• Economic relationships, not terrorism fears, drive visa decisions: study

    Despite heightened focus on preventing global terrorism since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, researchers have found that the economic relationship between two countries is the most significant factor in determining the acceptance or rejection rate of visas. “Surprisingly what I find is the global reputation a state garners as a prominent origin of terrorism has a very minute impact when you take into account trade interdependence,” the study’s author says.

  • DHS wants changes in Calif.’s ID for undocumented immigrants

    California is preparing to issue drivers’ licenses to undocumented immigrants who have been permitted to stay in the United States, but DHS has rejected the state’s design for the license card. DHS wants the cards to be unique enough to distinguish them from regular drivers’ licenses, but immigrant rights activists do not want the design to be so different that license holders would suffer from discrimination.

  • The global passport security loophole: how serious is it?

    More than one billion people are estimated to have travelled internationally in 2013, according to the UN’s World Tourism Organization. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations body that regulates air transport worldwide, reported that around 3.1 billion people travelled by airplane in 2013. The numbers are immense. As a result, so too are the security challenges for airlines, immigration, and airport security agencies. The ICAO expects all of its 192 member countries to introduce machine-readable passports by 2015, but there is still no international deadline for the introduction of biometric passports. This means some people could be using old-fashioned passports until 2025. Even then, there is no absolute guarantee biometric passports are any more tamper-proof than a host of other computer-based security measures which apply to credit cards and customer databases.

  • Passports of millions of travelers to U.K. not thoroughly checked

    The use of false passports by two passengers on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared a couple of days ago have highlighted the fact that in the United Kingdom, the passport details of more than twenty million people entering and leaving the United Kingdom every year are not being properly checked. The Home Office’s most recent figures show that data is still not being collected and examined for about 10 percent of the 200 million people flying in and out of the United Kingdom every year.

    • view counter

  • Mississippi to comply with REAL ID

    Last Friday, Mississippi joined forty other states and announced it would comply with the REAL ID Act. Forty-one states and territories are fully or partially compliant with REAL ID – of which twenty states are fully compliant.

  • Corrupt practices: U.S. visa-granting easily compromised

    While serving as a Foreign Service Officer in Guyana, Thomas Carroll sold visas to anyone who would pay, making millions of dollars in the process. Carroll’s scheme differed from the petty favors and kick-backs, which had typified FSO visa fraud in other embassies and consulates, mostly in scale. He took retail visa fraud and made it wholesale.

    • view counter

  • California granting driver's licenses to illegal aliens threatens homeland security: critics

    Last Thursday night’s approval of AB 60 by both houses of the California Legislature, granting driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, poses a serious threat to the security of all Americans, critics charge. The critics say that in 2005, in response to recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, Congress enacted the REAL ID Act in order to discourage state governments from issuing driver’s licenses and other identity documents to illegal aliens – and that California’s AB 60 is designed to circumvent requirements of REAL ID Act.

  • TSA to promote PreCheck program for travelers

    In an effort to make airport security lines shorter and move faster, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will allow passengers to apply for expedited airport screenings. TSA says the plan is for 25 percent of U.S. travelers to be eligible for the system by the end of this year, and 50 percent by 2014.

  • Idaho joins program connecting DMV information to E-Verify

    Idaho became the third state to join the Records and Information from DMV’s for E-Verify (RIDE) program on Sunday. The other two states are Mississippi and Florida. RIDE automates motor vehicle document verification between Motor Vehicle Agencies (MVAs) and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

  • New program whisks passengers through airport security

    A new system has been introduced to get passengers through airport security faster. The program, called Global Entry, was developed by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and it offers a new way to avoid customs and immigration lines.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • More state commit to compliance with REAL ID

    DHS reports that six more states have become complaint with the REAL ID Act, meaning that the act is finally making some headway after eight years of debating and delays. Nineteen states are now in compliance with the Act, and twenty-six more have committed to meet the standards before the deadline. The Act, passed in 2005, had an original compliance deadline of 2008, but that deadline has been extended several times, and is now 1 December 2014.

  • Iowa implements Real ID act, but other states hold firm in opposition

    Last month Iowa joined other states in implementing the REAL ID Act, which Congress passed in 2005 in an effort to combat terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11. The intense debate over the act continues, though: twenty-five states have passed resolutions rejecting REAL ID, with fifteen of them going as far as to make it illegal to comply with the act.

  • U.K. political activist enters U.S. using a friend’s passport

    Stephen Lennon, the 30-year old leader of the English Defense League, a street protest group active in organizing demonstrations against what group members regard as the growing influence of Islam in British life, was sentenced to ten months in jail for using a friend’s passport to enter the United States