Have you had the conversation about what will happen if Trump wins in November? It goes like this: protesters will burn America to the ground if Biden loses. If he wins, they will loot and burn America in celebration and no one will do anything to stop them.
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?
Technology for Border Surveillance Solves Wrong Problem
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.
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.
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.
Visa Overstays and DACA Applicants Get Lucky
What do childhood arrivals eagerly awaiting their DACA rubber stamp have in common with U.S. visa overstays? Homeland Security’s numbers. In a recent federal report the agency admits there are over one million visa overstays it has been unable to match to arrival records.¹