• Senate immigration bill could yield billions in federal contracts

    The Senate immigration bill will see billions of dollars go to defense and technology companies as a result of billions of dollars in new and expanded federal contracts aiming to bolster border security.

  • Lawmakers want to ease travel to U.S. as part of immigration legislation

    A bi-partisan group of House lawmakers is working to include a provision in the House immigration legislation which will make it easier to travel to the United States. Travel industry groups support the effort, having fought for years to get the government to relax security measures. The industry has argued that these measures have turned off many foreigners from traveling to the United States.

  • Following DOMA decision, DHS will offer gay couples same benefits as straight couples

    DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said that following the Supreme Court’s decision to declare the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, her department will work to give benefits to same-sex legally married couples.

  • Senate passes historic immigration reform bill

    The Senate yesterday, on a vote of 68-32, approved a sweeping immigration overhaul bill, the most important immigration measure since the 1986 Immigration and Reform Act (IRCA). The measure offers a path to citizenship to about eleven million illegal immigrants currently in the United States and allocates billions of dollars to bolstering border security.

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  • Our farblondzhet senators

    The Senate immigration reform bill has been presented as an effort to resolve the many complex problems resulting from the Immigration and Reform Act (IRCA) of 1986. Whether the bill passed by the Senate yesterday will succeed remains to be seen, but what is not in doubt is the fact that the border security provisions in the bill, in the words of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), read “like a Christmas wish list for Halliburton” and other big defense contractors. This is unfortunate, because the U.S.-Mexico border has become a graveyard for a long list of ambitious, technology-heavy – but ultimately ineffective and exceedingly wasteful – programs.

  • House lawmakers disagree on how to move forward on immigration reform

    If the sweeping immigration overhaul bill passes the Senate, as now appears likely, House Republicans may be under intense pressure to move quickly on their own bill, so the versions may go to reconciliation. Members of the House, though, say they are in no rush, leaving the fate of immigration reform in doubt. Some analysts note that twice in recent months, when the House failed to come up with its own version of a bill, it passed the Senate version as-is: In January, the House passed the Senate-White House compromise to avert tax increases, and in February it passed the Senate version of the Violence Against Women Act.

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  • HID Global selected as prime contractor for USCIS Green Card

    Irvine, California-based HID Global the other day announced the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has selected the company as the prime contractor for the USCIS Permanent Resident Card, commonly known as the Green Card.

  • Texas sees rise in number of border crossers dying in the summer heat

    During the hot summer months, dozens of migrants die trying to cross the southern border in Arizona and California. Now, Texas is seeing an increase in the number of immigrant dying as they cross the U.S.-Mexico border and lose their way in the desert.

  • Immigration bill gains more support

    The immigration reform effort has been gaining  support from Republican Senators — and from a couple of wavering Democrats – over the weekend, following a beefing-up of the bill’s security provisions by an amendment authored by Senators bob Corker (R-Tennessee) and John Hoeven (R-North Dakota).

  • DHS no longer conducts regular background checks of immigration applicants

    DHS is no longer conducting ordinary background checks because of the increase in the volume of amnesty applications which followed President Obama’s executive order, which took effect on 15 August last year. Skeptical lawmakers may wonder whether DHS can handle the millions of applications which will follow the immigration bill if it is passed, if the department cannot handle the hundreds of thousands which followed the executive order. 

  • Questions raised about “border security surge”

    This week the Senate will decide whether to approve the immigration legislation drafted by a bi-partisan group of senators. A border provision in the bill calls for adding $30 billion for additional security measures along the southern border, including hiring 20,000 more border security agents. Not everyone is convinced the boost in funding will lead to significant decline in illegal border crossers.

  • Border security provision deal makes immigration bill more acceptable to skeptical lawmakers

    Senators working on the immigration overhaul bill have reached a tentative deal on a border security amendment to the bill, a deal which likely would persuade more Republican lawmakers to support the measure. One of the authors of the amendment, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), said he hoped it would persuade not only more Senate Republicans to support the bill, but many House Republicans as well. “For people who are concerned about border security, once they see what is in this bill [after his amendment is adopted], it is almost overkill,” he said.

  • Senate immigration bill would reduce deficits by $200 billion over decade: CBO

    A long-awaited report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office offered a major victory for the bipartisan Gang of Eight senators and the draft immigration overhaul they drafted: the detailed report finds that the immigration bill now being debated in the Senate would reduce federal deficits by nearly $200 billion over the next decade even with higher spending on border security and government benefits. The report estimates that over the following decade — from 2024 to 2033 — the deficit reduction would be even greater, reaching an estimated $700 billion.

  • 7-Eleven stores used stolen social security numbers to pay illegal immigrants

    Federal authorities shut down fourteen 7-Eleven stores in New York and Virginia on Monday, charging nine owners with hiring and harboring illegal immigrants and paying them with social security numbers of other citizens. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and federal prosecutors say forty additional 7-Eleven’s are still under investigation.

  • DHS ordered to release names of immigrant criminals allowed to stay in U.S.

    A federal judge has ordered DHS to release the names of thousands of criminal immigrants who were allowed to stay in the United States because their home countries refused to take them back. Two years ago, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a list of more than 6,800 criminals, including 201 who were convicted of murder and other serious offenses, but the agency refused to provide names, saying that doing so would be a violation of the immigrants’ privacy. A judge ruled that the public interest in knowing how ICE handles aliens convicted of crimes is more important than the privacy concerns of the immigrants. The list of released criminal aliens now contains more than 8,500 names.