All posts tagged United States Department of Homeland Security

BIPARTISAN CONSPIRACY ON BORDER SECURITY

Brothers Phil and Rob Krentz, in a 2006 Arizona Highways article about the Krentz Ranch involvement in the Malpai Borderlands Conservation project.

March witnessed the second anniversary of the murder of Arizona rancher Rob Krentz by an illegal alien intruder 25 miles from the Arizona-Mexico border. In his memory, let’s review the state of border security. Has anything changed?

Our nation’s 1950-mile Southwest border remains as dangerous and open to illegal entry as ever, but this reality is being ignored by both the news media and denied by the Obama administration. The combination of government lies, news media co-optation and Republican complacency constitutes a three-part conspiracy to avoid public discussion of border security until after the November election.

The political motive behind this conspiracy is clear: The Washington establishment does not want the abysmal lack of border security to stand in the way of the next amnesty campaign being planned for the lame-duck session of Congress that will occur after the Nov. 6 election.

The criminal dishonesty of the Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol management team with regard to border security is matched only by the blatant cowardice of Republican congressional leaders. By their silence on border security, Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are co-conspirators with Lindsey Graham and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

The border remains unsecured seven years after the Minutemen put a huge media spotlight on it is a national disgrace. The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, confirmed the embarrassing state of affairs in a November 2011 report. The GAO reported that only 44 percent of the Southwest border has even a minimal degree of security against illegal entry, and that figure obscures more than it reveals.

It is a matter of criminal negligence that Congress allows the Border Patrol to define “operational control” so loosely that it is meaningless for national security purposes. Would you be satisfied if your home security system provided you with 44 percent certainty that intruders would be detected? Yet Congress allows this charade to continue.

Beneath the surface of Border Patrol data you will discover that, in fact, only 15 percent of the border – about 130 miles out of the 1950 mile total – is actually “fully controlled.”

The government brags that it now has 700 miles of “fencing” on the Southwest border, but often neglects to clarify that number as combing both true pedestrian fencing and “vehicle barriers.” In truth, we have only about 340 miles of true fencing, of which only 36 miles is the double fencing authorized by the 2006 Secure Border Act.

There is good reason to believe that border crossings have declined since their peak in 2005, but the official numbers are unreliable because of the way the Border Patrol collects and reports the numbers. It is well-known among rank-and-file Border Patrol officers and publicly reported by the watchdogs at the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers that the official numbers are manipulated for political effect.

Moreover, the government has stopped reporting the “gotaway” number. That is the estimate of border crossings based on the ratio of illegal trespassers detected versus the number apprehended. Historically, that ratio has always been 4-to-1 or 5-to-1, which mans that if 100 illegal trespassers were apprehended on a given night, 400 to 500 eluded capture and entered the country successfully. For example, if 300,000 illegal entrants were apprehended in 2011, about 1.2 million entered the country successfully.

Congress is participating in this charade of improved border security as a prelude to another amnesty. Americans would not tolerate another amnesty if they knew the border remains porous, so amnesty advocates must perpetrate a big lie to lull citizens asleep.

The only thing that could spoil this plan for a new amnesty is a Republican presidential candidate who pulled the curtain away from this façade of lies. The odds of that happening seem to be diminishing daily.

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Obama to shut down Immigration enforcement program

John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the Department of Homeland Security, speaks Dec. 12 in Williston, Vt. A program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration agents is ending.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is starting to shut down a program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration agents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have trained local officers around the country to act as their agencies’ immigration officers. Working either in jails or in the field, the officers can check the immigration status of suspects and place immigration holds on them.

The program, known as 287(g), reached its peak underPresident George W. Bush, when 60 local agencies signed contracts with ICE to implement it. But that trend slowed significantly under President Obama— only eight agencies have signed up since he took office, and none has done so since August 2010.

STORY: Arizona sheriff’s officers turn in federal credentials

Now, in their proposed budget for the upcoming year,Department of Homeland Security officials say they will not sign new contracts for 287(g) officers working in the field and will terminate the “least productive” of those agreements — saving an estimated $17 million. All the contracts between ICE and local police agencies run for three years, so that portion of the program could be finished by November when the last contract for field officers expires.

Keep reading…

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TEXAS: Three Afghan Nationals Detained in Rio Grande Valley

Via Stand with Arizona, by 

McALLEN — Another reminder of why we need a secure border emerged this week, as U.S. Border Patrol officials confirmed three Afghan nationals were detained in the Rio Grande Valley – an increasing “hot zone” of cartel invasion and violence against American ranchers.

Border Patrol confirmed the detentions, but would not say where or when they occurred.

