homeland security

Here’s your chance to tell the Department of Homeland Security what you think a sound immigration policy is, or whether you should be allowed to take your toothpaste on a plane or when to get rid of the weird color-coded terrorist threat advisory system. This morning, DHS launched a new Website, Homeland Security Dialogue, for [...]

One more thing that bears mentioning from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s big counterterrorism speech. Here’s what she said about her department’s much-derided color-coded terrorism “threat level” system:
I want to add that I also recently appointed a task force of experts to review our existing color-coded threat system – the system originally designed to inform [...]

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City to lay out the Obama administration’s new counterterrorism strategy. Her speech is ongoing, but I’ve got a copy of her remarks, and there’s some interesting stuff. The Wall Street Journal’s preview reports that Napolitano is building substantially off the [...]

A new report released today by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, and the law firm of Holland & Knight concludes that the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit has been systematically violating its own standards governing the detention of undocumented immigrants.
Analyzing [...]

The $150,000 in fines so far charged to Los Angeles clothing maker American Apparel for allegedly employing illegal immigrants may be a welcome change from the notorious factory raids by federal agents that led to hundreds of jailed and deported employees. As The New York Times reported on Friday, it suggests a shift in strategy [...]

Maybe the proposal was already in the works, but on Wednesday — the same day The Wall Street Journal reported on the problem of Mexican gangs smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country and then holding them hostage — Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) assured Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that he’d introduce a law to help [...]

I’m looking back through the transcripts of the April 22 floor speeches that Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) and a number of Republican colleagues gave about the Department of Homeland Security’s assessment on “right-wing extremism.” Carter demanded the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, comparing the report to the Clinton administration’s worries about right-wing terror, [...]

Let’s see what Lou Dobbs makes of this one: turns out the crackdown on border crossings by undocumented immigrants has actually led to an increase in the violent smuggling, kidnapping and ransoms demanded for delivering undocumented workers into the United States.
Joel Millman at The Wall Street Journal reports today on a major shift away from [...]

Over the weekend, The Washington Post had this telling account about how Philip Mudd’s nomination to be Homeland Security undersecretary for intelligence unraveled:
Over the Memorial Day recess, Mudd met with senior staff members of the Homeland Security panel whose interest was primarily how he would handle issues of intelligence sharing with state and local police [...]

Here’s a statement the White House released from Phil Mudd, a highly respected former CIA analyst, FBI national-security chief and most recently the administration’s nominee for undersecretary of Homeland Security for intelligence:
“Today I am announcing that I have decided to withdraw my name from consideration to be the Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary for Intelligence [...]