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FAA selects avionics manufacturers for nextgen technology… Who will be the next DHS secretary?… Biometrics, interoperability technology help identify criminal aliens
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Australia opens national tsunami warning center… Document requirements announced for visitors to international peace garden… European data breach laws could land in 2011… Aberdeen: Unified threat management can shave IT costs
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U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who pre-register for the program may use the Global Entry kiosk as an alternative to the regular passport control line
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Americans can now apply for the U.S. Passport Card, which is also known as the Pass Card; the RFID chips are cheap Class One Generation Two models, which are vulnerable to cloning
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There have been many — many, many — complaints about the accuracy and effectiveness of DHS no-fly watch list; TSA takes responsibility from individual airlines for matching names on the list with passengers
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Worries about imported food, and about animal disease and the invasion of lakes and rivers by foreign species, increase; Border Protection adds food specialists for better point-of-entry inspection
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Six more countries admitted to the Visa Waiver Program: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and South Korea
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The Michigan agreement, similar to that reached with other states, seeks to create an enhanced driver’s license — which denotes both identity and citizenship — as a compliance option to fulfill Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) requirements
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Researchers are looking to increase security at border crossings by developing a computer system that can detect guilt
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Dems want DHS to target criminal illegal immigrants… “A delicate balance” between port security and business requirements… Somalia: Pirate’s vital routes attacks cause shipping costs to soar
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U.S. may add Israel to the Visa Waiver program in 2009, after Israel implements a new biometric passport for Israeli citizens
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An anonymous technology researcher discusses the ease with which e-passports may be compromised by hackers
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Years after Congress urged the U.S. Coast Guard to speed up its patrol boat replacement program, the service finally picked a design and a shipbuilder for its new cutters; the winner: Bollinger Shipyards
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Immigration matters / David B. Palinsky
The demand for H1-B visas far outstrips its supply; one alternative is the L-1 visa which allows companies to transfer employees to, and allows investors to form start-up operations in, the United States
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There has been a 75 percent in the number of illegal immigrants attempting to cross the Mona Passage from the Dominican Republic into Puerto Rico in the past two years; the Coast Guard is not sure the drop is all due to the service’s biometric measures, but it thinks the technology has something to do with it
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Cameron County, Texas, must decide which option is more beneficial to it: DHS’s fence plan which the county does not like, but which will see $37 million in contracts go to local businesses, or resubmitting the county’s alternative fence plan, which DHS had already rejected, exploiting the fact that DHS has postponed the 31 December fence deadline
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Immigration matters / David B. Palinsky
The U.S. immigration services received more than 163,000 petitions for the 65,000 regular H-1B visas allocated for FY2009; the homeland security, hi-tech, and services sectors, as well as academic and research institutions, need another way to bring to the United States qualified foreign workers and researchers; one such way is the O-1 “Extraordinary Ability” visa
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The Free And Secure Trade (FAST) program allows truckers who drive back and forth across the U.S. border to pre-register with Customs, thus giving them the status of low-risk traveler; one FAST-certified driver used status to smuggle drugs
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TWIC aims to provide 1.2 million U.S. port workers with forgery-proof biometric IDs; so far only 500,000 workers have been enrolled, and DHS pushed completion of enrollment from 25 September to 15 April; lawmakers are not happy
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New York State leads the nation in the adoption of enhanced license technology, and state residents may now apply for an enhanced driver’s license; they have an incentive to do so, because beginning 1 June 2009 U.S. citizens will have to present either a passport or an enhanced driver’s license when re-entering the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Caribbean
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The long view
CBP IA Operation Hometown reduces violence and corruption: Tomsheck shuts it down -- Pt. 5
Operation Hometown appears to be yet another example in a series of programs at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) demonstrating blatant dysfunctionality and mismanagement within the Department of Homeland Security. Meticulously designed to target border violence and corruption among CBP employees, Operation Hometown was labeled a success in reaching its stated objectives. CBP Internal Affair’s (IA) James F. Tomsheck,however, shut the program down. As Congress and President Obama debate various aspects of a new federal immigration policy,few politicians are willing to acknowledge the serious problems at CBP Internal Affairs – but they should, as these problems may directly impact the success of any or all new immigration reforms.
More money, different approach offer opportunities to border security tech companies
The number of border agents has reached roughly 21,000, up from 5,000 two decades ago. In fiscal year 2012, spending for border and immigration enforcement totaled almost $18 billion — 24 percent more than the combined budgets of the FBI, the DEA, the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshals, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (total: $14.4 billion). One major trend driving the border security industry is the government’s shift from large-scale border security infrastructure projects to small unit security systems.
Lawmakers want more attention to be paid to security along the northern border
Over the years, concerns over U.S. border security have largely focused on the southern border, where hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants have been apprehended and millions of dollars in illegal drugs have been seized by border patrol agents. One reason for the inattention to the northern border is that it is not associated with highly charged issues such as immigration, day laborers, and violent drug traffickers.Scotty Greenwood, a senior adviser to the Canadian-American Business Council, is not surprised that the southern border gets more attention than the northern border. “The political theater isn’t as intense when you’re talking about what a good job we do.”