• U.S. considering revamping wiretap laws

    The White House is reviewing an FBI plan to overhaul surveillance laws in order to make it easier for law enforcement officials to wiretap citizens using the Internet to communicate rather than phone services.

  • Illnesses in U.S. on the rise as a result of decline in foreign food inspections

    More Americans get sick every year as a result of food-borne pathogens. The reason: inspections at foreign food factories shipping food and food ingredients to the United States have declined in recent years, and border inspections of food coming into the country could be next to be reduced. Experts say this decline in inspections is especially worrisome since Americans consume more imported food – or food made with imported ingredients – every year, and foreign food production and processing facilities often do not meet U.S. sanitation and hygiene standards.

  • GOP opponents of the immigration bill gearing up for a campaign to kill it

    Republicans opposed to the bi-partisan Senate immigration bill are getting set to launch a campaign to defeat the bill, as the Senate Judiciary Committee begins a review on the bill Thursday. The committee is expected to spend at least three weeks on the bill, with GOP lawmakers opposing the bill ready to offer hundreds of amendments — some in an effort to make the bill more acceptable to them, others in an effort to kill it.

  • Sponsors: Immigration bill addresses visa flaws highlighted by the Boston bombing

    Lawmakers behind the bipartisan Senate immigration say bill directly addresses some of the security flaws that may have been exploited by the foreign student who helped Dzhokhar Tsarnaev dispose of evidence after the Boston Marathon bombings.

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  • Obama says same-sex amendment to immigration bill not likely to pass

    President Barack Obama announced at a news conference in Costa Rica on Friday that he backs a proposal which would allow Americans to seek legal immigration for their same-sex partners. Obama said that it was “the right thing to do,” but he acknowledged that the provision has little chance of making it into the final immigration package.

  • Obama warning liberals to be flexible on immigration bill

    Many in Washington have been worried about Republican objections to the immigration overhaul bill, but President Obama and leading Democrats have begun a quiet campaign to assuage the concerns of liberal groups which argue that the bill excludes too many immigrants and makes the path to citizenship too arduous.

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  • Rubio says immigration reform bill will likely not pass the House

    Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said on a talk radio show on Tuesday that the bipartisan immigration reform legislation unveiled last week, will likely not pass the Republican-led House. “[The bill] will have to be adjusted, because people are very suspicious about the willingness of the government to enforce the laws now,” Rubio said.

  • GAO investigates DHS ammo purchases

    DHS is again facing questions about the department’s large ammunition purchases, at the same time that a bill is being introduced which would limit the amount of ammo a government agency can legally buy.

  • U.S. tech companies actively lobbying for immigration reform

    Last year, only 14 percent of immigrants (around 144,000 people) were granted a green card owing to their skills and contribution to the U.S. economy. The rest of the green cards were given mostly based on family ties of the applicants to U.S. citizens. Under the Senate immigration proposal, 50 percent of future green cars would be based on skills and employment opportunities. Leading U.S. tech companies are actively campaigning in support of the proposal.

  • Immigration reform conditioned on border being secured by unmanned vehicles

    Between 2006 and 2011, CBP spent $55.3 million on drone use and maintenance operations, according to a DHS Inspector General (IG) report. The IG recommended that the agency stop buying drones because the aircrafts are costly to maintain and have flown significantly less than their predicted flight times. The bipartisan immigration proposal drafted by the bipartisan Gang of Eight includes a provision which would create a 24/7 border surveillance system heavily dependent on the use of drones.

  • Critics say E-Verify system still has too many problems

    Lawmakers and attorneys in Minnesota believe that the E-Verify system, a government database for employers to verify that their new hires are eligible to work in the United States, may not be ready just yet.. Lawmakers have raised concerns about a clause in the Senate immigration legislation which would make the E-Verify system mandatory for all businesses within five years.

  • Typo delays signing FAA budget bill into law

    Typically, Congress, the country’s deliberative body, tends to take its time when it comes to legislation. This tendency was not in evidence when it came to rescheduling sequester-mandated cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) budget in order to allow air traffic controllers to work their full schedule without being furloughed. The president was supposed to sign the bill Friday – but in its rush to pass the measure, the version which was delivered to the White House contained a typo (an “s” was missing). The president will sign the bill today.

  • Lawmakers renew effort to reach bipartisan gun control compromise

    Lawmakers have quietly begun discussions over gun control measures, with a bi-partisan group of senators trying to come up with a compromise to solve the differences that led to the failure two weeks ago of a comprehensive overhaul effort.

  • Sen. Cornyn, critics exchange charges over immigration reform measure

    Texas critics charge that Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) is likely to oppose the Gang of Eight bipartisan immigration overhaul proposal, even though it meets his demands on border security, because he is worried about a Tea Party primary challenge. Cornyn disagrees.

  • Gay rights advocates want immigration reform bill to recognize gay couples

    Gay rights advocates are campaigning for changes in the bi-partisan Senate immigration overhaul bill so that it would include homosexual couples. Democrats, however, are being cautious, fearing that adding a reference to gay couples would cause many GOP lawmakers to reject the bill.