Enrique Mendiola, assistant chief Border Patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley sector, said that human smugglers see moving people besides Mexican nationals as a “business opportunity.”

“Average smuggling rates for other-than-Mexican nationals far exceed those of Mexicans and Central and South Americans,” he said in a statement.

Mendiola noted the Department of Homeland Security is working with governments in Central and South America to “identify and disrupt transnational smuggling organizations and routes, that sometimes can span the globe.”

Security experts are increasingly concerned about increasing alliances between international terrorist organizations and the Mexican cartels.

Michael Braun, former DEA Chief of Operations, recently testified at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Feb. 2, 2012 that Iranian-backed terror group Hizbollah – – which murdered 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983 – is supporting Mexican cartels to gain access to their networks for border entry, human trafficking, money laundering and forged documents, and operations in 250 U.S. cities.

The goal? Exploit our porous defenses with terror cells – far easier than our ports and airports, thanks to the Feds’ continued failure to secure the border.

Of course DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano tells us the border is “safer than ever”.  And Barack Obama has mocked those who say the border is unsafe: “Maybe they’ll need a moat. Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat. They’ll never be satisfied.”

However, a local news station last year uncovered evidence that the DHS was suppressing data – even from Congress – which showed that hundreds of individuals from terror-sponsoring nations had penetrated our border. Retired INS Agent Michael Cutler says that DHS is “covering up” this evidence…

The threats are real, and dangerous. So what is the Administration’s response? Obama is slashing National Guard troops on the border by a stunning 75% over the next 3 months. Insanity.

Given that Obama and Napolitano refuse to increase security on the border in order to pander to the La Raza crowd, it will take new leadership in Washington if these threats are ever to be taken seriously.Share this story widely (using the links above), especially for those people you know who still think the only people crossing our Southern border are migrant fruit pickers, and do not understand the critical choice we face in the coming election.

 

PLEASE CONSIDER A DONATION to Stand With Arizona, to help us continue to expose the truth of what is going on at our borders, and to fight against illegal alien amnesty and push for Arizona-style enforcement laws nationwide:DONATE link. Thank you.

 

 

About John Hill

John Hill is the Executive Director of Stand With Arizona, one of the nation’s largest organizations opposing illegal immigration and amnesty. SWA’s members have been instrumental in passing legislation in states and counties around the U.S., and blocking the DREAM Act in 2010. Join us!

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Big Sis: Only “A Small Number” Of Illegal Aliens Were Deported For Only Being Here Illegally Last Year…

Via: Zip: Here’s a scary thought, this woman is in charge of homeland security.

(CNSNews.com) — A “small number” of illegal aliens who had “committed no other crime” apart from being in the United States unlawfully were deported in fiscal year 2011, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers Wednesday

“One of the things we must do in DHS [Department of Homeland Security] is prioritize the mission,” she said during a House Appropriations Committee Homeland Security subcommittee hearing.

“And those that have committed no other crime, and we look at other factors — length of time in the United States, family relations, ties in the United States, service in the military and the like. Those would be low priority matters.”

Napolitano was responding to questions put by Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the committee’s chairman, who wanted to know how many of the estimated 14-20 million illegal aliens believed to be in the country were being deported by the DHS.

She replied that roughly 400,00 individuals were removed from the U.S. in FY2011, 90 percent of whom fell under priorities set out in March 2011 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), focusing on criminals and other dangerous illegal aliens.

“But were there any deported that were just simply here illegally?” Rogers asked.

“There were a small number that would have been picked up, and yes,” Napolitano replied.

Keep reading…

 

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No Joke: Obama Appoints “Public Advocate” For Illegal Immigrants Worried About Law Enforcement…

The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a new “public advocate” charged with listening to immigrants’ concerns about its law enforcement policies — but Republicans said the position amounts to an official mouthpiece for illegal immigrants being deported.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the advocate will “serve as a point of contact for individuals, including those in immigration proceedings, NGOs and other community and advocacy groups, who have concerns, questions, recommendations or other issues they would like to raise.”

The agency — part of the Homeland Security Department — said Andrew Lorenz-Strait will be the first advocate.

But Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that meant elevating the concerns of illegal immigrants.

“It’s outrageous that the Obama administration has appointed a taxpayer-funded activist for illegal and criminal immigrants who are detained or ordered deported. The administration all too often acts more like a lobbying firm for illegal immigrants than as an advocate for the American people,” Mr. Smith, Texas Republican, said.

Mr. Smith said that when Congress created the Homeland Security Department, it specifically created an advocate’s position for those in the legal immigration process, but it declined to create one for illegal immigrants, who the courts have regularly ruled are not entitled to the same protections as citizens and legal residents.

