North Korea doesn’t have a border problem. People may sneak out, but they don’t try to get in. We have the opposite problem, but a new Government Accountability Office report on technology for border surveillance shows it’s not the one we are solving.
Homeland Security
From border security to domestic extremism to keeping the skies safe for travelers, the Department of Homeland Security is tasked with guarding our gates and the American way of life. Does the agency see to domestic security based on our country’s needs, or what best serves the goals of the party in the White House?
There was a lot of strong talk after September 11 about securing the homeland. Now we have Park 51, the Ground Zero mosque, open for business just a short distance from the site of the Islamic terrorist attacks. Over a decade after 9/11 we still have problems identifying who is attending our flight schools and more states are handing out driver’s licenses to foreign nationals. The Southwest Border seems less secure than ever as children from Central America strain the Border Patrol’s resources and inflame state and local governments forced to deal with the problem. ICE agents have perhaps the worst job of all within the agency as they try to enforce laws that have become so unpopular that the word from the top is ignore them whenever possible.
Should domestic security be a partisan pursuit? After Janet Napolitano’s departure, new DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson is continuing the tradition of lip synching for the president and Democratic Party leaders.
Civil Candor’s Homeland Security category focuses on the discord between the agency’s job of protecting Americans and its increasingly larger role of backing White House policy. When the two tasks come into conflict, who wins and who loses?
Declined Detainer Report: Public Safety Meets Defiance
By now many of us know what a declined detainer is, but how you define what it means depends on how you feel about law enforcement. Democrats might say that a declined detainer is how cities prevent federal authorities from persecuting immigrants.
Refund Fraud: Secure Identity Means Stopping SSN Theft
Author’s note: this post was originally published March 22, 2017. Recent updates appear at the end of the original text.
We should be frustrated and disturbed by questions asked during a recent White House press conference. The issue was whether a deported woman was a threat:
Q I know you’re familiar with the case in Arizona of the mother, Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos.
Blame America for Obama Terror Failure?
President Obama likes to talk about the “American idea.” The expression seems to mean something important to him, though his angry talk on Tuesday about gun control and what not to call Muslim terrorists makes one wonder just what that idea is.
Refugees and Terrorists: is U.S. Priority Lives or Lies?
The Mariel boatlift has faded to a bad memory. Jimmy Carter was president when Cuba gifted us with boatloads of refugees. Now Barack Obama is about to repeat the same mistake with two big exceptions: this time we are inviting trouble in and we have good reason to fear the results.
Sanctuary City Double Standard Kills
How angry should we be with members of the House and Senate who don’t apologize to the American people now that San Francisco’s sanctuary city status is suddenly new news because of a murder? Public decision makers will frame what happened as a problem caused by the failure to pass sweeping immigration reform legislation.
Boehner’s Threats to Obama End as House Gives Up
It has been a raucous summer for the GOP House. John Boehner’s threats to Obama flew, some right at the president, others at his Democratic enablers in the Senate. The White House plan to spend billions to aid foreign intruders went down the drain.