthorized population from its current 10.8 million to 16 million by 2050; if U.S. citizenship is denied to children who have one unauthorized immigrant parent, the total unauthorized population would rise to 24 million in 2050 under a scenario in which citizenship is denied to U.S.-born children who have one unauthorized immigrant parent, even if the other parent were a U.S. citizen; under a scenario of denying birthright citizenship to children who have at least one authorized immigrant parent, by the third generation, 6.3 million U.S.-born people would be unauthorized despite having two U.S-born parents
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The Obama administration has continued a Bush administration policy which permits officers at U.S. borders to detain travelers’ laptop computers and examine their contents even without suspecting the traveler of wrongdoing — or, in the language of DHS policy, “absent individualized suspicion”; in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Eastern District of New York, the plaintiffs allege that DHS policy of substituting “search at will” for “reasonable suspicion” violates constitutional rights to privacy and free speech
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Immigration
Between March 2000 and March 2005, 850,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States annually; between March 2007 and March 2009, the number dropped to 300,000 annually; the flow of Mexicans, who represent 60 percent of all illegal immigrants in the United States, plummeted to 150,000 annually during the 2007-9 period, compared with the annual average of 500,000 during the 2000-5 period; experts say that the slowing economy and bleak job market for low-skill workers, not tighter border security, have played the biggest role in the drop in illegal entrants
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Border security
DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said that by the beginning of next year, the number of UAVs operating along the U.S.-Mexico border would be up to six, providing “critical aerial surveillance assistance”; previously, drones were not approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for use in a stretch of west Texas
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Mexico: descent into chaos
Following a series of explosions in downtown Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, the Mexican government is rushing reinforcements to the city; at the same time, thirty-five of the seventy-two bodies found in a mass grave on Saturday had been identified: sixteen Hondurans, thirteen Salvadorans, five Guatemalans, and a Brazilian; they were killed after refusing to cooperate with drug gangs
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Mexico: descent into chaos
Faced with the threat of smuggling attempts by criminal organizations in Mexico, foreign companies are simply doing more, spending more, and in the process charging consumers more to shore up security in a country where killings, kidnappings, and extortions have become a part of daily life
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Border security
There is a new frontier for illegal immigrants entering the United States — a roughly 400-square-mile ocean expanse that stretches from a bullring on the shores of Tijuana, Mexico, to suburban Los Angeles; in growing numbers, migrants are gambling their lives at sea as land crossings become even more arduous and likely to end in arrest; while only a small fraction of border arrests are at sea; authorities say heightened enforcement on land, and a bigger fence are making the offshore route more attractive
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Border security
U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities only seize about 1 percent of cash from drug trafficking, despite increased efforts by both countries; stemming the flow of cash is vital to efforts by the United States and Mexico to take down drug cartels, as drug cartels depend on cash from wholesale drug sales to gangs in the United States
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Immigration matters // by David B. Palinsky
State of Arizona filed an appeal of Judge Susan Bolton’s decision which accepted many of the Obama administration’s objections to the Arizona Immigration law; the appeal argues that the Arizona law does not amount to a usurpation by the state of federal power
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The long view
Social Acceptance of Immigrants Working as Politicians or Judges Is Low
Often, the dominant society develops negative attitudes towards immigrants and their descendants because their integration is too successful – and not because they are unwilling to integrate. A possible explanation for negative attitudes towards successful immigrants could be the dominant society’s fear of immigrants occupying influential and value-based occupations. This applies, for example, for immigrants working in local politics or law.