• The H-1B program: Mend it, don't end it

    Any required labor-market test must facilitate extraordinary alacrity; delays of years, months, or even weeks are unacceptable; similarly, H-1B workers should be paid the same wage as their U.S. counterparts: The H-1B program should not be a means by which “cheap foreign labor” is imported

  • DHS rejects Texas county border fence idea

    Cameron County’s, Texas, proposed to build miles of combined border wall and levee along the border’s southernmost point; DHS rejects proposal, saying it is not feasible

  • Drug smugglers now use minisubs; terrorists may use them, too

    Colombian drug smugglers now use “semi-submersibles” to smuggle drugs into the United States; counterterrorism officials fear that what drug runners now use to deliver cocaine, terrorists could one day use to sneak personnel or massive weapons into the United States

  • Microchips in e-passports easily forged

    Dutch researcher uses his own software, a publicly available programming code, a £40 card reader, and two £10 RFID chips to clone and manipulate two passport chips to a point at which they were ready to be planted inside fake or stolen paper passports; the altered chips were then passed as genuine by passport reader software used by the UN agency that sets standards for e-passports; the researcher took less than an hour to alter the chips

  • Agreement reached over border fence on U Texas campus

    Part of the U.S.-Mexico border fence would have cut across the campus of the University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College; the university and DHS reached a compromise — but the university must finish building its proposed border protection solution by the end of the year

  • TSA may fine airlines over mistaken terrorist IDs

    The ACLU says there are one million names on the DHS terrorist watch list, while TSA says there are only 400,000; whatever the exact figure is, TSA wants to make sure that the airlines do not misidentify innocent passengers as terrorists, and threatens to sue airlines which do so

  • New Zealand to use biometrics to monitor immigration

    Technology will allow border control staff to conduct biometric checks on inbound and outbound passengers

  • RFID readers installed along U.S. borders

    Today the first Border Patrol RFID readers go into use at El Paso, Texas, border crossing; during the next two months many more RFID readers will be installed in order to speed up traffic across borders

  • US-VISIT

    James Jasinski, CEO, Cogent Systems, comments on a young program that is discharging an immense responsibility

  • Debate over environmental impact of border fence continues

    The San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area is part of the U.S.-Mexico border, and all agree that the area’s ecosystem is particularly delicate; DHS wants to build a fence there, but environmentalists object

  • DHS wants nearly 60 border watch towers

    DHS proposes nearly five dozen towers, ranging from 80 feet to 200 feet tall, to be erected in rural areas in Arizona

  • University of Texas sues DHS over border fence

    UT systems files motions in court last week asking that the court demand that DHS comply with a March settlement detailing how the fence would be built on part of the UT-Brownsville campus

  • U.S. Supreme Court rejects environmentalists' challenge to border fence

    DHS waived 19 federal laws so a fence could be built on the Arizona-Mexico border; two environmentalist groups challenged the ruling, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected challenge

  • U.S. remains the dominant leader in science and technology worldwide

    Perceptions to the contrary notwithstanding, the United States remains the world’s undisputed leader in science and technology; the key factor enabling U.S. science and engineering workforce to grow: inflow of foreign students, scientists, and engineers

  • Texas bolsters border security, enhances trade

    U.S. trade with Mexico has more than quadrupled in the past 15 years from $81 million in 1993 to nearly $350 billion in 2007; projected to reach at least 10 times that number by 2020, Mexico is the fastest-growing U.S. trade partner; nearly 80 percent of the trade between the United States and Mexico is transported via roads or rail; in Texas alone, that equates to 3.1 million inbound and 2.7 million outbound trucks each year; General Barry McCaffrey says it is possible to bolster security while accommodating growing trade