Even as it has set a record for deportations, the Obama administration has taken steps to try to give illegal immigrants more rights within the deportation system and has instructed prosecutors to drop cases against many of those detained as illegal immigrants.

The administration says that, with limited resources, it is trying to focus its deportation efforts on criminals and those with repeated immigration violations on their records, rather than rank-and-file illegal immigrants.

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Love The Constitution? Hate Government Regulations? New DHS “Lexicon” Brands You a “Militia Extremist”…

Via: Zip: This is the same DHS that won’t say Islam is a factor in terrorism.

Via PJM’s Patrick Poole:

A recently published “lexicon” distributed to thousands of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) targets citizens concerned about their Second Amendment rights and the steady encroachment of the federal government, categorizing such as “militia extremists.”

The “lexicon,” marked Unclassified/For Official Use Only (FOUO), is dated November 10, 2011, and was sent out by email to law enforcement and homeland security agencies on November 14 by LaJuan E. Washington of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis.

We have exclusively posted the DHS “lexicon” here.

Its definition of “militia extremists” states:

(U//FOUO) Groups or individuals who facilitate or engage in acts of violence directed at federal, state, or local government officials or infrastructure in response to their belief that the government deliberately is stripping Americans of their freedoms and is attempting to establish a totalitarian regime. These individuals consequently oppose many federal and state authorities’ laws and regulations, (particularly those related to firearms ownership), and often belong to armed paramilitary groups. They often conduct paramilitary training designed to violently resist perceived government oppression or to violently overthrow the US Government. (Page 2 of 3, emphasis added)

So what drives militia extremism according to DHS now is “belief that the government deliberately is stripping Americans of their freedoms.” It is demonstrated by opposing “many federal and state authorities’ laws and regulations, (particularly those related to firearms ownership).” Would writing about those topics (as I am now) fall under “facilitation”? On its face, it’s hard to see how it could be excluded under DHS’s broad definition.

Keep reading…

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Muslim DHS Intelligence Analyst Gets Wrist-Slap After Stealing, Laundering $2 Milln to Palestinians

By Debbie Schlussel

File this outrage under: How the Department of Homeland Security “Practices” the “If You See Something, Say Something” Policy Internally.

An Islamic top Department of Homeland Security official steals and launders almost $2 million to Jordan–perhaps to Palestinian terrorists–and gets a mere slap on the wrist–a year in federal prison.  That’s what happened yesterday to Ahmed Adil Abdallat.

 

Ahmed Adil Abdallat: Now We Know Why His Mugshot’s So Cheery

In May 2011, I told you about Ahmed Adil Abdallat, the top Homeland Security official, who apparently stole and laundered around $2 million in Homeland Security money tobank accounts in Jordan.  Abdallat, a Muslim Jordanian–which means he’s a Palestinian, was a top intelligence analyst for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  He made at least 11 unauthorized trips to Jordan (using his diplomatic passport), where federal investigators linked him to bank accounts containing $1.2 million, in addition to nearly $600,000 in wire transfers to Jordan in fraudulently-obtained funds he got by submitting to and getting reimbursed by Homeland security for fake travel expenses.   What is even more outrageous is that his direct boss, James M. Woosley (not to be confused with former CIA Director James M. Woolsey), the then-Director of Intelligence for ICE, was in on the scheme and was paid off by accepting his cut.

Keep reading

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DHS Internal Survey: Majority Of Immigration Officers Say Obama’s Policies Favor “Promoting Immigration” Over “National Security”…

Obviously.

(CNSNews.com) – A majority of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers under the Obama administration believe that their agency’s policy favors the promotion of immigration over national security, according to a 2011 survey conducted by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general (IG). However, the director of the USCIS dismissed the data from the IG as anecdotal and not “fact-based.”

“When asked how well USCIS balances national security and promoting immigration, 130 of 252 respondents (51.6%) said that USCIS policy is too heavily weighted toward promoting immigration,” revealed a DHS IG January 2012 report entitled, “The Effects of USCIS Adjudication Procedures and Policies on Fraud Detection by Immigration Services Officers.”

Only 6 respondents (2.4 percent) believe that “USCIS policy makes national security concerns too prominent in the immigration benefit petition process,” reads the report.

The DHS IG audit, which was conducted between January and May 2011, included an online survey sent to a random selection of immigration services officers (ISOs) in all 26 USCIS districts across the country. Most respondents have been ISOs for more than three years. The questions, according to the IG, delved into the agency’s “FY 2011 performance measures, pressure to adjudicate cases, and overall impressions about the USCIS mission.”

