Border monitoring / protection

Challenging conventional wisdom on border security
Two new papers say that if the United States is serious about border security, then instead of building bigger walls or throwing more resources at empty enforcement efforts, the United States should adopt strategies that address real threats to U.S. border security — drug cartels
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Lack of comprehensive border security strategy hampers National Guard: GAO
A new GAO report says that that fact that there is no comprehensive security strategy for the U.S.-Mexico border makes it difficult for the Pentagon effectively to use the National Guard units assigned to help the Border Patrol guard the border
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U.S.-Canada border security deal threatens Canadians' privacy: security expert
A new report by a Canadian think tank provides a critique of the recently announced Shared Vision Declaration between Canada and the United States; the report emphasizes what it calls the threat to the privacy of Canadians’ personal information posed by this new initiative
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Fingerprints to be used at U.S.-Mexico border
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers working at the Paso Del Norte (PDN) international crossing in El Paso have initiated work on a system which uses fingerprints to expedite the pedestrian entry process; CBP says the new system will result in more efficient processing of arriving pedestrian traffic
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Environmentalists worry border environment protection
Environmentalists have taken aim at an amendment to the Senate appropriations bill for DHS that would allow border enforcement agencies ultimate authority within 100-miles of the U.S. border
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Pentagon agrees to pay for National Guard deployment along border
After months of debate, the Pentagon has agreed to pay the expenses for keeping 1,200 National Guard troops stationed along the U.S.— Mexico border; the Pentagon will pay roughly $10 million each month for the Guard’s deployment through the end of this year
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Sector Report for Thursday, 8 September 2011: Border / Immigration control
This report contains the following stories.
* Mexican border agents cross into U.S. again without permission

* California lawmakers approve Dream Act

* Immigration offenses make Latinos new majority in prisons

* Also noted
Plus 1 additional story.
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Mexican border agents cross into U.S. again without permission
A national watchdog group warns that incursions along the southern border by the Mexican government could be a serious potential security threat
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California lawmakers approve Dream Act
Last week California legislators approved a controversial bill that would allow undocumented workers to receive state loans for college
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Immigration offenses make Latinos new majority in prisons
A new government report found that Latinos now account for more than half of all felony offenders sentenced this year as a result of immigration offenses; the report released on Tuesday by the U.S. Sentencing Commission revealed that Latinos comprised 50.3 percent of all people sentenced in the first nine months of this fiscal year
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Border patrol needs better training, diversity, and resources
Homeland Security NewsWire’s executive editor Eugene Chow recently got the opportunity to catch up with Lee Maril, a professor at East Carolina University and the director of the university’s Center on Diversity and Inequality Research; Maril specializes in border security and immigration issues along the southern border and recently published The Fence: Human Smuggling, Terrorists, and Public Safety along the US Mexico Border; in his interview with HSNW, Maril discusses the government’s ongoing attempts to build a virtual border fence, improving the border patrol, and the motives behind the latest push for a fence along the border
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Environmentalists challenge DHS border base expansion plan
Environmentalist groups challenge a plan by DHS to build a new border patrol base on National park Service Land in Arizona, near the U.S.-Mexico border; the groups argue that DHS fails adequately to assess the effects of the department’s border-security and enforcement activities along the U.S.-Mexico border, including tripling the size of its base in the desert
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Tomato giant fined for hiring illegal workers
Last week, the largest year-round grower of greenhouse tomatoes in the United States was fined $600,000 for knowingly hiring undocumented workers; Eurofresh Inc., pled guilty to the charges of employing illegal workers and now faces a five year probation
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Unusual smuggling tunnel found near California-Mexico border
Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) continued to gather evidence following the discovery of an incomplete pipeline-style smuggling tunnel last Thursday afternoon; the tunnel originated beneath the floor of a vacant Mexican supermarket
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Texas bills government $349 million for illegal immigrants
Earlier this month in a letter to DHS secretary Janet Napolitano, Texas governor Rick Perry blamed the federal government for failing to secure the border and requested $349 million to help cover the costs of detaining illegal immigrants; when she was governor of Arizona, Napolitano would also regularly send the Department of Justice invoices seeking reimbursements for illegal immigration-related expenses by the state of Arizona
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