• ASU Publishes Report on Improving Border Security

    A new study says that securing the flow of people, goods, and business between the United States and Mexico requires the integration and interconnectivity of communications technologies among and between ports, check points, and law enforcement agencies along the 1,969 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border

  • Border bottlenecks hamper trade

    Last year, U.S. exports to Mexico totaled $163 billion, and imports from Mexico totaled $229.6 billion; nearly 80 percent of that trade crosses through land border ports on trucks and railcars; the 1.8-million strong Border Trade Alliance says bottlenecks at border crossings hamper this trade and make it more costly to grow it; the Alliance urges Congress and the Obama administration to invest in border ports of entry, including hiring more staff; Obama’s proposed 2011 budget includes only 300 new Customs and Border Protection officers, while Republicans propose shrinking the Border Patrol by 870 agents

  • Studying wait times at modified truck fast lane

    Western Washington University has received $49,000 to conduct field research on wait times and lane reconfiguration at the U.S.-Canada border; the university’s Border Policy and Research Institute will collect and analyze data on wait times as part of a pilot to examine alternative use of the dedicated Free and Secure Trade truck lane at the Blaine crossing

  • EU border protection agency stretched to limit

    The EU expects the number of refugees trying to enter EU countries will rise as political unrest escalates in North Africa and the Middle East; Frontex, the EU’s border protection agency, is demanding more money and equipment to seal off Europe’s borders

  • New SPEXER security radar offers new capabilities in threat detection

    Cassidian, the renamed defense and security division of EADS, is showing its new security radar; the company says that SPEXER 2000 is the first security radar using the newest radar technology of Active Electronically Scanning Array (AESA); by electronic guidance of the radar beam, this technology enables the sensor to fulfill several tasks at the same time while increasing the detection capability substantially; therefore, one SPEXER 2000 can replace two or more conventional radars

  • House Republicans slash funds for border security, immigration enforcement

    House Republicans voted to slash spending for border security and immigration enforcement for the remainder of this fiscal year by an estimated $600 million; the House budget allocates $350 million less for border security fencing, infrastructure, and technology than Congress approved last year, and $124 million below what DHS requested; the bill also cuts an estimated $159 million over last year for Customs and Border Protection modernization and construction programs, and is $40 million less than the agency sought to get the job done

  • Chipotle fired 450 workers in Minnesota for lack of legal documents

    Chipotle, in a filing last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission, disclosed that it had let go of 450 people in its Minnesota restaurants after the employees failed to prove they were eligible to work in the United States; the Denver-based chain has been subject to DHS audit for employees’ documents

  • Bill would allow police to turn illegal immigrants over to members of Congress

    A new proposal from Texas state Rep. Lois Kolkhorst would allow law enforcement officials to drop off illegal immigrants at the offices of any U.S. senator or representative; the proposed bill only applies to illegal immigrants about to be released on bail or discharged after completing a sentence and does not detail what the U.S. senator or representative is supposed to do with them.

  • Agriculture industry concerned over expansion of E-Verify

    As Congressional lawmakers look to expand the E-Verify program to crack down on undocumented workers, businesses have become increasingly uneasy with the proposal; Arizona, Utah, and Mississippi have required all employers to use the system, and House GOP leaders are following their lead and pushing to make the system compulsory for all businesses across the United States; critics fear that making the program mandatory could destabilize critical sectors of the economy; the agriculture industry is particularly concerned as they depend heavily on undocumented workers for labor and worry that mandating the system could potentially jeopardize millions of jobs in the industry; proponents of expanding E-Verify believe that it is a better alternative to the existing I-9 screening process which has been easily circumvented with forged documents

  • Mexican gangs kidnapped 11,000 migrants during April-September 2010

    More than 11,000 migrants crossing Mexico were kidnapped and either held for ransom or conscripted into criminal gangs during a six-month span — April through September 2010; a previous study had found 9,758 migrants were kidnapped from September 2008 to February 2009; fellow migrants are sometimes used as informants by the gangs to help in kidnappings; the infiltrators mingle with other migrants to find out who has relatives in the United States able to pay ransom, and sometimes even lead groups of fellow migrants to points where they can be kidnapped

  • Critics: tough talk on border security not backed up with funds

    Last August, with virtually unanimous bipartisan support, Congress increased border funding by $600 million, adding 1,000 new agents to the Border Patrol; Republicans complained this was not enough — citing a GAO report that said that by the Border Patrol’s own standards, the agency had “operational control” over only 873 miles of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico in 2010, or about 44 percent; Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said administration officials “are either blissfully unaware of the massive holes in security along the Southern border or are intentionally misleading the American people”; trouble is, as part of their $60 billion in budget cuts, Republicans propose shrinking the Border Patrol by 870 agents and cut $272 million in funds for surveillance systems to monitor the border with Mexico

  • As REAL ID looms, states revise driver's license laws

    States must be in compliance by May with the regulations laid out in the 2005 REAL ID Act; the law, a recommendation of the 9/11 commission that investigated the 2001 terror attacks, creates a national security standard for state-issued identification cards to be used for purposes like boarding airplanes and entering federal buildings; REAL ID, originally intended as a counterterrorism tool, has had an unintended side effect that has won support of immigration enforcement advocates — it requires driver’s licenses issued to immigrants to expire at the same time as their stay in the United States, invalidating the licenses of immigrants who overstay their visas; states that allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses are now revising their laws as a federal deadline for REAL ID approaches

  • Minnesota GOP lawmakers introduce bill to override local immigration laws

    Republican lawmakers in Minnesota have recently introduced a bill that would require city, county, and other local governments to enforce immigration laws and prohibits them from passing local ordinances to the contrary; currently St. Paul and Worthington have ordinances that direct city resources away from immigration enforcement, leaving it in the hands of the federal government; if passed the new GOP bill, HF358, would effectively invalidate these local ordinances as it contains a provision that would make it illegal for local governments to pass laws overriding federal immigration enforcement laws; last year GOP lawmakers introduced a tough Arizona-style immigration law that would require law enforcement to stop individuals who they have reasonable suspicion for entering the country illegally

  • Lawmakers call for military-grade radar on U.S.-Canadian border

    Six U.S. senators are calling for the deployment of military-grade radar along the U.S.-Canada border to catch small aircraft purportedly ferrying drugs into the country; the senators supported their appeal with what they called the success of Operation Outlook, a 2005-8 pilot program by DHS and DoD that used military radar along the border north of Spokane, Washington, to catch low-flying drug aircraft