When asked if they have “ever” been asked or “pressured” by their superiors to approve applications that should have been denied, 63 (24.8 percent) of 254 USCIS officers said yes.

“Although fewer than one in four respondents had this concern, we view the number of pressured ISOs as a threat to the integrity of the benefit issuance system,” noted the IG.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. (AP Photo)

ISOs, at times, “have been required to approve specific cases against their will,” stated the report. Some officers said that in complying with supervisor demands, they have “approved visa applications containing suspect information.”

On a separate question, 90 percent of 251 respondents concluded that they lacked sufficient time to conduct interviews of applicants who were seeking immigration benefits.

Only 25 (10 percent) of the respondents said they had “enough time” to conduct interviews. Meanwhile, 109 (43.4 percent) officers concluded that the time is “too short” and 117 (46.6 percent) said the “length of time for interview should change, but only to a limited extent.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who requested the IG report, accused the USCIS leadership in Washington D.C. of employing a “get to yes” attitude that is not in the best interest of the American people.

“Whistleblowers have been complaining for several years that leadership in Washington, D.C. and immediate supervisors were placing inappropriate pressure on immigration adjudicators to simply find a way to approve benefits,” said  Sen. Grassley in a Jan. 6 statement.

In October 2010,  Grassley accused Obama’s USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas of “fostering an environment that pressures employees to approve as many applications as possible” while condoning “retaliation against those who dissent” and asked the DHS IG to investigate.

The Daily, which reported on the DHS IG findings before they were publicly released, pointed out that, according to internal communication documents they obtained, the “pressure” to approve immigration benefits had “heightened” under Mayorkas in “an effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

Nevertheless, the IG report mentioned that the issue of weighing quantity over quality when approving immigration benefits has been plaguing USCIS for decades.

The DHS IG added that “through process improvements and additional systems checks, USCIS has taken important steps to improve national security and fraud detection,” but also said that the “USCIS can take further steps to insulate the benefit adjudication process from internal and external pressures that continue to hinder the adjudications function.”

The report suggested that the 18,000-plus USCIS employees and contractors are overwhelmed by their workload of processing more than 6 million applications for citizenship, permanent residency, employment authorization, and relief, among other benefits.

Despite being charged with other responsibilities, immigration service officers are required to complete between 12 and 15 interviews per day in less than 30 minutes each, which leaves “ample opportunities for critical information to be overlooked,” revealed the IG.

“The consensus among ISOs throughout the country is that quantity is still at least as important to their supervisors and managers as quality,” stated the report.

“Additional ISO positions, rather than production pressure, are the better way to reduce production backlogs,” suggested the IG. “For USCIS to prioritize fraud detection and national security, a reduction in case numbers per day is necessary.”

In what appears to be a disclaimer, the report mentioned that responses from the surveyed immigration officers do not necessarily reflect the experience of most USCIS officers across the country, adding that “general employee concerns about the impact of production pressure on the quality of an ISO’s decisions do not mean that systemic problems compromise the ability of USCIS to detect fraud and security threats.”

None of the officers who were surveyed presented “cases where benefits were granted to those who pose terrorist or national security threats” to the United States, added the IG. “Even those employees who criticized management expressed confidence that USCIS would never compromise national security on a given case.”

Less than half (46 percent) of 252 respondents concluded that “in general, USCIS has a reasonable balance between promotion of immigration and national security.”

In his response to the IG report, the USCIS director dismissed the findings as being “based on anecdotal statements regarding USCIS’s purported policies and practices and not on fact-based data,” adding that “within the quality arena these types of surveys are referred to as ‘self-selected opinion polls’ that scholarly research concludes can produce flawed results.”

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Feds fail to intercept nuclear terrorists

Via US Open Borders

The GAO “Red Teams” were successful in sneaking radioactive material across both U.S. borders, yet the White House and members of Congress continue to ignore the threat.

Practically nothing has been done to prevent a nuclear or radiological weapon or materials from entering the United States. Credit: Domestic Nuclear Detection Office

In the latest example of incompetence by the federal government agency created to keeping America safe, the Department of Homeland Security has wasted $4 billion on a failed program to install crucial radiation detectors at U.S. border crossings, according to a government report released after the New Year holiday.

Launched a few years ago, the costly effort was supposed to create and install detecting machines to intercept nuclear terrorists attempting to enter the country. The agency’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office was charged with developing and acquiring the essential equipment that could sniff out nuclear and radiological materials before they made it into the U.S.

