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Alan D. Bersin, commissioner of the 57,000-employee U.S. Customs and Border Protection, will resign effective December 30, he said Thursday. Bersin was appointed to the post by President Barack Obama on March 27, 2010. He notified the president of his resignation Thursday, he said in a statement. "My service as commissioner has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my public life," Bersin said. "I am immensely proud of the significant and meaningful achievements we have made on our borders and at our nation's ports of entry over nearly two years. "Through innovative solutions and strengthened partnerships, we have...

Complete title: U.S. Government Does Not Have ‘Effective Control’ of 1,081 Miles of the U.S.-Mexico Border, DHS Says U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin (CNSNews.com) – The U.S. government does not have “effective control” of 1,081miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the division of the Department of Homeland Security responsible for securing the border.“Border miles under effective control” is a metric DHS uses in its annual performance reports to measure the performance of the Border Patrol.As defined by DHS, a mile of the border is under the “effective control” of the...

Complete title: Obama Border Czar's ‘Paradigm Shift’: Give Illegals ‘Road to Citizenship,’ Let Mexicans Work Here Legally in Future Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin speaks at the Migration Policy Institute on the future vision of CBP with Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program, MPI. (CBP photo by James Tourtellotte) U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin, who oversees both the Customs Service and the Border Patrol, says the United States needs to undertake a “paradigm shift” in how it views the U.S.-Mexico border.This shift, Bersin explained in a speech last Thursday...

Alan Bersin, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, says he didn't know he's required by law to complete a form saying he verified that his household employees were eligible to work in the U.S. Bersin said he collected Social Security cards, driver's licenses and other documents from 10 household employees he has hired since 1993, to make sure they could work in the U.S. But he did not fill out and keep a particular form, known as an I-9, which is signed by the employer and employee and details documents accepted to verify the employee's legal status. Members of...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is naming a "border czar" to oversee issues related to drug-cartel violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and the hundreds of thousands of people who try to enter the U.S. illegally through the Southwest. An Obama administration official says Napolitano on Wednesday will name Alan Bersin, a former federal prosecutor, to fill the new post at the Homeland Security Department. The official would speak only on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement expected in El Paso, Texas. The Obama administration has promised to crack down on border violence and work with Mexican...

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...

Education advisor and an aide in charge of lobbying lawmakers step down following Schwarzenegger's reelection. SACRAMENTO — Two of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's prominent aides are leaving the administration, the first in what is expected to be a string of departures as the governor, following his reelection victory last week, retools his staff. Schwarzenegger aides confirmed Wednesday that Alan D. Bersin, the governor's education advisor, is stepping down, as is Richard Costigan, a senior aide in charge of pushing the governor's agenda through the Legislature. Costigan, who also advises Schwarzenegger on which bills to sign or veto, is taking a job...

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...

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...

San Diego School ShowdownYou think the fight for control of the Senate has been rancorous? Well, when it comes to a bare-knuckle ballot scuffle whose outcome will have national implications, the battle for two of the five seats on the San Diego School Board leaves the rest of today's elections looking like a Sunday ice-cream social.Though Schools Superintendent Alan Bersin is not on this ballot, all San Diego knows this election is a make-or-break referendum on his "Blueprint for Student Success." A lifelong Democrat, Mr. Bersin is betting that America's urban school systems can be reformed from within, without vouchers...