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Oakland’s city council voted to offer IDs illegal immigrants who live within the city limits; supporters of proposal say the cards will give these immigrants easier access to services, improve their civic participation, and encourage them to report crimes
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Southern command
Trying to stay ahead of U.S. drug interdiction efforts, Colombian drug traffickers are looking to build remote-controlled SPSSs to smuggle drugs risk-free from Colombia into the United States
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The Canadian federal government plans to start fingerprinting applicants for temporary residency permits
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DHS says that more than 118,000 public, private, and government employers enrolled in its E-Verify database as of 1 May; enrollment is growing, but E-Verify still is used by less than 2 percent of the nation’s more than 7.4 million employers
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Thirteen border states will receive $60 million from DHS to strengthen their capabilities to secure U.S. borders and territories
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San Diego County Sheriff’s Department deputies are the first law enforcement unit in California to use DHS Secure Community program to receive biometric-based immigration information
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DHS relaunches a project to scan the fingerprints of international travelers leaving the united States; CBP will take fingerprints exiting the United States from Detroit, while TSA will do the same in Atlanta
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Obama’s stimulus package earmarks $6.8 billion for wireless communications upgrades and new deployments; the health care and education market will receive some of it, but the real money is in selling wireless equipment to DHS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a new ABI Research report says
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The last part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) kicks in Monday; U.S., Canadian land and see travelers entering the United States will have to present a passport or other approved documents; air travelers have already been doing so since 23 January 2007
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Land down under
Australian government orders all airports to use thermal imaging systems to detect passengers who may be infected with swine flu; the scanners can detect if a passenger has a raised body temperature
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The drug cartels south of the U.S. border have a new weapon in their arsenal: Ultralight aircraft; these ultralights can carry up to 300 pounds of narcotics
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Border security
Aerostats differ from blimps in that blimps are powered, while aerostats are anchored to the ground through a cranked tether that also supplies electrical power
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Border security
Unpowered blimps have been used for two decades now; the one aerostat Kuwait owned alerted its leadership to the Iraqi tanks rolling toward the border in 1990; India, Pakistan buy them to bolster their border security
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On a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, DHS secretary Napolitano highlights the department’s success in efforts to crack down on illegal immigration and contraband trafficking
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The U.K. Border Agency became an independent government agency on 1 April; the next day, the system it uses to collect fingerprints from foreign visitors and compare them to a large biometric data base, malfunctioned
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A day before President Barack Obama is to visit Mexico, the Mexican police finds a truck-mounted anti-aircraft weapon on the U.S.-Maxico border
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In London, the business capital of the world’s maritime industry, firms shape decisions on arming ships and negotiating with pirates
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El sur
President Obama has submitted a $83.4 billion supplemental request to Congress which contains $66 million in additional aid to Mexico’s anti-drug efforts (Congress has already allocated about $700 million to Mexico — including $300 million in the recently enacted fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill); leading senators say more should be done to shore-up border protection, and they propose an amendment to the supplemental which would add $550 million in border security funding
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Dire predictions about how enhanced security at U.S. port of entry notwithstanding, 2008 saw a record 50.5 million foreign visitors come to the United States
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Funds from the stimulus package — $720 million to be exact — will be directed toward address infrastructure needs at ports of entry
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The long view
ICE Not Only Looks and Acts Like a Paramilitary Force – It Is One, and That Makes It Harder to Curb
ICE and CBP meet many but not all of the most salient definitions of a “paramilitary force.” Both are also not subject to the same constitutional restrictions that apply to other law enforcement agencies. ICE and CBP thus bear some resemblance to the informal paramilitaries used in many countries for “regime maintenance,” carrying out political repression along partisan and ethnic lines, even though they are official agents of the state.
How the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Shaped ICE’s Immigration Strategy
The immigration enforcement response to 9/11 set the stage for ICE’s aggressive conduct. Under this way of thinking, if the homeland is under threat, then those who challenge immigration enforcement are “domestic terrorists.” Investigations into ICE officers are muted, for the officers are protecting the homeland against existential danger. Severe tactics to detain immigrants and condemn protesters – and violate U.S. citizens’ constitutional protections — become not only permissible but also advisable.