But $4 billion later the machines are still not in place, according to a report (Combating Nuclear Smuggling) issued this week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of congress. Even more shameful is that machines were created but can’t be used because they’re too big for border inspection lanes. Additionally, the software installed in the devices doesn’t work properly.

Here’s another enraging little piece of information; the Homeland Security agency that’s supposed to use the equipment, Customs and Border Protection, had “made it clear” that it did not want the nuclear detecting machines because they would not fit in primary inspection lanes and would slow down the flow of commerce and cause significant delays.

On a positive note, top officials at Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security admit that they are “mindful of getting something delivered that has credible bases for the implementation plan that follows.” Perhaps some high-ranking government official can translate that into plain English for taxpaying Americans stuck with financing the extravaganza.

In the meantime, lack of nuclear terrorist interceptors aside, the border is “as secure as it has ever been,” according to Napolitano.

In previous GAO operations, as reported by the Law Enforcement Examiner, “Red Teams” were successful in sneaking radiological material across both northern and southern borders into the U.S. totally undetected.

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Report: Government Vastly Overstating Enforcement Of Immigration Laws, Deportations Overstated By 24:1…

Agency’s Immigration Enforcement Claims Not Supported By Own Data

Via: TRAC

Syracuse, N.Y. — Case-by-case records provided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that many fewer individuals were apprehended, deported or detained by the agency than were claimed in its official statements — congressional testimony, press releases, and the agency’s latest 2010 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

The ICE data was provided to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University in late December, almost two years — 582 days — after TRAC had requested it on May 17, 2010.

Details about the vast differences between the agency activities documented by the data and its public statements are laid out in a FOIA appeal filed by TRAC on January 4. The surprising size of the discrepancies, the TRAC appeal said, indicated that either “ICE has been making highly exaggerated and inaccurate claims about the level of its enforcement activities,” or it is “withholding on a massive scale.”

TRAC’s appeal emphasized that this was not an inconsequential bookkeeping problem, noting “that the alleged failure of the federal government to enforce the immigration laws has been a hotly debated topic during both the Bush and Obama administrations.”

“Thus, the agency’s apparent inability to substantiate the level of its claimed enforcement activities is a very significant matter,” the appeal continued. “Indeed it is central to the current public debate on federal enforcement policy in the ongoing presidential election campaign.”

TRAC requested a formal agency investigation of the matter or that it be referred to the Office of Inspector General.

Intervention of FOIA Ombudsman and DHS Director of FOIA Operations

As the unlawful failure of ICE to provide the requested data continued well beyond the legal deadlines, TRAC engaged in numerous unsuccessful attempts to resolve the matter with agency officials and in late November of 2010 asked the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) for assistance in persuading the agency to act on our request. OGIS, located in the National Archives and Records Administration, was created by Congress in 2007 to serve as a FOIA “ombudsman” resolving conflicts between requesters and agencies. This approach was not very successful, and in mid-October 2011 James V.M.L. Holzer, the Director of Homeland Security’s Public Liaison and Director of Disclosure and FOIA Operations, intervened in the case.

In its initial FOIA request in May 2010, TRAC asked for specific information about all individuals who had been arrested, detained, charged, returned or removed from the country for the period beginning October 1, 2004 to date. In its initial and incomplete response, however, ICE so far has only provided TRAC with information through FY 2005. The agency said it would provide detailed information about the more recent years later.

When compared with various public statements by the agency, however, TRAC’s analysis of this limited case-by-case information provided found vast discrepancies. Among them: ICE statements claimed almost five times more individual apprehensions than revealed in the data, as well as 24 times more individuals deported and 34 times more detentions.

Case-by-caseData ReleaseFY 2005 ICE PublicClaimsFY 2005 DiscrepancyRatio
Number ICE apprehended 21,339 102,034 4.8
Number ICE deported 6,906 166,075 24.0
Number detained by ICE 6,778 233,417 34.4

The failure of ICE to abide by the mandate of the FOIA in a timely way about its immigration enforcement actions during the five-year period covered by our May 2010 request starkly contrasts with the repeated transparency statements of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and many other administration officials since they came to office almost three years ago.

And it also appears to be a part of a larger pattern. In a three-page letter dated September of 2010, for example, ICE informed TRAC that key statistical data it had previously provided us were now “unavailable” and that the agency without explanation, was unilaterally imposing a $450,000 FOIA processing fee. ICE also claimed that Syracuse University was not an educational institution. Earlier in the same year a sister agency in the Department of Homeland Security — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) — demanded a $111,930 processing fee. While time consuming, these and other Administration feints, have not stopped TRAC from its two decades long campaign to obtain revealing information from ICE, USCIS, the IRS, the Justice Department and other agencies.

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