• ASIS International awards Florida school Selects money for security

    Orlando, Florida, Palmetto Elementary School is located in one of the city’s highest crime areas; the school has won a $20,000 from ASIS International for security enhancements; the money will be used for the addition of both indoor and outdoor surveillance cameras to act as both a deterrent for potential wrongdoers and to enable the school’s security team to identify those who have committed crimes on the school’s large campus

  • Judge orders DHS to clarify whether Secure Communities is mandatory

    On Monday, a New York judge ordered federal immigration officials to provide clarification on whether or not states and local law enforcement agencies had the ability to opt out of the controversial Secure Communities immigration enforcement program; the judge’s ruling comes as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit launched by several immigration and legal rights groups

  • Texas gets second UAV

    Border agents in south Texas will be getting additional help thanks to the deployment of a second unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in the area; currently there are four UAVs deployed along the U.S.-Mexico border and three of them are based in Arizona; the second drone is expected to arrive later this year or in the early part of next year.

  • Boston threatens to withdraw from Secure Communities

    On Monday Boston mayor Thomas M. Menino announced that he will withdraw the city from the controversial Secure Communities program unless changes are made; Boston was among the first cities in the United States to test the program in 2006, but now Mayor Menino is one of the many growing voices that have taken aim at the Secure Communities program

  • Divorce leads to approval of GPS tracking in New Jersey

    A divorce case in New Jersey has resulted in the first time a state court has approved the use of GPS devices to track individuals; last week a New Jersey appellate court ruled against a man who sued his ex-wife for placing a GPS device in the car she and her husband shared

  • North Carolina jail investigated for immigration violations

    A jail in North Carolina is currently under federal investigation on charges that local law officers mistreated detainees held as part of an immigration enforcement program; the investigation comes at the request of the state’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which requested that DHS officials investigate the Wake County jail based on fifty-seven complaints made by individuals detained there in 2009 and 2010; the complaints stem from the 287(g) program which allows local police officers to enforce federal immigration laws

  • Montana floods exacerbate Exxon oil spill

    Flooding in Montana has exacerbated the effects of an oil spill and made clean up more difficult for Exxon Mobil; it is estimated that roughly 750 top 1,000 barrels of crude oil have leaked into the Yellowstone River near Billings, Montana; the pipeline has been shut down, but flooding in the area has made it difficult for clean-up crews to find the source of the leak

  • Missouri struggles to pay for natural disasters

    Last week, Missouri governor Jay Nixon ordered his state budget director to put aside an additional $100 million to help the state’s disaster stricken areas recover; Governor Nixon has already ordered $50 million to be withheld, but Linda Luebbering, the state budget director, worries that the $150 million is not enough

  • Cook County, Illinois cancels troubled security camera program

    Contrary to the latest trends, Cook County, Illinois is scrapping a project to equip police departments with real time streaming cameras; Cook County canceled Project Shield, a $44 million federally funded initiative to provide 128 local police departments with cameras in squad cars and stationary locations that streamed live video to central command centers; the program has been plagued by technical problems, cost overruns, and shoddy performance

  • Audit reveals Montana mishandled federal grant money

    A recent audit of the Montana Department of Military Affairs found that the agency did a poor job of managing federal grant money; the investigation, led by legislative auditors, revealed that the agency had spent approximately $19 million in federal grant money over the past three years but did not monitor subcontractors;the agency is so badly organized that it could not even account for the number of active contracts that it currently had with vendors leaving the door open for potential fraud

  • New York governor determined to close Indian Point nuclear plant

    The Indian Point nuclear power plant, located thirty-five miles north of New York City, is facing increasing pressure from Governor Andrew Cuomo and senior officials say the governor is determined to shut it down; the governor’s hand has been strengthened by new legislation that streamlines the approval process for siting new power plants in New York, a move that would make it easier to replace Indian Point; closing the nuclear plant would be a major step toward reshaping the state’s energy policy as the plant produces 2,000 megawatts and provides New York City and Westchester with 25 percent of their power — but the nuclear disaster in Japan caused by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami raised fresh concerns about the plant, which is located near a fault line

  • Butte County police lobbies for armored vehicle

    For the second year in a row local law enforcement officials in Butte County, California are rallying to obtain grant money to help purchase an armored vehicle; if money from 2011 DHS grants is allocated to Butte County by the state, officials say it would be used to purchase an armored vehicle for the Butte County Sherriff’s Office and Chico

  • New Haven, Connecticut police begin installing security cameras

    New Haven police plan to install twenty-one surveillance cameras in the city’s hot spots for crime. The cameras will give officers a 360 degree view of an area’s streets and sidewalks; police hope that the cameras will help reduce New Haven’s rising violent crime rate; in the first half of 2011, more than eighteen people have been killed

  • Federal judge blocks Georgia's Arizona-style immigration law

    On Monday, portions of a Georgia immigration law were blocked by a federal judge on the grounds that the role of enforcing immigration was a federal responsibility; under the law, all businesses in Georgia would be required to check the immigration status of all new hires, police officers would be able to verify the immigration status of anyone unable to provide proper identification during a routine stop, and it would be illegal for anyone to knowingly or willingly transport illegal aliens

  • Lawmakers introduce raft of border security bills

    Border security continues to be a hot political issue, and lawmakers of both houses and both parties introduce a raft of new border security-related bills; the bills range from a measure to establish health care services along the U.S.-Mexico border to a proposal to educate border patrol agents about child trafficking to a bill calling for compensation to border counties for high level of undocumented aliens relying on county services