Free Republic

If the homeland’s security were dependent on employee morale, we’d be in big trouble. Fortunately, the men and women of the Department of Homeland Security are committed to the agency’s mission, even as the agency fails to inspire them. You know things are bad for workers when a bipartisan congressional hearing is called to examine a department’s drooping spirit. It ranks 31 among 33 large agencies in The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government survey published by the Partnership for Public Service. (The Partnership has a content-sharing relationship with The Washington Post.)

In case you’ve missed it, Texas has seen about 3,400 square miles of land — an area about the size of Puerto Rico — destroyed by wildfires. Pres. Barack Obama hit Texas to do some political fund-raising and give some speeches about immigration; Gov. Rick Perry suggested that he take a gubernatorially guided tour of some of the damage. The president couldn’t be bothered, but asked the governor to come to El Paso to act as a prop at a political event. Governor Perry declined. Governor Perry often complains that the federal government simultaneously fails to do its real work...

Arlington, Va., (9/3/10) -- Almost 1,100 National Guard members are on duty on the Southwest border performing a mission that is very familiar to many of them, a Guard official said today. "This (mission) is not really unique," said Jack Harrison, the director of communications for the National Guard Bureau. "The National Guard has been involved at the Southwest border for two decades." During that time, National Guard members have worked in the counterdrug program in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. "Above and beyond the 1,200 authorized for this mission, there are over 350 counterdrug personnel (in these states)...

Why is President Obama suing to invalidate the Arizona law on illegal immigration? Why is he incurring the enmity of even his own Democratic congressmen from the Phoenix and Tucson areas by trying to kill a law that two-thirds of Arizona and a similar proportion of America as a whole supports? The answer: It is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to rebuild his sagging popularity with America's Hispanic voters. Furious at Obama for failing to keep his election-year promise to promote comprehensive immigration reform when he had a super-majority at his disposal, they are deserting the president and his party in...

Just last year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified before a Senate panel that Mexican drug cartels were operating in as many as 230 American cities. During her testimony, she claimed that cartels are the greatest organized crime threat to the United States. The federal government’s refusal to secure the border has enabled Mexican cartels to operate across America. In April, a North Carolina DEA special agent reported that Mexican drug organizations have taken over most of the Charlotte heroin market. At the same time in Oregon, about a dozen armed marijuana growers were caught working for a Mexican drug...

John McCain is everywhere now preaching the gospel of secure borders. He’s inescapable. And shameless. And desperate. Yesterday, readers forwarded his latest spam e-mail: Where do you stand on border security? My Friend, One of the fundamental responsibilities of our government is to secure our borders so that our citizens, no matter where they live in our country, can be safe and secure. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress have not lived up to the federal government’s constitutional responsibility to secure our borders. So my Arizona colleague, Senator Jon Kyl and I introduced a 10-Point Border Security Plan...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two Republican senators proposed Monday sending 3,000 more US National Guard soldiers to quell violence spilling over the border between their home state of Arizona and Mexico. In a 10-point plan for beefing up security in the area, Senators John McCain and John Kyl also called for permanently adding 3,000 US Custom and Border Protection Agents to the Arizona/Mexico border by 2015. They also called for completing construction of 700 miles of fencing along the border and beefing up unmanned aerial vehicle patrols so that they could be run 24 hours a day. "Violence has dramatically increased...

In the largest such operation in U.S. history, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 286 foreign nationals in California with criminal records in a three-day enforcement surge that ended Thursday night. Of those taken into custody, 119 were from Northern California and 24 were from the San Jose area. ICE reported that about 80 percent of the immigrants taken into custody had prior convictions for serious or violent crimes such as rape, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Also arrested were 30 convicted sex offenders, many of whom had been convicted of sexual assaults on children. At...

A man from Kosovo wanted in a New York City slaying awaits extradition from South Texas. The Border Patrol said Wednesday that Arber Mustafaj, 35, was detained with two other men from the former Yugoslavia, including his brother, just before midnight Monday. The three were stopped on a rural road northwest of the Border Patrol’s inland Falfurrias checkpoint. The Border Patrol says Mustafaj became a legal permanent resident after coming to the U.S. as a refugee. His brother, whose name was not released, was found to be under a deportation order and was held for deportation proceedings, said Border Patrol...

The dead always tell a story. .... in Mexico that story is ...... a war becoming more violent and ruthless, mostly because of one group. .... Los Zetas. Imagine a band of U.S. Green Berets going rogue and offering their services and firepower to drug cartels..... Commandos from the Mexican army deserted and set up a cartel, Los Zetas. The U.S. government .... "the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and dangerous cartel operating in Mexico." "The Zetas .....No. 1 organization responsible for the majority of homicides, the beheadings, the kidnappings, the extortions that take place in Mexico" "They train new recruits...

