Free Republic

Gaping holes in the K1 fiance visa interview process. Reckless bans on scrutinizing visa applicants' social media posts. Ignored alarms over marriage fraud. New details keep seeping out about all the "red flags" Obama's immigration officials missed in the case of the San Bernardino jihadists. Color me unshocked. The American public and Capitol Hill politicians should have been more vigilant about vetting Obama's vetters in the first place. What do you expect when you put crony know-nothings, political hacks and identity politics zealots in charge of our safety? In case you'd forgotten (or never paid attention), Obama campaign finance bundler...

EL PASO, Texas – U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said Thursday that security on the southern U.S. border "is better now than it ever has been" and that violence from neighboring Mexico hasn't spilled over in a serious way. Napolitano spoke at the Bridge of The Americas border crossing, after a meeting with the mayors of the border towns of El Paso, Nogales, Ariz., and Yuma, Ariz. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Francisco Sanchez and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin also were present. Napolitano said the Department of Homeland Security will deploy 250...

US border czar Alan Bersin warned Mexico's brutal drug cartels Tuesday that threats to target law enforcement officials on both sides of the border would be met by a "significant response." Bersin said a recent call by one cartel kingpin to ramp up violence against US and Mexican law enforcement agents was potentially of "grave significance" and was being "taken seriously" by the administration. "Should law enforcement, border patrol agents, customs officers or local and state law enforcement officers be targeted that would be considered a major departure from existing practice of the cartels, and a threat that called for...

Ex President Clinton with Alan Bersin DHS Secretary Napolitano will name a new border czar, Alan Bersin. Mr. Bersin has a past of alleged fraud.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration will name former Justice Department official Alan Bersin to oversee its policy on illegal immigration and drug-related violence along the U.S. border with Mexico, Politico reported on Tuesday. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano was expected to announce the appointment on Wednesday, during a visit to El Paso, Texas, the report said, citing an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The announcement was scheduled to take place one day before President Barack Obama planned to stop in Mexico before traveling to Trinidad and Tobago for the Fifth Summit of the Americas. A...

Tomorrow Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the U.S. attorneys matter. Sampson’s appearance comes a few days after word that another top Justice Department aide, Monica Goodling, has informed the committee that she will take the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination if she is called to testify. In a statement, Goodling’s lawyer blasted committee Democrats, charging that chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy and others “have already publicly drawn conclusions about the conduct under investigation. The most incendiary charge leveled by Democrats, and particularly by committee member Sen. Charles...

SACRAMENTO – The reappointment of state Education Secretary Alan Bersin to the state Board of Education was confirmed by a Senate committee yesterday, despite union opposition stemming from his years as head of San Diego schools. The California Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association, which represents non-teachers, urged the Democratic-controlled committee to reject Bersin because of his legacy in San Diego. “During his reign in San Diego his leadership style was extremely divisive,” Lyssa Sassman of the CTA told the committee. “It divided the community. It hurt teacher morale, and it did not significantly improve student achievement.” The...

The state Board of Education on Monday approved options for textbooks to be used in classrooms through 2014, but rejected pleas from bilingual education advocates who wanted to include textbooks that address the needs of English learners while teaching California's curriculum. Critics of the current options for schools - including Assemblywomen Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, and Jackie Goldberg, D-Los Angeles - wanted the board to also let schools use textbooks they said would help non-English speakers with vocabulary while learning basic subject matter. Instead, the board voted 6-4 to adopt the recommendations of its curriculum committee, leaving English-as-a-second-language instruction separate...

Auditors found questionable spending by state Education Secretary Alan Bersin when he was superintendent of schools in San Diego. The audit, conducted for the San Diego Unified School District by a law firm, Loeb & Loeb, looked at Bersin's handling of more than $630,000 in tax-deductible donations made by individuals and corporations to an education innovation fund. The audit said Bersin spent the money as he wanted, often reimbursing himself for personal and business expenses. There were also undocumented reimbursements and possible double-billings, auditors said. School district officials have forwarded the audit to the state attorney general, Fair Political Practices...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top education advisor said the administration is prepared to consider raising taxes as part of a long-term solution to the problems plaguing California schools. The statement by California Education Secretary Alan Bersin came in a Dec. 1 speech to the California School Boards Assn. It was posted on the group's website Friday. His comments mark the first time any top administration official has acknowledged that new taxes could be needed to restore the quality of state services. "No one can look at the history of California education over the last generation and not notice we...

After seven years as the innovative and sometimes abrasive leader of California's second largest school district, Alan Bersin was run out of San Diego by the teachers' union. But you might say he landed on his feet. Bersin is now the education secretary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (snip) Bersin is a lifelong Democrat, a graduate of Harvard College, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He is a Yale-trained lawyer who worked as the border enforcement chief for the U.S. Department of Justice before serving as U.S. attorney in San Diego, and he was one of several non-educators to be hired to...

Too bad there’s never an egg timer around when you need one. Arnold Schwarzenegger cooked his political future some more this week, recklessly endorsing the anti-illegal-immigrant Minuteman Project vigilantes and helplessly watching as a public poll showed him losing a third of his popularity in three months. Maria Shriver was on the warpath about her husband’s downward spiral, urging wholesale firings at the top of Team Arnold and consulting such unlikely counselors about saving her husband’s career as Dick Morris, the Republican who engineered Bill Clinton’s revival before becoming Fox’s favorite Clinton hater. The wily Morris made his national reputation...

The state secretary of education is an unusual Cabinet-level position that controls no department or agencies and has no real power beyond advising the governor and being a "bully pulpit." The office was originally secretary for child development and education and was created by Gov. Pete Wilson in December 1990, before he was sworn in. Wilson appointed a Democrat, Maureen DiMarco, to the position. Wilson was believed to want his own education official to counter then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig, a Democrat who was allied with the teachers union. Gray Davis, a Democrat, was elected governor in 1998 and...

"He's the perfect choice at this critical time for education," Schwarzenegger said of Bersin, who served two years on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Bersin, 58, offered a glimpse of his hard-hitting approach at the news conference. Standing next to the governor and speaking in a relaxed but firm tone, Bersin did not shy away from taking on teachers unions. "It's very important that we find common ground for what our kids need, not what's good for the union," he said. "This has to be premised on what's good for children." Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Assn.,...

Schools Superintendent Alan Bersin agreed to leave his San Diego position in June, but is moving to something bigger. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named Bersin as his State Secretary of Education Friday, 10News reported. "Alan is a reformer and the perfect choice for secretary for education at this critical time for education in our state. He is a great leader with the tremendous qualifications necessary to guide our efforts to make sure California's kids get a quality education," said Schwarzenegger. Bersin started the "Blue Print For Student Success" to improve literacy and math skills while cutting art and music programs. Test...