• Coast Guards interdicts smugglers' semi-submersible

    Latin American drug lords now rely on semi-submersibles to smuggle drugs into the United States; the other day, the USCG interdicts one semi-submersible in the Eastern Pacific

  • Concerns over E-Verify effectiveness as illegal immigration detentions drop

    The Obama administration has mandated that by 8 September, all contractors who do work with the federal government must use E-Verify to ensure their prospective employees can legally work in the United States; senators say it is too easy to fool the current E-Verify system

  • EADS wins large Saudi border protection deal

    EADS’s win of the massive Saudi border fencing contract, valued at $2.3-2.8 billion, is part of the defense contractors effort to use homeland security projects as a means to bolster its revenues

  • The business aspects of get-tough immigration policy

    The post-9/11 get-tough policy toward immigration has meant booming business for private prison-management companies; the building of prisons and detention centers is now a much-needed source of income for cash-strapped rural communities

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  • U.S., Colombia in a deal for surveillance of drug trade, terrorists

    The Pentagon has to find a new site for anti-drug flight operations after Ecuador declined to extend the lease at Manta

  • Virtual border system ineffective, out of cash

    Both supporters and opponents of the effort to enlist citizens to keep an eye on Texas’s border with Mexico agree that, so far, it has not worked; the question is whether to scrap the plan or continue to fund it

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  • Officials complain about northern border policy

    Five-hundred government officials, policy experts, and business leaders from the United States and Canada gather to discuss the impact of security measures along the U.S.-Canada border on commerce; their conclusion: What is good for the U.S.-Mexico border may be unsuitable for the U.S.-Canada border

  • RFID-enabled official IDs raise privacy fears

    More and more government documents which U.S. citizens are now required to present at border crossings and entry points — e-passports, electronic PASS cards, enhanced driver’s licenses — are equipped with RFID tags so they can easily be scanned by readers; trouble is, they can be scanned through a pocket, backpack, or purse from thirty feet, opening the door for a digital identity pickpocketing

  • Mexican drug violence threat major concern to U.S.

    DHS assistant secretary Alan Bersin: “We take the threat of spillover violence very seriously… We’re prepared to deal with it in the event it occurs. There are contingency plans to respond”

  • DHS IG: SBI lacks effective oversight

    DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner says the CBP is using contractors to do what should be inherently governmental work; “With continued heavy reliance on contractor support services, CBP risks losing control of program decisions while remaining accountable for mission results”

  • Technological integration offer best means to protect Canada-U.S. border

    The integration of several technologies — remote sensing, motion activated imaging sensors, below ground sensors, and thermal cameras — when coupled with policy coordination, offer the best means to enhance the security of U.S.-Canada border

  • Local flexibility required to ease border crossing, facilitate commerce

    Canada and the United States are the world’s two biggest trading partners — with $596 billion in trade in 2008; new report says that tight U.S.-Canada border rules are bad for business

  • IBM signs U.K. biometric passport deal

    IBM signs a £265 million contract with the U.K. Border Agency’s (UKBA) to provide UKBA with fingerprinting capabilities and run the database that will store the facial images and fingerprints needed to keep the passport in line with international standards

  • Israeli cow incursion sparks border controversy

    Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in May 2000 to a border — called the Blue Line — demarcated by the UN; problem is, Israel erected a security fence along the border, and in several places that fence is to the south of the Blue Line; the question: Do Israeli cows grazing north of the fence but south of the Blue Line violate Lebanon’s sovereignty?

  • Senate increases DHS 2010 budget by $300 million

    Senate DHS budget version highlights difference with House over immigration; among other things, the Senate bill would require the Obama administration to complete 700 miles of reinforced fencing along the Mexican border by the end of 2010 — disallowing using only virtual fencing and vehicle barriers for border protection