It was a scenario U.S. law enforcement had long feared: A fragmentation grenade from Mexico's bloody drug war tossed into a public place. Only the grenade thrower's bumbling prevented bloodshed in a south Texas bar.....But the act was proof that one of the deadliest weapons in Mexico's drug battle is a real threat to the U.S..... While Mexican drug violence has been spilling across the border in the form of kidnappings and killings, grenades are a particular worry because they can kill large numbers of people indiscriminately, and a weapon of choice among Mexican cartel members. In Mexico, .... three...

American swine flu cases climb to 40 U.S. plans to issue travel advisory to Mexico; 2,000 there have fallen ill April 27: Richard Besser, M.D., Acting Director for the CDC, says the swine flu outbreak in the U.S. is evolving and changing rapidly, and that the CDC will be releasing an advisory for travel to Mexico. There are growing worries that the swine flu strain has “pandemic potential.” Learn about the virus found in pigs and why it is causing concern among health officials. The number of confirmed cases of swine flu around the world has climbed to 73, with...

Most Americans, no matter what the political affiliation, are for a strong southern border - or should I say, building a wall, stopping illegal immigration, and deporting 12+ million illegals back to where they came from. Its not being bigoted as some would lead you to believe, its called being Americans, apart of an American nation with borders and laws, and we want both protected and enforced, period. Conservatives have pleaded for a tough approach when our borders were crossed illegally, we begged after 9/11 (in relations to tougher border security), we yelled for it, for economic reasons, we wrote...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration's beefed-up efforts to fight violence on the Southwest border is not the last word, the head of the Homeland Security Department told the Senate on Wednesday. Several senators questioned whether the administration's plan can be successful without more money and people. The administration announced Tuesday that it was sending hundreds of federal agents, along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs to the Southwest border. It was largely relying on existing funds and resources at the departments of Homeland Security and Justice for the increased effort. It also includes $700 million that Congress has...

McALLEN, Texas — Millions of state tax dollars tagged for increased border security were spent on law enforcement equipment and positions away from border areas, according to a state audit. The Office of Emergency Management spent most of more than $79 million between September 2005 and November 2008 to combat crime in border regions, but the report from the State Auditor's Office cited several examples of squad cars, helicopters and new positions that landed elsewhere in Texas. The Department of Public Safety, Parks and Wildlife Department and the Governor's Division of Emergency Management received about $142.3 million in state and...

Just this past week, eight Democrats in Congress wrote President Obama urging him to halt any further construction of the fence, one of the many border- and immigration-related political debates that have carried over from the Bush administration. To the Border Patrol agents stationed in Yuma Sector, there is no debate. To them, the fence is a success story. The fence has three layers in areas where there is an urban neighborhood on the Mexican side. Smith is among those who say their flights are less hectic now because while you can still clearly see the trails in the sand...

BISBEE — Officials with Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C., announced last week that fence construction along the southern border of the U.S. has surpassed the 500-mile mark, with about 280 miles built in Arizona. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized the construction of 670 miles of fencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. CBP’s Secure Border Initiative program was established by the Department of Homeland Security in early 2007 to carry out the Congressional mandate.“As the result of a comprehensive operational analysis, the U.S. Border Patrol determined the need for tactical infrastructure — including fencing, patrol...

In a backroom deal just prior to the Christmas break, Congress passed the omnibus Appropriations bill which included the Hutchison Amendment that gutted the Secure Fence Act. Her amendment essentially guaranteed that the DHS didn't have to build the fence! After Grassfire broke the "Secure Fence Hoax," key members of Congress took action in an effort to undo what the Hutchison amendment did, by restoring deadlines and double fence mandate for the entire 854 miles of border. Two bills have been introduced which Grassfire is supporting. Each of these bills demands Congress make good on their original promise to build...

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) responded to reports that a Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint by members of the Mexican military in Arizona by reaffirming the necessity for border fencing and other infrastructure. According to a State Department Spokesman, the encounter “stemmed from a momentary misunderstanding as to the exact location of the U.S.-Mexican border.” "I disagree with the State Department’s characterization of this incident," said Congressman Hunter. "The fact that members of the Mexican military are routinely operating in such close proximity to the border, with no identifiable purpose, raises serious questions about their...

The open borders of the United States amount to a national security exposure. This is a fact that cannot be debated. One has only to look at the number of foreign nationals attempting to illegally enter the U.S. through Mexico over the last several years. Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security reports that more than 331,000 people from countries other than Mexico have been apprehended trying to cross the Southern land border. These individuals came from virtually every country in the world, including some with whom we have an adversarial relationship, such as Communist China, Iran and North Korea....